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World Dairy Expo attracts foreign feed buyers

World Dairy Expo is known for the cows, displays, new equipment, seminars, and of course, plenty of dairy products to enjoy.  There is also an event designed to help buyers in foreign countries buy certain inputs in Wisconsin for use in their own dairy production.

Jennifer Lu is with Wisconsin’s Agriculture Department, which hosts the Value Added Feed Ingredients Mission.  “They meet with our Wisconsin feed suppliers one-on-one at home here without the cost of traveling abroad, and understand our products and hopefully they purchase from Wisconsin (to go) back to their country.”

Lu says this year, buyers are attending from China, Columbia, Vietnam, Mexico, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia.  She tells Brownfield these companies are looking for the very things that make dairy herds in the Midwestern U.S. healthy and productive.  “They’re buying milk replacers, amino acids, animal proteins, by-products, soybean powders, soybean meals, beet pulp, plasma, anything that will help them to feed their dairy cattle.”

Lu says most buyers are reselling to producers in their home country.  She says they are both looking for higher-quality products and things they can’t get at home.  “For example, Saudi Arabia, they have very large commercial dairy production there, but because they don’t grow a lot of things there in the desert, they depend on imports.  The U.S. is a big supplier of animal feed to that country, so they are coming here and Wisconsin is known for our dairy production, not just in the U.S. but around the world, so they know when they come to Wisconsin they are getting quality products.”