Panhandle Lures Europe's Dairymen
By Kevin Welch
kevin.welch@amarillo.com
Publication Date: 11/19/06
Reprinted with permission
Some area professionals are trying to make it easy for Europeans to make a hard choice - to leave their country and culture for the Panhandle.
Those Europeans, from places like Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands, are dairymen who are contributing to the flow of milk in the Panhandle.
"It's a risky, ambitious proposition for them," said Alan Rhodes, an attorney who just returned from a trip to European dairy country. "It's fair to say we're guides."
As part of Amarillo National Bank's and the Underwood law firm's support of the expansion of the dairy industry, Rhodes, lawyer Lynn Tate and bankers Wade Porter and Cory Ramsey went to Europe for the week of Oct. 30 to keep conversations and potential deals alive.
"We weren't over there talking people into coming. We were over there talking to people so when they come over here we can do our jobs more easily," Rhodes said.
Their jobs include wrapping up real estate deals, water permits, immigration details and things like water rights, said Ramsey, vice president for commercial lending at ANB.
Getting the job done includes a range of tasks.
"From negotiating $40 million loans to having my 17-year-old daughter sit with their non-English-speaking kids and everything in between," Rhodes said.
The transition is substantial for the dairymen, with some moving here and others investing here or owning operations in Europe and the Panhandle.
Just adjusting to the scale of agriculture here is an issue.
"It's a whole different ball game over there. A 100-cow dairy is large," Ramsey said. "Over here, they're building 2,400-head dairies."
Advantages for newcomers.
But there are advantages. The newcomers appreciate the ability to grow and the ease of doing business.
While the Europeans are looking at and buying dairy sites from southwest Kansas almost to Lubbock, one focus is in the northern Panhandle, from Perryton to Dumas. Larger supplies of underground water are a draw, while the chillier winters require barns that will hold the cattle 24 hours a day.
"If they are building a more expensive facility, why not build where there's better water and not in an area already saturated with dairies," Rhodes said.
While the trips to Europe might not exactly be recruiting tours, there are other efforts back home in the Panhandle to attract more dairies.
Dairy Directory Publishers recently produced its second edition of the Southwest Plains Dairy Directory. Intended as a way to bring together dairymen and other businesses, the directory has other uses such as attracting business.
"It helps serve that purpose, although that wasn't the original intent," said Kathy Cornett, chairman if McCormick, a communications company affiliated with the publication. "It took on a life of its own with economic development councils using it for recruiting."
Cornett went on a March tour of Europe with the bankers and lawyers to familiarize herself with the developing situation.
"I make it my business to understand the industry for the clients we serve," she said.
In addition, several builders are putting up dairies without having a purchaser already lined up in hopes of snagging a buyer who can see the finished product rather than picturing it in their mind.
Economic development groups in Hereford, Dalhart, Dumas Perryton and elsewhere are working to bring in more dairies.
Facilitating this new chapter in the Panhandle's agricultural sector requires shifting gears. While Rhodes is not new to agriculture, he previously specialized in legal services for school districts and Ramsey's bank is a leading lender in Texas for beef cattle.
They both have their minds on milk.
"We (ANB) are definitely involved," Ramsey said. "I wouldn't say we're the leader, but we're interested in any good deal," he said.
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