Unable to find enough workers to carry out the painstaking tasks of milk production, dairy producers in South Dakota hope to tap into a different labor force: unemployed residents of Puerto Rico. South Dakota dairy farms produced 209 million pounds of milk in 2016, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service. A study commissioned by the National Milk Producers Federation released in June 2015 concluded immigrant labor accounts for 51 percent of all dairy labor in the U.S. Experts from the South Dakota State University Extension hope to bring about 20 workers by September. Gerson Cardona, a Guatemala native, began working on a dairy farm in South Dakota 15 years ago at the age of 15 by milking and washing cows.

Source: ABC News January 14, 2017 15:45 UTC