Sunday, July 29, 2007

Discord on Dairies of Dutch Dreams

"Peter van der Vegt knew he'd be 'milking 70 cows for the rest of my life' if he continued to work at his family's dairy farm in the Netherlands, where milk production ceilings and land shortages add as much as $40,000 to the cost of a cow.

"'I wanted a challenge; I wanted to live the American dream,' van der Vegt said. So, in 1999, he moved to Angola, Ind., to run a 600-head dairy operation set up by Vreba-Hoff Dairy Development, a company run by six second-generation Dutch siblings from Michigan and three of their cousins in the Netherlands....

"Cecilia Conway (left) of Vreba-Hoff Dairy Development and her siblings have helped almost 50 Dutch families set up large dairies in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio over the past decade. (Photo By Kari Lydersen -- The Washington Post)"

Read the rest of the article in The Washington Post here.

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