Soybean plant will increase the competition for ag processing employees in Mitchell

Jan. 2—MITCHELL — One handles corn. The other will be in the soybean business.

But Poet and the under construction High Plains Processing facility being built south of Mitchell expect to be competing over the same types of employees to work at their facilities.

In a discussion at the Poet ethanol plant in December with U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., Johnson asked Poet Mitchell General Manager Becky Pitz what kind of competition the $500 million plant will cause for the long-standing Poet facility.

"In terms of crops, I don't think it will be a factor," Pitz responded to Johnson. "(Farmers) rotate their crops. Corn and beans, corn and beans and so on. I don't think it's going to hurt us. ... The only thing that will hurt us is probably the workforce, because there's such a shortage. And we will both have similar work. ... It will be challenging."

"It's a lot of people," Johnson responded.

The soybean facility, which broke ground in mid-September, said it will employ an estimated 75 to 85 full-time jobs. The Poet facility, built for $80 million in 2006, employs up to 45 people at its peak.

Pitz noted she's on the Mitchell Area Development Corporation's Board of Directors and she's interested in helping making the community grow in any way possible.

"We're all out for the same people," she said. "The employed people are employed already. So we're going to have to draw people from elsewhere. That's the big hook. It's great that the Chamber is doing the $1,000 people to draw people to move here from out of state."

As of November 2023, Mitchell's unemployment rate was at 1.4%, and Mitchell's unemployment rate hasn't been above 3% for 46 straight months, dating back to February 2021. The figure has been no higher than 2.4% for 24 months in a row, as well, according to South Dakota Department of Labor data.

Pitz commended the Mitchell Chamber of Commerce and MADC for making the decision to offer a $1,000 bonus to new workers who move to and work in Mitchell. That offer began in October 2023.

Johnson pointed out that the region south of Mitchell is "probably twice as populated as going north" by 40 miles.

"But there's more demand in that direction," he said.

"Mitchell grew to the south," Pitz responded. "Cabela's started it and it's only continued going that way. That will be interesting to watch."

The discussion also included some dialogue on the plant's location and design. Pitz said she was consulted in 2022 about the soybean plant's design in light of operating the Poet plant. She noted Poet added a road inside the plant's footprint to allow waiting trucks to be off the county road to avoid traffic backups.

"Poet is off of Highway 37 and (the soybean plant) is going to be a lot closer," said Pitz, noting that Poet can have 300 to 350 trucks coming through the plant in a day during harvest. High Plains project officials have had similar projections for truck traffic for their project, saying in 2022 they expected 140 trucks per day at the plant and that figure to double or triple for harvest.

Pitz and Johnson noted that Poet has the better location, being a few miles off of Highway 37, as opposed to the soybean plant being a quarter of a mile off the busy state highway and a rail line between the plant's entrance and the intersection.

"It just feels like a death trap every time I'm on that road between here and Parkston anyway," the congressmen remarked about Highway 37. "There is so much traffic in both directions."

The South Dakota Department of Transportation said in 2022 it was discussing a super-two highway design for the intersection of 257th Street and Highway 37 for the new plant, but no decision has been made, nor has SDDOT updated the Mitchell Republic despite requests regarding study findings about the corridor and intersection in the last year. A super-two highway would have additional turn lanes, wider shoulders and acceleration lanes, depending on the design.

The High Plains soybean facility is being built on a 296-acre piece of land south of Mitchell along State Highway 37. The project is expected to be completed in late 2025, with the capacity to process 35 million bushels of soybeans each year, with the ability to process oilseed plants, as well. South Dakota produces about 200 million bushels of soybeans each year.