SIOUX FALLS, SD (KELO) –Agricultural and business leaders from seven surrounding states were in Sioux Falls Wednesday for the Midwest Agricultural Export Summit.

“Exporting is a team sport I always say, particularly in agriculture,” Luke Lindberg said.

This is the third year Luke Lindberg with South Dakota Trade has organized the Summit, helping ag leaders from South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas and Missouri come together to help promote the region’s ag products more effectively.

“Really important we work together and come up with those strategies as a unified block because we’re stronger together than we are apart,” Lindberg said.

The full-day summit featured many different topics and speakers, including a panel of the top Ag officials from four states.

“They all had the same things to say, yes we do experience that here or we experience something similar there, so why don’t we work together to solve these problems,” Lindberg said.

“We heard a little bit about food security, some about Mexico trade disagreements,” Hunter Roberts said.

South Dakota’s Secretary of Agriculture Hunter Roberts said the summit is an important gathering for all of the state’s farmers and producers.

“Trade in the Midwest is a big thing, we’re very agriculture-heavy, we feed the world,” Roberts said.

But these Midwest Agricultural officials would like to help the food grown in KELOLAND feed even more of the world. It’s another key goal of bringing so many international Ag leaders together for this summit.

“We’re helping find new markets with new friends and allies in different parts of the world,” Lindberg said. “We brought representatives from Bahrain and United Arab Emirates and Israel here today as markets people don’t often think about but have potential for our agricultural exports. We are helping to facilitate that conversation.”

The full-day summit featured many national leaders and critical topics for agriculture. Throughout the week, Your Money Matters will dive into how the workforce and the Russian invasion of Ukraine continue to impact the ag industry.