By Sam Croat, SDSU Student
Starting in 2012, the College of Agriculture and Biological Sciences at South Dakota State University has given students the great opportunity to travel to Hong Kong and China on a two-week international experience. This past spring, I was one of the 25 lucky students able to travel 7,000 miles across the world to study different agricultural practices. With China being the United States’ largest trading partner of agricultural products, seeing their farming practices and ways of business strengthened my passion for the agriculture industry.
Traveling with faculty members; Dr. Bob Thaler, Dr. Erin Cortus, and Dr. Don Marshall, our trip began in Hong Kong. The atmosphere was very westernized with road signs and many people communicating in English, thus Hong Kong acts as the middle ground between China and the western world. We visited the USDA Ag Trade and Marketing Office where we learned that United States presence is increasing as Hong Kong is located in the center of half of the world’s population, only a 5-hour radius away, which opened my eyes to the endless opportunities for American companies in China. The most shocking part was the cost of living with housing costing roughly $2,000 per square foot.
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