Western Wisconsin farmers attended a town hall in Chippewa Falls on Friday, sharing their concerns on the unsteady status of federal funding.

The Wisconsin Farmers Union hosted the town hall event at the new Market on River building in the city. Congressman Mark Pocan, State Representatives Jodi Emerson and Christian Phelps, and State Senator Jeff Smith spent about an hour and a half listening to Western Wisconsin agricultural workers share the issues they’re facing with federal funding.

A representative from the Wisconsin Farmers Union noted that Congressmen Tom Tiffany and Derrick Van Orden were invited to the town hall, but said they were unable to attend due to scheduling conflicts. In a social media post replying to criticism from Congressman Pocan on not attending the town hall, Congressman Van Orden said he was in Israel trying to expand the markets for Wisconsin farmers. Local State Republicans were also invited, but did not attend.

Speakers at the town hall were overwhelmingly against the freezes on federal funding, the implementation of tariffs on Canada, and the slashing of programs they both rely on and contribute to. Various farmers raised broad concerns about cuts to the SNAP program as well as targeted concerns like how tariffs would affect the cost of potash fertilizer.

“It’s what the reconciliation bill specifically does, it tells the agriculture committee to find $230 billion in cuts,” said Congressman Pocan. “The biggest amount of money is in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, so they’re likely to go for that.”

Farmers also raised concerns about potential cuts to Medicaid, with many rural Wisconsinites relying on BadgerCare for their health needs.

Speaking on those potential cuts, State Representative Christian Phelps said “I just want to point out that dividing people and making people confused and uncertain and vulnerable is Donald Trump’s strategy to consolidate his political power. And the people that can withstand the types of cuts that we’re seeing are the people so wealthy that they can withstand them so they’re in Donald Trump’s orbit basically.”

Highlighting that confusion, some of the farmers attending the town hall noted that they weren’t sure what steps to take with the status of their federal funding sources up in the air or embroiled in litigation. They also expressed concerns over the potential loss of federal workers who could connect them with needed resources in the past.

While there was no way to provide solutions to these problems yet, State Representative Jodi Emerson focused on thanking farmers for bringing attention to those issues and encouraged them to continue doing so. “We as elected officials can’t help solve problems that we don’t know about,” she said. “We know that there’s problems, but for you to tell us exactly what it is, I just want to thank you so much.”

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers also recently visited head start programs across Western Wisconsin to learn more about how the federal funding freeze has affected them.

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