Hello and welcome to WFHR's Rapids Report for this June 2nd, 2025.
Have your host James J. Mail up here, welcoming into the WFHR studio.
Our friend Grant Holley from the Wisconsin Cranberry Growers Association Grant, it's been
a while.
How you doing?
Doing well sir.
Thank you so much for having us in.
Appreciate the time and certainly want to say a big shout out to you and your whole
team and everybody working over there.
Bringing awareness and attention to cranberries, I didn't have to do any double checking
on this one.
Quite a big topic here in Wisconsin, especially here in Central Wisconsin and even more
specifically here in Wisconsin Rapids where we've got cranberry blossom fests right around
the corner and so many other great events that we're looking forward to.
But I wanted to actually start with getting into some of the events.
Before we do that Grant, how are things going?
How was this going with raising awareness and attention for cranberries here in our
state?
It's pretty easy to be actually able to raise the awareness for cranberries within Wisconsin.
One of the pieces, so I'm fairly new to the job.
I'm one of the new executive director of the Wisconsin State Cranberry Growers Association.
I just passed my year anniversary and passed couple of days and one of the pieces I knew
that cranberries were a very large commodity for Wisconsin and I knew they were a large
crop and I knew they had a very special place.
What I didn't understand was the depth that it actually went into the culture and you're
absolutely right.
So education isn't that difficult, especially for local folks.
Here in Rapids, people know about cranberries.
They know how much part of their community they actually are.
They have a wonderful celebration coming up that is going to celebrate cranberry blossoms.
Great time of year for us, even though we have a lot of folks out in those marshes working
at the time.
But it goes throughout the state at the same time and when you start looking at the marshes
that are 125 years old, they have cranberry vines that are older than I am.
You start to understand just what level of a pinnacle, a cornerstone of the community
they actually serve as.
I think to your point about this and the attention, I think almost common knowledge of so much
cranberry and the making of cranberries and what it takes to in this state, that is also
a credit to the cranberry growers association because I think from a young age kids are
learning that whether it's through field trips like I did or it's like many of the other
kids out there that have family or friends or family members that are involved with
cranberries, making cranberries and harvesting them and everything.
So I think again you guys are just so good at the job too, from a young age kids are learning
this stuff so that part helps I imagine too with it.
Now when it comes to the events that you guys do, certainly raise awareness about cranberries
and that but it's also I think celebrating cranberries and that's a big part, oh it seems
like a big part of the job to me too for you guys.
No it is because their growers are very proud of what they do.
They are sixth, seventh, eighth generation growers and heck they form a large part of the
community because those families don't get smaller.
They just get bigger themselves and it's really interesting to be able to see why they
feel that it's part of their mission to educate the public and make sure that they understand
what they're doing on their land is one of the most positive agriculture stories that
you're actually going to hear.
Cranberries are a perennial plant which means that we are no till which means we don't tear
the land up every single year as I mentioned there are vines that are older than I am which
means that a lot of their land has gone unchanged for decades and even more decades and it's
such a natural process because cranberries were found in Wisconsin before it was
Wisconsin was even Wisconsin people were yeah people were harvesting cranberries here
and this has allowed our marsh folks to take a very light handed approach to and so when
you think about farming yes it is labor intensive but it's a labor intensiveness that actually
protects the land and they're so proud of that they think they grow it from the rooftops.
See I was just mentioning a common knowledge people knowing a lot of these things that's
not a way that's not an angle I had really thought much about or heard many people talking
about that's so fascinating so interesting you just sent me a I'm going to be doing
on a rabbit hole with that later it's a great point to grab it too come on it's a great
point to bring up too because especially you know kind of where I wanted to wrap up before
we get some of these events and everything that are going on is one of the other best parts
of all of these events or just having you on the air or what you guys do at the cranberry
growers association is giving us another opportunity to shout out our ag industry our great
farmers out there our great people working so hard and really the backbone of our country
and being able to shout that out at any point is always a nice thing to be able to do as
well.
There's a lot of great things going on with the cranberry growers association I wanted
to touch on some of the events you have guys you guys have coming up this summer and
one of them is right around the corner June 11th 830 to 5 over at Lake Arrowhead Pines
Golf Course they have a cranberry open this is going to be a fun event you can register
now for this event get on over there probably get there soon though you want to probably
get that registration in early but that is going to be a fun one with all the proceeds going
towards the Wisconsin cranberry leadership development course a course that I know is quite
beneficial and helpful to people out there it is amazing again I mentioned that I was
in my first or just finishing out my first year when I was interviewing with this group
it was interesting because the folks that were interviewing me were at such a level that
I was unexpectedly I just wasn't expecting yeah and they were trained I mean it was
obvious that they were trained on how to be able to educate and speak about their own
industry and I kept wondering where has this come from and then I go back and I see this
annual course that they typically offer and they are training their own they'll train some
other folks as well if people are interested but it really gets into determining what kind
of a leader you are so it's a five day event not necessarily back to back it's over five months
and you basically spend one day each month and you're finding out what kind of a leader
you are what is actually leadership which is something that people don't always understand how
to be able to speak we take folks through training so how are you going to work how do you identify
your audience ways that you're going to talk to another grower are going to be very different
then you talk to just the every person on the street or even a legislating member so we go
through all of that we also take them to Madison we learn to be able to see our policy makers
at work because our policy makers are typically very good to agriculture especially to cranberries
and all of this really combines it out to where our I hate to call them kids because they're
typically in their 20s but it's our next generation of farmers those seventh eighth ninth generation
of farmers they're seeing that cranberries don't end at their marsh they're it's an entire
community that spans the entire state and there are a lot of stakeholders for this industry it's been
here for so long that a lot of Wisconsin depends on the cranberry industry the cranberry open
being brought to you by the Wisconsin State cranberries Association is June 11th 830 to 5 over a
beautiful Lake Arrowhead Pines course you will tell you how you can register for that find out more
about it before we wrap up today with Grant also there was another one I wanted to touch on here
because you guys are busy coming up you got in August the summer field day and trade show
happening with the cranberry association that'll be at Haven Brothers Company that is another
fun event and we'll be talking more about as we get closer to it and there is the 2025 cranberry
clay shoot that is coming up in August as well another one of those events that you're going to
want to register for we'll talk more about that as we get closer to it on our morning show and some
of our other shows we'll be highlighting these and getting people all signed up and ready for them
and everything Grant with you being new to some of this I imagine you're excited about all of these
events but is there anything standing out to you that you're a little bit more excited about
or just looking forward to I love it all everything has its own sort of purpose that's to it our golf
tournament and our ski tournament it's a great way for folks to be able to just get out and be
able to talk to each other gives them a little bit of a break gives them a good reason to be able
to come off of the marsh for a day and sort of remember why they do it I'm trying to get a farmer
sometimes to take a day off of the hardest things on earth and this is a good reason to get them to
do so that summer field day though that one is so much fun because it's where the entire community
comes together we had 11,200 people at our summer field day last year at Cutler cranberry this year
at Habelman I got to wonder if the crowd's going to be larger so Habelman is one of if not the
largest fresh cranberry producer and packageer in the world and though that family has been there
for a long time the facility is immaculate they are going to be providing tours of their
facility so that folks can actually hear the history and see how things are actually done inside
of a fresh packing cranberry building which is so interesting because you'll have sorters that
are a hundred years old and they are gorgeous wood and brass and they will take your breath away
because they are polished to a glean but then you also have an AI color sorter sitting right
next to it which is about the most modern age that you possibly can do well so you see how the
industry has evolved since this one farm I got started over a hundred years ago it's a really great
exact perfect example of all of that did I I think one of the things that I've really enjoyed
about being in this job is getting to talk to so many people in the ag industry and learning
about that merging of worlds of the tech world along with this old school ways of doing things and
how I don't know that you can that there's a better like merging of worlds than anything than
with the ag industry and tech the more I learn about it that sports not politics now and I don't
think there's any other industry that has been that made the merger work better than the ag
industry in the tech world which I don't think a lot of us had saw coming but I think that's
really cool and it just makes sense to when you see it when you take a step back and see where
it's gone completely and utterly agree it's so I was a I've been an old science teacher back
of the day and the inability to change with a changing environment that is the textbook definition
of extinction yeah so in order to be able to meet a changing environment one thing I think we
can all agree on is that our environment is definitely changing um the world is not the same world
that we've seen heck even five years ago at five years ago we were all still sort of
covered up inside of our homes looking for toilet paper right and now this is our new new
um so when you especially look at cranberries and you look at even ag within Wisconsin you do
see a lot of evolution these guys do pay attention and they most certainly are respectful of their
histories but they're also looking for how can I do this smarter how can I do this in a way that
reduces cost for myself which reduces cost for a consumer um but also how can I do it safer how
can I do it in a way that uses less materials and it's just the way that these guys are staying
in business and of course cranberry blossom festival is right around the corner coming up June
19 through the 22nd right here in Wisconsin rapids again we'll be talking more about that as we
closer to it but you can go to blossomfest.com right now to find out more information blossomfest.com
and as we're wrapping up grant I did want to remind everybody as well especially all you
educators out there that there are field trips there are resources printables there are all kinds
of things available with the Wisconsin Cranberry Wisconsin State Cranberry Association
I cannot encourage you enough to reach out to them find out more set up a field trip or take a
look at some of those great printable materials they have there there's the weatherry cranberry
library that is available for you just right there at the website which I will be going through
even more I prepped it a little bit for the interview here but I'm going to be going down
even more of that and so many other cool things available for you at their website that is
whiskcran.org whiskcran.org be sure to bookmark that everybody grant as we're wrapping up here
is there way people can reach you directly if they want to follow questions or anything
absolutely so you can take a look at that website and you're going to be easily able to find
my contact information reach out to us on Facebook as well there's a large following that
sitting there we had our one of our posts and just last year we hit our million impact mark with
one of our posts which is unreal when it comes to agriculture it's kind of timely right now as
one of those uh one of those late nights that cranberry growers are out there making sure that
their plants are okay due to frost but it was also the northern lights hitting it just the perfect
time yeah and you can't beat it but yeah we have a pretty large following out there you can find
all of our events on Facebook nice and easy we got recipes we have poems we have pictures of all
the animal babies that are out on side of our farm please come find us again whiskcran.org is
the website everybody and be sure to like them on social media share their posts on your page you
just never know who might see it otherwise and grant thank you so much for hanging out with us we're
going to talk again real soon we'll have your back real soon thank you so much for having me
love it when folks remember us and we'll talk again to you and appreciate all of you out there
joining us for another edition of WFHR's Rapids Report
