University of Wisconsin Division of Extension Agriculture June ‘25

Hello all, welcome to WFHR's Rapids Report for this June 5th, 2025. Have your host James

Jamel up here, welcoming in the studio our good friend from UW Extension, Matt Lippert,

Agricultural Agent over there, Matt, always good to have you in studio with us, how you

doing?

Doing great?

Good to have you here.

And how timely is this?

It's June, we're in Dairy Month, we've got Matt in with us, it's like we plan this

bad.

Either way, we are really happy to have you in and especially this month in talking with

us.

You know, I myself and many other people out there are going to talk about Dairy Month,

we have a lot of topics that we like to highlight and we any chance to, you know, support the

ag industry and promote it, we love being able to do, but we're not actually in the industry

and you get to talk to somebody who is actually in the industry as a privilege and appreciate

that, appreciate what you and your, you know, felt your colleagues out there doing everything.

What is one of the ways, Matt, that for people like myself, that we can support our ag industry,

our dairy industry, that we can really, truly, celebrate June, Dairy Month?

Well, the classic one would be that there's many, many, many, dairy breakfast, we're not

going to go over when and where they all are, but throughout the state, summer, county

events, summer, associate with school districts, maybe the FFA groups are putting them on,

but there's dairy breakfast, there's, I think we, I work also in Clark County, I think

we have seven or eight over there in the county.

Wood County has about four, actually my family's farm is hosting one on June 14th, so that's

the pitsville FFA, dairy breakfast, so that's a classic way you'd support the dairy industry.

Absolutely.

Or go have some ice cream, that would be, if we must, if we must, if we, yeah, I guess I suppose.

No, that's a great one too.

And you know, one of the first things I think of, and this is from talking with you for

many years and even every year, I every new chance I get to talk to our new Alice in

Dairyland, we've had many, many interviews with them over the years and those wonderful

young people that are doing that job and that position and everything, looking for that

red label and looking for that Wisconsin-made brand and stuff and really leaning into

that as much as you can certainly any month, any day of the year, but June is a really

good month to hit on that.

That's a good one.

And just, and I'm cheating here, everybody, I have in front of me the WisconsinDairy.org,

the wonderful website that covers a lot of this in the, in the, in the state.

They're mentioning not only dairy sustainability, but a dairy delicious summer recipe.

So maybe look at for some different ways to enjoy your dairy products this summer.

Oh, for sure.

So that same group, a couple of years ago, came out with these butter, so shakutari, you

know, you off cheese, but they've come out with butterboards, you know, that you can dip

things with butter and that, you know, I don't think you have to feel, you certainly don't

have to feel as bad as you once did about, you know, butter is a fat-based spread, but

it's butter fat.

And, you know, that was really maligned for decades as contributing their early death and

heart problems of people and not that the, the word has changed so much that you should

just eat all the, that, but, you know, so like olive oil is this healthy food and it, it's

a fat, it's an oil.

But there's been, I was just reading this morning before I came here, a dairy industry

publication, but butter fat is, there've been some really large population studies that

have found that in some cases it's been contributing to positive outcomes.

So, you know, the USDA has the my plate and how you're supposed to eat and the dairy

got taken off of the old, it's still at my plate, it's like the cup on the side.

So it's still there and of course, different industry food groups, lobby and to maintain

their presence there, but I think the evidence for dairy is actually pretty solid.

And a lot of the messaging has been low fat dairy products, but actually there's some

really positive news about the butter fat as well, being maybe not the gold standard

like olive oil, but it's, it's better than some and, and so you should, and it's, it really

adds a lot of pleasure to person's life, you know, absolutely, like they're, they're

a buttery baked desserts and on their breads and you shouldn't be afraid of that.

I like butter so much, Matt, that I lose points with my Jewish mother all the time and on

my bagel I put butter, not cream cheese, that's how into butter I am, but they're both

dairy products.

I think they should be covered either way, I would think, but that's the whole thing

with her.

And I have to admit, I think of my, my, my Nana when you bring this up, my Nana for a

long time was this is a hill she would, she believed, you know, the butter was not, that's

so much good for you, but some butter was and that it was important to have some fats,

in part because olive oil, again, being an Italian household, you have to have olive oil

in the house.

That and milk and water, you've got to have those three things.

And she probably, I don't know how much she understood of these things, but I know she

understood somewhat of that stuff.

And I imagine the two might have been intertwined a little bit, it's a good note, it's a good

note to mention.

And I encourage people to look into the articles like Matt was talking about there and finding

out more about that because it's a really good point.

And there are other great ways to celebrate, I think Matt hit it on the head right away.

If you can go to any of these June, dairy month breakfasts, go to as many of them as you

can, attend, and I encourage you to bring the kids along as much as you can, those of

you with kids, of course, when you're doing these events, one of the things that I remember

talking so much about about friends of mine that grew up in this area is them attending

a June, dairy breakfast, and maybe they didn't come from an ag family, but that got them

interested in agriculture, or even into a degree, some understanding of that industry,

some more empathy for that industry.

We need that from so many reasons, one big one, I think, is having some more understanding

of what it is to be a farmer or it is to work in the dairy industry or any of these things,

and having a little more understanding of why we need to keep these industries healthy,

and how important it is for the rest of our world and our country, whether you step foot

on a farm ever in your life or not, you need that farm, and just bringing it home a little

bit more of the reasoning of that.

That can start with just going to a June, dairy month and sparking a kid's interest

or getting them to understand this world a little more.

Oh, I think you said it very well.

So obviously, the farm community in our dairy state here with Wisconsin is very passionate

about, I think they believe if people understand and know our industry better, it'll be a positive

that it won't be a negative, it's like, oh, I didn't like that.

So I think that's a big point of a lot of these dairy breakfasts.

Now here in Rapids, for many years we've had the dairy berry breakfast and it's at Lincoln

High School, and you know, they do a great job of bringing in things, I was at the mayor's

breakfast in Marshfield last Friday, it's at the fairgrounds, but all the other dairy

breakfasts during this month will be, well, no, they won't, several of the others will

be on farms, and you know, I'm not saying don't go to the ones that aren't on farms, but

I think it's a real plus, like in our farm, there will be messaging, there will be things

up, conveying part of the story of the farm, why they've gone to the bother to have you

come, and so, and I think it's, like you said, children is just a classic one, a five-year-old

that sticks her hand out in a baby calf, gloms onto it and sucks the hand, you know, it's

a little bit, it feels like sandpaper, you know, because they have a raspy sound.

And that's a good thing that people should have had those experiences.

We're speaking with UW Extension's Matt Lipper right now, and as before we wrap up, Matt,

I wanted to just check in and see how the season has progressed, how that's going for

our dairy industry.

So is today the fifth?

Yes, yeah.

Okay, so last year, I was stressed out, many of us in the industry were stressed out because

on our farm, others were more fortunate than us, but the first corn, very important crop

to get planted on the farm, it's probably how you feed the maximum amount of cows off

an acre, our first corn went in the ground on June 6th.

And you really, ideally, for maximum yield, the corn should be in this area by May 10th,

15th should be planted.

So that was pretty stressful.

But this year is much better.

I'd say many, many people are all done, and then the, it's just a very busy time the

year on the farm.

So there's corn to plant, there's on some farm soybeans to plant, there's manure to

be hauled, and that happens before the corn gets planted.

There's new seedings of L-Felf and clover to be planted.

These should all be done, and this year we're doing pretty well.

And then after we got pretty nice weather, then we had some nice timely rains since then.

So it's pretty nice start to the year of the year, definitely better than what we

had last year.

And oh, I didn't even mention hay to be made, right?

So we had some windows, there's probably the majority, the hay needs to be hay and

haylage dry, and wet forage harvested off of L-Felfa legume grass.

But a lot of it, we've had a good start on that as well.

So I'd say optimistic that part of the year has started all good.

Certainly, can't predict a whole lot of things, but that seems to be good not just for

right now, but looking ahead at that.

Oh, well, you have to get a crop planted to get a harvest right, right?

I've learned that much from you, I have learned that much.

So it's very nice that we've had a better start, and we're not extremely wet or extreme.

No, it's interesting in the central Wisconsin area with the sands and the heavy soil.

No one's ever, not everyone is hardly ever happy.

You know, there's two wet for somebody or two dry for somebody else.

But so far, I'd say this is a pretty good start to the year.

Oh, really good to hear.

Anything else you wanted to touch on before we let you out of here?

I'm good for it.

Okay, yeah, I think so too.

That was really fun, really good interview, and I really appreciate the time from that.

Looking forward to talking again real soon, say hi to everybody over at Extension, hoping

to meet you at one of these June dairy breakfasts and see you out there and everything.

I thank you again for the time.

Thank you.

Thank you all for the time.

We appreciate you joining us right here for WFHR's Rapids Report.