Hello world, welcome to WFHR's Rapids Report, probably brought to you by Crockett Sceptic
for this July 17th, 2025.
Have your host James here, or join right now by our good friend Matt Lippert, Ag Agent
with UW Extension Wood County.
We appreciate you being here, Matt, always a great time being able to talk with you.
Catch up on the Ag industry and some of the news going on over there.
Got a couple of things we're going to get into when we have a chance.
If you don't mind, I would like to start with the, so most know right now that there's
a mandatory milk testing going on for our dairy farmers involving the avion flu.
And a recent farmer survey suggested a potential slowdown in dairy and farm loss is possible.
I don't know how much you want to touch on that or how much you even can, Matt, I don't
want to throw that at you, but I was really curious about this process and how the milk
is tested and what it is from the farmer's perspective on this.
So you know, milk is just about everybody, at least at some point in their life, drinks
milk, and then they eat other dairy products, you know, very high percentage of the population.
And so it's important that people would be confident in the milk supply.
And I think the dairy industry gets it out that there's abundant reason to be confident,
but it's so important to people's life, I don't know if people realize.
So every load of milk that goes to, that leaves the farm is tested.
Now the farmer may be doing some on farm things for their own management, but every
load is tested by whoever accepts that milk.
So in Wisconsin, a lot of it is cheese plants.
So the classic ones are farmers get paid on the Butterfet and protein content in their
milk.
They get monitored for the bacteria count, milk would grow bacteria, it's such a good
food source that it really would grow, grow things.
And so every load is measured for that.
And then the one that people don't realize is that because a lot of people buy organic
and they're concerned about antibiotic residues, but every load of milk is tested for antibiotics.
And it's a very severe penalty on the farm if they put milk out that had antibiotics.
And so the actual, it's like under a hundredth of a percent, it's like three more zeroes
after that of milk that actually is.
Okay, so this bird flu test is just an addition to that.
And I think the thing that's interesting, again, it's not happening on the farm, is Wisconsin
is the second largest dairy state in the country, and we have not had any bird flu detected
in our milk.
And I think there is a spy as well, it's because we're not testing for it.
I think farmers even believe that is like, once we start testing for it, it's going
to show up.
But that's not been the case.
I don't know, we could go quite at length, why that may be, but Wisconsin has, we've had
bird flu in poultry, but not in dairy cattle, to be in our state.
Yeah.
And being blunt, and again, just reading from the articles that I've read, I don't actually
know anything.
I'm just reading what I, going off of what I've read in the research and everything, I
feel like we would know.
If it was, there's some pretty heavy results from this when you catch bird flu and some
of these things, from Evian flu, from what I'm seeing at least.
Yeah, so I think the testing, so when this broke, when it crossed species into cattle, it
happened in the panhandle of Texas, which there's a number of very large dairies there.
And it was very, the penalty really was the farmers, they had very sick cows, they lost
milk, the cows weren't going to recover.
And so there is, we call it zoonosis, zoonotic disease, if something transfers from an animal
to humans.
And there were people, milk, people milking cows that got irritated eyes.
So it was actually splash of bacteria, laden milk, when you're forstripping the milk to
make sure that cow's milk is healthy, it would directly in contact people's eyes.
So we've had very, very, very little of a consumer or even on the farm, other types.
Now the concern is if stuff could mutate, it could, and I think I said bacteria, but viral.
So there has been potentially some respiratory conditions, but for the most part, there's
been very little human transfer.
So actually a lot of the testing, and then the other thing was milk is pasteurized.
So there's a lot of safety steps that go in.
So the largest implication for farmers is that it can be really hard in their cows.
So it's kind of an internal industry, you can say.
Interesting.
Thank you so much for that breakdown, Matt.
I really do appreciate that.
There's a lot there that I haven't found in articles or anything, so I appreciate you
sharing that.
And just something that we're certainly going to keep in mind.
I think for most part, most people are in agreeance with, hey, better safe than sorry
with most things, but there is a line in the sand for that.
I think also, getting that information, talking about that I think is where we go, but we
do around here.
I appreciate that.
One other article I came across that I wanted to get into with you, and I got this from
a Wisconsin Ag connection.
You can find it yourself there, Wisconsinagconnection.com.
According to the USDA's National Ag Stats, Wisconsin had an average of 4.6 days suitable for fieldwork
during the week ending the previous week.
So rainfall across parts of the state caused delays for some things, but we are seeing some
increases.
We're seeing some positives here when it comes to Wisconsin crop conditions remaining
mostly strong in July.
Is that what you're hearing from your colleagues and others?
So as an extension educator, I'm one of the reporters in that system.
So once a week, I get the question that I was wondering, what is the status of the corn,
poor, fair, excellent, yeah, and so I get asked about corn.
So I mean, wheat, oats, pasture, hay, potatoes, which I don't respond because I don't work
with potatoes.
But we have pretty good crops this year.
And when I get asked this from other people, I say, well, compared to last year because
we, so, and I have difficulty getting to Wisconsin Rapids these days because I live in Pittsburgh
and highway 73 is close.
So this is a change of making the trip.
Well, when I knew I was aiming kind of the southern end of Rapids today for WFHR, I came
in through the cranberry country, but normally I'd be, be very north.
So I get to see lots of different crop situations up in that heavy country in the northern part
of the county.
We, not everyone is saying, gosh, is this wonderful this year because it's been really,
really wet.
I don't know if you mow your lawn, you might have noticed that the grass is growing really,
really well, even here on the sandy soil.
So that's kind of it, if you're a lawn mower, if you're mowing all the time, that's a good
sign for plant growth because there's a lot of water near the surface.
But people trying to make hay, people trying to do tillage, that's what it says 4.6 days
of suitable for work, that the normal hindrance is it's raining, and then on our heavy
soils it takes days after a rain event before it gets dry enough to go back out.
So it's on the wetish side, but the crops in general are doing pretty well.
It wasn't really wet early in May, so the crops got in roughly when they were supposed
to get in.
We've had some pretty warm days, which have been stressful on our cattle, but not too
many.
So in general, the start of the year and the nice keep on saying last year was also a very
wet year and the crops section didn't get in, so it's better than that.
Yeah, yeah.
Which is certainly a big part of not only the industry, but business in general perspective
that goes a long way, just in general.
But one of the wrap-up talking a little bit about the state budget that just passed, we're
going to be talking about, we have Senator Teston and tomorrow, I'll be talking with him
quite a bit about this as well, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to talk to both of you
and back-to-back days, regarding especially your industry and where you're coming from,
why you're joining us here and everything, and representing the ag industry as you do
at UW.
And then again, another article coming from Wisconsin Ag Connection for journalists, a shout
at the Blake Jackson for the reporting, and just so you know where I'm pulling my main
facts from, and information from the budget passed.
And we had this quote from Michelle Ramirez, a white, the government relations director
for Wisconsin Farmers Union, quote, Wisconsin Farmers Union appreciates that lawmakers came
together to pass a budget that reflects input from both sides of the aisle.
There are several meaningful wins here for family farmers, but also some disappointing
losses.
If you had a chance to look at this here about the budget, Matt, and is there any feedback
and any comments you have on it?
So Senator Teston actually came to our farm, we hosted a dairy breakfast in June, and
had a chance to visit with him.
And he is actually on the finance committee, I guess, so very influential in doing that.
And when he's talked about to compromise the Farmers Union press release there, in Wisconsin
it definitely has to be a compromise because we have a Governor Evers as a Democrat, and
the both divisions of the Assembly and Senate are Republicans.
And so they have to compromise, right, there's not a choice.
And so I don't think agriculture made the headlines so much as far as the Farmers Union
saying they were disappointed in some things.
Certainly the institution I work at at the University of Wisconsin is about the same
week that the big beautiful bill was passed federally.
And so that has pretty severe implications for extension, USDA universities.
And so there's a lot of uncertain, well it's becoming more certain that there's budget
cuts happening in that system.
But the UW at the state level, it was bantered about just widely, big millions of dollars
cuts to higher education, the UW being part of that, or increases.
And they actually got some increases.
So that was a very much appreciated thing.
In agriculture, I'd be curious to see further where the Farmers Union, you know, we in agriculture
we have a number of organizations, I belong to some dairy groups.
But the two main kind of lobbying groups are Farmers Union and Farm Bureau.
And they would not say that way, but one tends to be more aligned with the Democrat Party,
the Farmers Union.
And Farm Bureau is, the larger organization is, Farmers tend to be a conservative group.
Are more affiliated with Farm Bureau.
So I don't think that, you know, issues in rural areas are things like infrastructure
roads, maintaining roads and things like that.
Maybe some program like this, where's the money come to do this, bird flu testing, you
know, do we keep our labs open and so forth?
Right.
Yeah.
Just to kind of give more, a little more to this, because I think a strong point, a strong
thing you bring up there, Matt, is that Ag didn't get a lot of the attention from this
bill or a lot of coverage from it, as far as, you know, and this is hit or this is hit
or miss with the audience, everything is a case by case basis.
As far as on the, you know, concerned, consumed wind side, major conservation programs
receive much support, the cover crop rebate program, the nitrogen, organ optimization,
pilot program, they were granted a good amount of money, there was were some ones, public
health and education services, including the UW system, farmers, mental health programs
and free clinics, also saw increased funding in some regards and then other, not.
And on the other side of this, I compromised on childcare, which played a key role in
finalizing the budget, including 110 million, four per child monthly payments.
That is, was, we're seeing differences there that, you know, we're not everything is coming
through.
It's a real mixed bag.
It is.
Yes.
And, you know, I think most people out there were all adults, you know how negotiating
works.
You're going to get a little compromise, you're going to get a little discolored.
But the, the, the, the aftermath of this is where we're really going to figure out where
these things end up, right?
It's pretty hard right now for some of this stuff, certainly budget cuts or, or it's just
straight up cuts, we can talk about that and reference that.
But other things, we're going to have to wait and see how they play out.
Things that, for sure, things that affect the rural communities again would be
rural school districts.
And you know, it's pretty complicated formula about mill rates and so forth, what, how much
they're actually allowed to tax or, or increase taxes.
And so you'll see a lot of school districts, not not just rural ones, go to these referendums.
And I, so higher education did fairly well.
But the, the K through 12 system, I understand, got significant money for special needs
children.
Yeah.
But not otherwise.
And so there was a prediction that there will be more, more referendums for rural school
districts.
Yeah.
Which will be that farmers, by definition of being farmers own a lot of land, that there
may be tax increases coming that way.
On the other side of things where I was, I meant to get to here just one last part of
this.
Despite the gains, some important programs were left unfunded.
The value added agricultural grant, food waste, rescue reduction grant, the meat talent
development grant, Wisconsin local food purchase, assistant programs and the farm to fork
grant program, receive no support.
The total funding gap of these initiatives, it reaches over seven million over two years.
There was also a program supporting CAFO oversight, farmland preservation, rural broadband,
and antitrust enforcement staffing were also excluded from the bill.
So just the other side of these things as far as that goes.
And again, so much of this stuff is that we're going to, we're going to wait and see where
this goes.
I don't know that much of it is going to be positive.
But I, I don't know that we, any one of those programs, you can pick any one of them
you want.
And this is just me talking just for myself here.
I don't see a positive to losing any funding, let alone complete funding for any one of
those programs.
I don't see how that helps our ag industry or helps our farmers, how it helps the backbone
of this state, let alone this country, to me, to me, it doesn't.
I hope I'm wrong.
I don't mind being wrong.
I don't mind being corrected.
I just want to be proven wrong.
I just hope I would rather be wrong on this one, but that doesn't seem like a positive
to me.
And again, you can find this complete article at Wisconsin AgConnection.com.
And if you want to reach out to Matt or any of our good friends at Extension, encourage
you to go to the UW Extension website.
Matt, did you have anything else?
Yeah.
So, it doesn't affect me directly, but we, on the federal budget, there was basically
a elimination of what's called SNAP ed.
So that's a supplemental nutrition education.
So I think you've had some of our food wise educators.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I'll be eliminated.
They're, they're gone.
There is no money.
So then some of these state level initiatives you talked about was local food support.
So that is right on that same vein.
How can we educate people how to eat better, you know, and the local food is often considered
part of it.
So you saw a loss at the state budget level there.
Well, there's definitely, you know, there definitely have been losses in my SNAP ed colleagues.
We can't, we in Extension are not, we can't advocate for, for those things.
I'm just stating the fact that they, they've been lost.
I appreciate you doing that.
I don't work at Extension, so I can advocate for them and I believe we should have them.
I believe that they should be there and we shouldn't have even had to talk about this.
It's ridiculous to me, you know, I don't look at money as a way of me getting more powerful
and stronger.
I look at money as a means to an end and a way is to help things and an investment tool.
And one of the greatest things we can invest in is our kids or our youth or people that
are need food or et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, especially sharing of information, growing
new farmers, growing so many different things that I could ramble about for days on.
That's just me talking.
That's just my opinion.
I feel pretty strongly about it, and I'll be talking about the Senator Teston tomorrow.
We're looking forward to that conversation.
Matt, always look forward to talk with you.
Thank you again for the time.
Thank you.
We will see you again real soon and appreciate all of you joining us for another edition
of WFHR's Rapids Report, probably brought to you by Crock Acceptic here at WFHR.com.
