Hello world, welcome to WFHR's Rapids Report for this Thursday, November 6, 2025. Say
a big thank you to our friends at Crockett Sceptics sponsoring this segment. And of course,
all of you joining us have your host James. We're joined right now by UW-Madison Extension
Wood County's own Matt Lippard, our ag agent over there. Always enjoy talking with you
Matt. Thanks so much for being here today. How you doing?
Really great.
Good to hear. Good to hear Matt. Appreciate that. I always appreciate the time. We are
talking in our pregame a little bit. And I think a good place to start is kind of, you
know, the state of dairy right now and how things are in state.
Yes, you know, so you and I rehash current events a little bit ahead of time. And it's
interesting through my filter, what I see happening in agriculture and what you see coming
through the idea, what they would be. The status of the dairy industry, 2024 and 2025,
I think we're both going to go down as fairly decent margins for producers. We're on a
downtrend right now. So that's a classic farmer think, right? It's like, oh, it's okay,
but it's not going to stay that way, right?
Yeah.
Right. So we have that happening. We have prices dropping. And why? Some of it's not 100%
unpredictable, but so the two main manufactured products that come from dairy are going to
be cheese and butter. We've got all these other cottage cheese and ice cream and we got
all these other products with two drivers that take up the most milk more than the fluid
milk consumed as well as cheese, cheese, largest and secondary butter. And in the federal
government had a rehaul of a pricing system. It took many, many years to get something out,
but it was introduced the summer. And there's a formula there that puts the value. The two
main value components of milk are butter fat and protein. And there is hardly any protein in butter.
So it's just about, it's 80% butter fat butter is except for in Europe, then it's 82%. They have
a different standard. You know, and our butter tends to be salted and they never put salt in their
butter. That I have heard that. You can buy unsalted butter in the grocery store too. But anyhow,
so how that works then is butter tells you what butter fat is worth because it's very directly
related butter is mainly butter fat. And then what you do is you use an equation. And in whatever
the market is saying cheese is worth, then the difference, you say, well, this cheese cheddar
cheese is so much butter fat. So you take out what the butter fat was worth from what we know about
butter. And then the rest must be valued on the protein. And so what we've had this year,
after about three or four years of just astoundingly strong butter fat demand, butter fat prices is
the dairy farmers have responded in spades and putting out milk with just historically
unprecedented high levels of butter fat. So even though there's a really strong demand for it,
we've kind of met that demand. And so we had a switch this summer that now the protein is worth
more than the butter fat. And the prices are dropping a little bit. So the price outlook is not
as good going forward. And then the other thing going on worldwide. So where does dairy produce?
They get produced in the US. They get produced in the EU, Europe. They get produced in New Zealand.
And then the list as far as what gets produced and sold abroad gets pretty short after that.
A little bit in Australia, a little bit in Argentina. Second largest, probably going to be the
first largest someday, dairy producing country in the world is India. Very different dairy industry,
obviously a lot of us know about in India that we can't slaughter cows. And very, very small farms,
less refrigeration, but they're modernizing as they go. And so we expect that to be a growing
part of the dairy industry. But anyhow, if you look at where dairy products are produced and exported,
it's like for three or four years, the US was strong, but the other ones were behind their
normal production. That's changed now. So we are facing more competition worldwide when we export.
And exports, at the turn, it's 25 years ago, we didn't export much more than we imported.
But now we export about 15 to 17% of our products. So another way to visualize that, it'd be about
one day a week is exported. So that really affects our prices. So that's probably why we have a
little bit of downward going down. Of course, farmers make their money not simply from what they
get for their product, but how much it costs them to produce their product. And agriculture in general
in the US, it's been in the news that China hasn't been buying any soybeans from the US at all.
And that's really depressed because there have been a large, large customer. And so we have the
kind of pretty low prices of corn and soybean and major commodities. Well, that's not too bad
for in our area where we're dairy farmers because we have to buy those things. And so I don't think
we're looking at the abyss for next year, but not as strong a prices as we've had the last two
years. Interesting. That's something that definitely will be keeping an eye on. Another article that
it came across recently, Edgedeerie Farmer Cooperative now ranks as the second largest dairy
cooperative in the nation based on milk volume, according to a Horde's dairyman. The ranking
announced just the other day moved Edged from third to second place due to an increase in member
milk volume and growth in farm membership. It's encouraging, I would imagine to see this in the
industry and hearing these news. So Horde's is, do you know about Horde's dairyman? You know
a little bit, a little bit from you. Well, Wisconsin had a governor Horde in the 1800s. He was a
New York, he was a Yankee from the East Coast and he came here and he started out in the newspaper
in media. They didn't have radio stations yet. And he was very passionate. He kind of, if you
would say one person that introduced the dairy industry to our state, it would be governor Horde.
And he started his own farm where he kind of did like the university has research stations where
they model activities. So he was kind of credited with introducing alfalfa to our state. Our state
had been the number one wheat producer somewhat before that time and we didn't have much for
commercial fertilizers and people were growing wheat on wheat and wheat. And we were having
not as good a production yield and this kind of, what would you call it? Just harvesting
extracting. That would be good. Extractive type of agriculture without crop rotations and
fertilizers and so forth. They're finding better places where we grow wheat yet today out in
the Nebraska, the Dakotas and Kansas. And so we were getting eclipsed and we had kind of a
dairy recession, depression at that time and the governor had a lot to do. He also has a statue
right at the center of the agriculture campus at UW-Madison, Governor Horde.
Yeah, this is a part of where I think I know his name. I've spent a lot of time on that area.
Yeah, yeah. Can I call? Yes, yeah. So he was a very influential man. So this is still probably
the most respected dairy publication in the country and this is a unique piece of work that
they do every year on their own is keeping track of the cooperatives. So one thing I'd say about
edge is at least in our state, so they're ranking the cooperatives across the entire U.S.
I'm not sure this rule is that way everywhere, but in Wisconsin you are required,
even if you ship your cellular milk to a private processor, you're required to be a member of a
cooperative. Okay, so there are co-ops, you can name some, they're famous for their cheese
curds that are farmer-owned cooperatives that also process their own product. The largest
dairy cooperative in Wisconsin would be foremost farms. The largest cooperative in the country,
which was that list you were talking about is dairy farmers of America, they're huge,
but in Wisconsin if use, even, and we have a strong culture here in Wisconsin of smaller,
independent dairy processors making our cheese and our other dairy products.
And just historically they thought the government thought that there was an unequal power relationship
between the small dairy producers and the somewhat larger dairy processors, so they wanted
everyone to at least have a cooperative involved for them. One of the things they were concerned
about is that farmers get paid as we just said fat and protein. And way back when it was
governor Horde it was just fat because we didn't know how to measure the protein. So the co-op
we had to be there to supervise and approve that the lab tests on the farmer's quality the milk
wasn't underhanded. And so that's really, I may be wrong, I don't think Edge does very much
processing at all. They're mainly a member cooperative, but they would do other functions besides
this butter fat and protein testing. They would represent farmers and if there's a political
stance in the need of things like that. Interesting news. These topics are interesting for the
headliner what have you, but I also love bringing them up and all the other things we find out.
Governor Horde that's a wonderful story. I encourage people to read more about and his impact on
this state or what you mentioned about India there and what's happening there and how fascinating
that is about their dairy industry and stuff. It's great stuff, Matt. I always love talking with you.
Farmers across the country are facing a lot of critical decisions. You know this better than most.
Not just with what you do in your day to day, but of course working at UW Extension. To explore
these issues, the University of Wisconsin Medicine is going to host a virtual panel discussion via
Zoom Tuesday November 11th. They're going to be focusing on emerging opportunities in farm
efficiency, sustainability, and the circular bioeconomy that there is. The university is doing this
and you can find out more about it. We'll give you the information on that in a moment. But this
anytime there is a gathering of minds, a gathering of information, Matt, this feels like a benefit
for the industry, especially when it comes to the ag industry. Oh for sure. So there's a few other
activities during the year that do a nice job of something that's very needed is getting the
information from the University of Wisconsin out in people's hands. So there's one there's kind of,
I think it's in the spring, is more of an update of what is the status of all the different
centers of the agriculture in Wisconsin. So this one is focus more on sustainability
and it would be a great thing to, we got some, you know, the 30 years ago, the University was
accused of being a patsy to a big corporate agriculture medical supplies and not as sustainable.
It was just all about produce more and there was a lot of feedback that the University wasn't
supporting some sustainable initiatives like organic production and grazing. But I've
been around there quite a while now. That wouldn't be a fair characterization of UW-Madison at
this point. There's a lot of work and sustainable efforts. If you'd like to take part in this
registration is required. You can register by going, emailing them, outreachatenergy.wisc.edu.
We will also give you the website. You can contact them through that way and get the link and register
as well. And the Wisconsin Farmers Union will be marking its 95th annual state convention
from December 12 to the 14th this year at Chula Vista Resort in the Dels. The signature
event will unite family farmers, rural residents, advocates from across the Wisconsin to exchange
ideas, influence policy and honor the cooperative principles that define the Farmers Union.
Another big event in the ag industry just wanted to highlight and touch on. Have you taken part
in these before? Well, it's annual meeting time of year. January and December. So you mentioned
Farmers Union meeting at Chula Vista in the Dels. Farm Bureau which is somewhat larger. Farm
organization is also early December in the Dels. So it's that time of year. I have gone to some of those.
So those two organizations are do actively lobby. And so sometimes we can work with them but we
can't as educators get involved in their lobbying efforts. One would be considered well. They would
both tell you that they have a broad base of representing all types of farmers. But sometimes they
will endorse political candidates. They'll have stances on issues. Farmers Union, the one you
mentioned, is really very concerned about concentration in all sectors of agriculture. Meet packers getting
larger monopolistic other organizations, dairy processing facilities, even co-ops, not being as
they don't act like grassroots cooperative anymore. And so Farmers Union is also often been
concerned about really large corporate style farms. And Farm Bureau has not been as aggressive
on that. They feel they represent all farmers large and small. So I want to explain to you which
one is aligned more with which. But one tends to support Democrats more and the other tends to support
Republicans more. Kind of read between the lines on that one a little bit. Yeah, but I appreciate
that. There's always. And as we're wrapping up, Matt, I did want to make sure to make note of this
for anybody that it might have affected and be able to help. The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture
Trade and Consumer Protection will begin accepting applications for crop insurance premium rebates
for cover crop planting at December 1st. The initiative run in partnership with the U.S.
Department of Ag Risk Management helps farmers across the country. You can find out more about this
one by going to cover crop rebate.wi.gov. That's cover crop rebate.wi.gov. These kind of things
can be very helpful to farmers. I imagine Matt. Well, I'm going to challenge you back. Why would
why would the government be excited about supporting farmers to grow cover crops?
That's a good question. That's a good question that I am not smart enough to answer. But I think
I have an idea. I think I have a bit of a feeling. I didn't mean to put you completely on the spot.
No, that's all right. Let's explain that a little bit. Because we got a little time here yet.
Yep. Historically, way historically, we didn't have a crop protection, which would be a name
for herbicides, pesticides, and control weeds. All these row crops, corn, soybeans, wheat,
involved subduing the earth, doing a lot of tillage to control weeds.
Right? And then we have drastically improved production by doing that same thing. But then
weeds come and compete during the year. And so we do use these herbicides to control weeds.
And there's been concern. We got pretty good at controlling weeds. So now it's November. Most of
crops are harvested. A lot of fields will sit with no, shouldn't say no, very little, a biological
life going on in that soil from November until May when we plant again. And the earthworms, the
nematodes, beneficial fungi, the beneficial bacteria really would, what are they going to have on
their, they're going to be metabolizing slow. It's winter. But what are they going to have to eat
when there's no crop in that field? And if the field's really bare, we also expose anything
that's got any slope to it when we get rainfalls, which have been observed to be getting heavier,
more abrupt, we get more erosion. So there's been tremendous incentive to break the cycle of
extreme tillage. And then Baron in the off season and let's end crop rotations. So cover
crops. So there's two hand and hand movements that are trying to promote soil life. And one would
be minimum or no till systems. So if we, if we turn up that soil less, every time we open up the
soil, which if you notice, I don't know about your garden, but your neighbors, somebody you've
seen someone with really beautiful garden. And on a small scale, I don't think there's anything
wrong with it, but we do a lot of tillage. We just get it looking really granular. And yeah,
so on our farm scale, we're avoiding that because every time you do that, you introduce a lot more
oxygen. You disrupt any developing of soil structure and you reduce organic matter. And then as
I said, if you have a slope, you get, you get erosion, which is loss of the very best, the very top
soil. So we've, we're, I think we're a little further down the road on no tilling. And historically,
if, if tillage and herbicides control weeds, and now we don't till, we need even better and more
use of herbicides in no tillage systems, right? Okay. So now what we're doing is we are trying to,
in that off season, grow a cover crop. So it's going to put up stems and roots and when it rains,
we're going to hold the soil in place. And I think the cover part is a little more obvious that
the soil won't be bare and won't erode as much. So that's why they're promoting this. And
it's a great thing. There's information out now that, you know, farmers need still need yield.
So let's say they start implementing all these highly desirable practices, but they actually get
less yield because they're, they are operating kind of with their hands tied behind their back because
well, a good practice to do this would be tillage, but now I'm not going to till. Or I'm going to
control weeds, but so I don't want to use any more herbicides and I have to. So these two practices
together, no till and cover crops, are helping save our soil life, creating biodiversity,
especially in the off season. And they're complicated because they are not as simple as, yeah,
I'm going to go out and do that. You need to change your planters. If you're going to do some tillage,
you got to get more precise on how you're going to minimally interrupt the soil. And so it's still
a learning curve. And it's also soil can be sandy soil, it can be clay soil, it can have high
organic matter, it can be well drained or poorly drained. And so the cover crop practices you use
would vary depending on your geography and your soil type and the crop you're going to grow. So it
gets very specific. So farmers and universities and USDA people are all learning more about
cover crops, but to help, help the system out, they're giving out grants to help farmers do
grow cover crops. All right. All right. Man, do you have my respect, Matt? I love talking to you.
I appreciate you so much. Thank you for the time. Please say hi to the rest of the extension staff
for us and everything. We look forward to seeing them and looking forward to having you back real soon.
Thank you for the time, Matt. Thank you. You find out more and reach, Matt, and all the great people
at extension at extension.wisks.edu. Be sure to follow them on social media as well. They always
do a great job keeping people up to date on the different events and things that they are doing
over there. Head on over to your Facebook, social media pages, whatever it might be. Look for
UW Extension, Wisconsin Medicine, and you should be able to find our friends at UW Extension.
And thank you all for joining us for another edition of WFHR's Rapids Report.
