- Well, we've got a nice sunny day shaping up here in Central Wisconsin today, with the bright blue sky out there today, lots of bright sunshine.

Grandpa used to say this as a haymaker.

So get out there and make it count today.

It is time for "Insight."

- [Man] This is "Insight."

Phone lines are open.

Dial 384-2191.

- Good morning from AM 1450, WDLB.

Mike Warren with you.

We are going to be talking about a lot of issues related to the dairy industry: past, present, future, you name it, I'm sure we'll cover it all.

Rick Barrett is a business reporter for the Milwaukee journal "Sentinel."

- Thank you, Mike.

I really appreciate you having us here.

- So you have covered agriculture for how long?

- For about 20 years in Wisconsin.

- This has not been an easy time.

We keep losing farm after farm, after farm here in Wisconsin.

- It's been an incredibly difficult time.

(suspenseful music) - Welcome home, bud.

(Shawn sniffles) (Shawn exhales deeply) This is where I spent most of my time.

230 cows used to roam in here every day.

Yeah.

- [Rick] How did you make the decision to say, "I'm done"?

- That was dad's decision.

I would have rather kept going even though I knew things weren't going well.

- [Rick] Yeah.

- And I was upset.

- [Rick] Okay.

- Matter of fact, I probably said a few choice words that I shouldn't have, but... - When my parents, when they were farming, if you needed more money, you worked harder.

I can work harder until I'm blue in the face and it ain't gonna help nothing.

(suspenseful music continues) Everything is always evolving, so you gotta... You can't be afraid of change.

And things are gonna change, they always have, they always will.

(cattle mooing) (metal clattering) - Dairy industry, you can produce as much milk as you want, more and more and more every day, and more every day.

But if there's nowhere to go with that, we all know how supply and demand works.

(Mark auctioneering) - When I'm on the block selling and you see a grown dad crying in the stands as you're selling his cows, that's not an easy day for them or for the auction stuff.

(gate squeaking) - And I've always been optimistic.

I love dairy farming.

And I like being out in the country.

I like crops.

I like cattle.

I like the lifestyle.

- He's willing to change with the times.

He wants to try new things, which is not easy for a lot of farmers.

- If you wanna survive in the future, you have to have a beginner's mind.

The farm is gonna continue to exist in the future, it's just gonna look slightly different.

- [Mike] Farmers, I mean, they're just nose-to-the-grindstone type people, and they always figure out a way, don't they?

- [Rick] Well, we hope so.

(suspenseful music) It hasn't been easy for Wisconsin dairy farmers, especially the smaller family farms that have been the backbone of America's Dairyland.

The industry has been an economic engine that's generated more than $45 billion a year, but farmers are at a crossroads now as they adapt or call it quits.

Neither decision is easy.

- It's a pretty big change for them.

They've gotten up at five o'clock in the morning to go milk their cows for the last 40 years.

And tomorrow morning they're still gonna wake up at five o'clock, and the barn's going to be empty.

(Mark chanting) - [Rick] Farmers have sold off their herds because of retirement, labor challenges, the rise of big farms and, most of all, low milk prices.

These prices are set by commodities markets and the federal government; they often fluctuate, but in late 2014 went into a tailspin that lasted six years.

Farmers often don't know what they'll get paid until weeks after their milk leaves the farm.

Sometimes the only way to stay in business is to produce more milk, which can worsen surpluses and depressed prices.

- Farmers have a huge impact on what the cost of your food is.

If everyone quits raising beef or quits producing milk on their farm, and there's a limited supply of it, supply and demand is gonna get way out of whack, your price is gonna go up.

- [Rick] 90% Of Wisconsin's milk goes into cheese.

Some farmers have said if they could get even an extra 25 cents from a $5 package of cheese sold in the grocery store, it would help keep them in business.

(cow moos) Steve Kelm is a dairy science professor at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.

He thinks the American consumer has a vital role in the future of dairy farms.

- We're the envy of states across the U.S. in terms of our processors, in terms of our ability to make cheese, in terms of our ability to make a high-end product.

Wisconsin dairy industry, without question, is a centerpiece in terms of the U.S. dairy industry.

We have an infrastructure advantage from farms that are in existence.

I think that we're very fortunate in the United States to have one of the most affordable food systems in the world, and also one of the safest food systems in the world.

And so should I, as a consumer, be willing to pay more for that?

To be honest, the answer is probably yes.

I'm willing to pay more for each upgrade of my iPhone.

I'm willing to pay more for any number things in my life.

And so I'm pretty confident that I can pay a bit more for the dairy products and for the food in general.

- My father always told me is that he always felt that dairy was kept cheap because the government wants to feed the people a cheap source of food that's nutritious.

And he said, "I think that's why they try and hold our products down in price, so that people can afford them," and I agree to that to some extent; but at the other side, I would like to be paid a little bit more for my product, and go up at the same rate that soda and other drinks are going up at really fast rate compared to what my product is.

And that's hard for me to understand that after all these years my product is still the same price in the store and everything else is costing more.

- [Rick] While the farmers we spoke with all point to milk prices as their biggest headache, their individual journeys and how to survive in the future are all a bit different.

- [Mike] Can you give us some examples of some of the stories, or what do you wanna talk about here?

Give us more of an insight into this story as you start to tell it now.

- We're trying to capture that sense of family, that sense of culture, that sense of history and why it's so important, and also talk about how these farms have changed so much, and that it's no longer grandpa's farm the way it was 50 years ago.

(gentle music) Our stories take place in three top milk producing Wisconsin counties: Clarke, Fond du Lac and Marathon.

We begin in Fond du Lac County.

(gentle music) The Schmitz family in Fon du Lac was among those 800 plus farm families who gave up on dairy in 2019, one of the worst years for Wisconsin's flagship industry.

- I miss it.

- [Rick] Leroy Schmitz and his son Shawn miss this, their Bonnie Lee Farms that grew from 20 cows at the original location to 250 at the larger farmstead in Brown Road.

Their milk went to Satori Cheese in Plymouth.

Leroy named his farms after he and his first wife, Bonnie.

Over the years, he remodeled the operation as the herd size increased.

But as the years added up, so did the challenges.

- We were working 750 plus acres, and then my wife passed away.

And from that point on, things got shaky.

I didn't know what to do.

- [Rick] When did it start to turn?

When did you see things that were, you know- - Probably around 2000.

- [Rick] Okay.

Okay.

- That's what I'd say.

From that point on, if you were bigger you pretty much got what you wanted and if you were little you had to fight for it.

- I didn't have any more money to do any more.

I expanded as far as I could expand.

And then the bombshell his, I got cancer, which put me in a predicament I'm in now.

Finally I made the decision, what, five years ago, that we had to quit.

I was just squandering in the hole.

They took all my savings, and everything else was gone already.

And I had the farm completely financed up to the tilt, the bank wouldn't help me out anymore.

And I knew we couldn't make it the way the price of milk was.

Well, it took about a year and a half, two years after that before the price of milk went up.

Well, that would have been too late to help me anyways.

- [Rick] The family ended up selling the cows at auction on March 23rd, 2019, for half their worth, and later sold the land.

Shawn told us he had not returned to the farm since the sale because it was too emotional for him.

But when we asked for directions to the farm, he decided that he wanted to take us there.

(car door slams) (car engine sputters and revs) - This is accident alley right here.

Once we get to the corner and I make a right-hand turn, that'll be the first time since September of 2019 I'll be down that road.

We got the okay to go in, to walk around.

Oh boy.

(laughs) - [Videographer] How does that hit you?

I mean, you weren't expecting to go there today.

- No.

It'll be all right.

Here we go.

Oh my God!

(sniffles) It's horrible.

(gentle music) A lot of memories gone.

Welcome home, bud.

(Shawn sniffles) (Shawn exhales heavily) (dial tone ringing) Hang on, Buster, maybe you can go next door.

- [Woman] Hello.

- Are you home?

- [Woman] Yes, I am.

- Do you wanna say hi to Buster?

- [Woman] Oh yeah, sure.

Is he here?

Are you here?

- Yeah.

We're across the road.

- [Woman] Okay.

Yep.

I'll be right out.

- Yep.

Bye.

- [Woman] Bye.

- A big sinkhole, all it is now.

That as right where the milk house was, right where the pipes come up out there.

- [Woman] Hi, Buster.

- [Shawn] Buster, who's here?

- Hi, honey!

Hello, sweetheart.

Hi, honey.

Hello.

Hi.

Please, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry (indistinct).

- Well, I see the garage door open.

So I'll call and see if you're home.

- Sorry, sweetheart.

It's gotta be hard.

- So this is the first time you two have seen each other out here in a long time.

- [Woman] Yeah.

- Out here, yeah.

- [Woman] Three years now.

- Two.

- [Woman] Two years.

- [Rick] Okay, okay.

- [Woman] I grew up in the house cross the street.

- [Rick] Okay.

- [Woman] That was sad.

He couldn't come out here for a long time.

- It's not as bad as I (indistinct).

It's been enough time maybe now, so- - [Woman] Yeah.

- [Rick] But you can still visualize what everything was like then.

- Oh yeah.

- [Rick] You still in your mind.

- Yeah.

- [Rick] It's all different now.

- [Rick and Shawn] Yeah.

- [Rick] Yeah.

(gentle music) We heard more emotional stories behind dairy farming as we traveled to Central Wisconsin.

We met multi-generation dairy families in Clark County, where there are more dairy cows than people.

Marty Nigon and his family had been through some hard times over the years, but they'd never seen anything like the tornado that slammed their farm in Greenwood in 2019.

(gentle music) - That was a real hot and muggy day.

And it was my wife's 55th birthday, so we decided to leave the farm and go visiting friends down in Sparta.

My son Luke had called, "Dad I heard there was a bad storm at your farm.

I'll go out and look at it."

10 minutes later my son called, he says, "Dad, it's really bad.

The tops are off the silos, the arch over our driveway with our sign on is down.

It's a real mess."

(metal clattering) (pensive music) - There were a lot of emotions.

So after the tornado went through, we had a family meeting in the kitchen, and everybody was sitting around the table, all my siblings, and parents, and sister-in-law, just to decide where we wanted to go from there.

Everybody agreed that we were gonna clean everything up and rebuild to some extent.

In the end, we decided to rebuild as the way it was.

And everybody still agrees that that was a good decision.

(rooster crowing) (pump thumping) - [Rick] Marty's daughter, Kristyn, made a big decision herself, to leave her desk job and returned to her family's farm where they milk 72 cows.

- [Marty] And then Kristyn, kind of with tears in her eyes, "Dad, can I come back to the farm with you."

I says, "Yeah, I'd love you to, Kristyn."

It was wonderful.

I was very, very happy to hear that.

(birds chirping) - [Rick] We hear a lot about the importance of family when it comes to dairy farming, but it's not always easy to keep the younger generation on the farm.

Dennis Roehl farms 800 acres and milks about 250 cows.

at Roehl Acres in Loyal.

Dennis and his wife, Suzie, hope at least one of their three young children will keep the farm going.

- [Suzie] I sure would love one at least to stay home, but we're not telling them they have to.

We're giving them the opportunity to see what the farming environment is; and if they choose to stay, wonderful.

If they wanna go out and do something else, that's fine, but they're learning the basics here: get up in the morning, get some work done, make some money, and go on and learn.

- [Rick] Next door to Clark County in Marathon County, Jim and Jenny Briggs and their son, Justin, have a legacy of family farming.

Jim grew up on a dairy farm on the East Coast, only a few miles from Boston.

Much of it eventually went to developers and milking became too difficult for his dad.

Jim said his love of dairy farming led him to Stratford, Wisconsin, where he milks just under 60 cows.

Jenny helps out, but also has a job off the farm.

- [Jenny] My job helps us get through the hard times.

- [Jim] It's tough being... You know, in the past year, our milk price has gone from probably $14 all the way.. one month we were at $23.

And you have those kinds of fluctuations.

It's hard to plan on anything or know... say we wanna buy say we wanna buy a new tractor.

Well, yeah, this month the milk check might be good.

we can make the payment.

But in six months from now, are we still gonna be able to make that payment.

especially if something else breaks down or some kind of catastrophe?

There are just no...

There's no stability in the milk market, it can go like that day by day, and you never truly know what you're getting until the check shows up in the mail.

My concern's not only for the small farms, but also the local communities and businesses; 'cause you look around here, all the businesses rely on farms.

If there's only a handful of big farms left someday, they're not going to be in business either and then they're not gonna be going to town to buy groceries, and gas, and clothes, and whatnot.

So, I mean, I think that's one thing we noticed moving up here is how much stronger the the economy is.

- [Jenny] How the economy is thriving compared to where we moved from.

- [Jim and Jenny] Yeah.

- [Rick] Dairy farmers have a huge impact on small town main streets.

Just ask Dave Lucht, owner of C&J Auto and Machine, back in the dairy community of Loyal.

- There's been a saying for many years that I've used.

A farmer will spread manure in the morning, and in the afternoon come to town and spread money.

But if he hasn't got the money to spread in the afternoon, he's not gonna be here, he's not gonna come to town.

- I believe the number is for every dollar that comes into Wisconsin dairy, that dollar changes hands about seven more times in that community.

And so are these rural communities going to suffer if agriculture suffers?

Yes.

There's no question about that.

The dairy industry has been an incredible backbone to the rural communities, our rural communities.

I know we talk about the public holding dairy farms or dairy farmers in high regard.

One of the reasons they do that, it's because these same individuals in the rural communities are standing up and taking positions on school boards.

They're standing up and taking positions on church councils.

They're becoming civically involved.

And I see the next generation doing the same thing.

- [Rick] Are farmers the lifeblood of this community?

- I think the farmers are more than...

They're the lifelines of any community, no matter it would be in Wisconsin, or California, New York, anywheres.

The farmer does feed the world.

And when we go to a grocery store and find the shelves empty, there's gonna be panic.

- [Rick] Dairy towns and farmers tried not to panic when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

- Good morning.

Is this Brian?

- [Brian] Yeah, Brian Forest, Maple Ridge Dairy.

- Maple Ridge Dairy.

It's been around a long time, hasn't it?

- [Brian] Yeah, it's been around for about 21 years.

- Rick and I were talking about this whole COVID issue that has impacted everybody, including the dairy industry.

And you recently did something interesting on your farm.

Can you tell us what that was?

- [Brian] Sure.

Yeah.

We set up a COVID vaccination clinic at our farm.

- [Rick] Dennis Roehl and his family all had COVID.

The virus sent Dennis to the hospital for three days, preventing him from milking cows.

- We made it through it.

And then I got my COVID shot, my first one, and I got sick, ended up in the emergency room with that.

It's been rough.

(laughs) This winter, I came out of the barn and I was carrying two pails of milk, and I slipped on the ice and the milk went flying, and I landed on my arm and I tore a muscle off in my shoulder.

I mean, you still gotta keep going.

- COVID really didn't affect us here because we're always here.

- We're always here, yeah.

- We really don't go out that much.

But mentally, it affects you.

It affects your mental health.

- Yeah, yeah.

(pensive music) (keyboard clicking) - [Rick] Sheila Nyberg, Clark County's Economic Development director, said COVID definitely has magnified the financial stress on small family farms.

And the farm families, has it affected them deeply?

They're getting a double hit here, from COVID and (indistinct).

- Yeah.

Yes.

The farm families in our region, it's unbelievably tough.

It is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then I look at some of the programs that were out there, and working with some of the families that have called and they're working with their bankers and what have you, on the programs that were supposed to be federal programs and trying to sift through them and finding out that most of the smalls couldn't get anything.

When we realized that, and that's what we found out, and we're sending people to go through this process, and find out they can't even hardly qualify for anything.

One them got 84 bucks after all that paperwork, and calculation, and what have you.

And then you see that.

We certainly don't have it right.

We certainly don't have it right.

And it makes you even sicker and sadder.

(pensive music) Yeah, that roller coaster.

(laughs) We talk about that a lot, of the rollercoaster ride.

We talked about it last year when the prices were so horrible in the end of '19, and last year with COVID.

And you watch the rollercoaster ride, and we're... Oh boy, it was going straight down into the gully and now we're ticking back up the hill.

And now we're watching how that coming back up the hill feels, or is it okay?

Are we safe?

But for how long?

Do you plan on anything?

Do you depend on anything, or is it the same old, same old?

I don't think you ever get out of that lack of trust because of there's never been a really good long-term platform.

It's been a ride of a lifetime if you're in dairy and agriculture, ride of a lifetime.

- [Mike] Jay Heeg is a dairy farmer in the Colby area.

Farmers aren't just squawking about all the problems they're facing.

They're rolling their sleeves up and they're trying to be a part of the solution too.

- [Jay] Oh, yeah.

And they need our voice on some of the policies and things.

So that's one thing I've seen as I've gotten more involved, is they really wanna hear from producers what we need and want, and so they're very open and receptive to that.

So, I mean, anybody that's thinking of doing anything and being involved, I mean, don't be afraid to start out on something: local boards, wherever there's any kind of opportunities.

- [Rick] Sheila Nyberg said she hopes government leaders will listen carefully to dairy farmers.

We helped with that.

Okay.

- [Tammy] Hello.

- [Rick] Hey.

Good morning, Senator.

- [Tammy] How are you?

- [Rick] Good.

Good to see you.

- [Tammy] Good to see you.

- We invited U.S.

Senator Tammy Baldwin to the Milwaukee PBS studios to talk about the future of dairy.

She chairs the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture and Rural Development.

Baldwin, who's from Wisconsin, heard what dairy farmers like Jim Briggs had to say about Washington.

In as far as policy goes with the new administration, Tom Vilsack Ag secretary again, are you all encouraged about that that all?

Do you see any movement or changes?

- No, I don't anticipate anything changing.

I've said it before, but I don't think anyone in Washington even knows these type of farms even exist.

They like to use the picture of the little red barn on their news or in advertising, but other than that I don't think they even know... or sometimes I don't even know if they care if we exist at this point in time.

I don't anticipate any policy... Vilsack's been in there before.

I don't anticipate anything changing now.

- I hear his frustration.

- Senator, this particular clip, and you can do a hundred others like it right now, if it had been 20 years ago, when I first came to Wisconsin, it would have been the same thing.

- Farmers have had some profitable years and some down years, and they're used to that, but not the string of many, many bad years, with compounding factors in a row.

And so when I think about the new administration and the conversations that I've had with the new but returning USDA secretary, I think we see eye to eye on the challenge to make farming profitable again.

And that can include all sorts of things, but innovation, we're innovative in Wisconsin, and paying farmers for being good stewards of our environment.

- All right, it's the "Insight" program here today on WDLB.

And boy, we have really been blessed with some great guests.

And we've got some more farm talk.

We are going to Brian Forrest with us on the "Insight" program, from Maple Ridge Dairy.

It's guys like you that are gonna lead the way here and tell the story of what farming will become here in Wisconsin.

- Brian, I wondered if you would, please, just talk a little bit about the milk price.

I mean, we've all seen this rollercoaster ride that farmers have been on in recent years.

And as you're going forward, would you favor some type of public policy change so that farmers would have a more stable milk price, or how do you feel about it?

- [Brian] That is a billion dollar question.

That is a great question.

I mean, it is so difficult to put in some kind of blanket system that works for everybody.

The only country that I know of that did it, has done it, is Canada, and they, back in 1968 when they put their quota system.

And Europe had it, and they finally kind of gave up on it here about eight years ago.

It's tough to do that.

It's really tough to do that.

Farmers are independent people.

And I don't think we have a perfect answer for that, unfortunately.

- One of the things that I've been very active on since I have been in the Senate is trying to improve the risk management tools available for farmers, especially those who don't have long-term contracts with processors that give them a guaranteed price for a period of time.

- [Rick] We requested an interview with U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, but received no response.

Vilsack also served eight years as the Ag secretary under president Barack Obama.

Sonny Perdue, who was agriculture secretary in the Trump administration, once told Wisconsin dairy farmers that, "In America, the big get bigger and the small go out."

- In America, we're not...

Whether it's farming or any other small business, there's no guaranteed success rate.

That's unfortunate because we do have a sentimental attachment to small family farms, it's just that the economy of scale and agriculture and the economics of farming has become so tight in recent years that it's very difficult to make a farming on small herds- (dramatic music) - [Rick] Wisconsin has a growing number of very large dairy farms, known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations or CAFOs.

These farms can be family or corporate owned, and sometimes have up to 50 times the number of cows of a typical dairy operation.

(text chiming) - We are a fourth generation dairy and crop farm located in North Central Kewaunee County.

We milk about 8,000 cows and farm about 13,000 acres of land.

Technology, science, scale has really helped us achieve a balance where we can be very sustainable from an economic standpoint, from a community standpoint, and indeed from an environmental standpoint.

Our dairy cows have it pretty good.

Typically we know three times a day.

What we strive for is fresh feed in front of them, fresh water in front of them at all times, fresh bedding.

We're trying to control their environment, get them out of the rain, the snow, the excessive of heat.

We really replicated, within the barn, the exact same type of surroundings they would have outside minus the weather.

The milking parlor is a parlor that moves.

So it's in a big circle, there's a hundred cows milked at a time.

About every five seconds a cow enters the parlor, our milking technician prep, make sure to check from your quality, make sure that the cow is sanitized before attaching a unit, and then computers take over.

Basically at that point, as the cow rides around on the merry-go-round, computers determine exactly when her milk flow is dropped to the point where the milker should be removed, and the computer actually removes the milker.

Really attracts us to the cow is that of all the feed we bring in every year, about 50% of that goes directly into milk, pretty efficient conversion.

The other byproduct, which is actually a true asset to our family, to our farm, is the manure produced by a cow.

It literally is applied back to the fields, to the lands, and it is 50% of the fertilizer we need for the next year's crop production.

There's an awful lot of concern about the potential for fertilizers of any sort negatively affecting our water resources: be it surface, be it ground.

The science that we employ absolutely ensures that that will not happen.

We're very precise in measuring the amount of nutrients in our manure.

We're very precise in measuring the amount of nutrients removed by the growing crop.

This is our home, this is our community.

We very much strive to leave it in a shape as good or better than when it was entrusted to us in the first place.

- [Rick] An agriculture expert who has studied CAFOs for decades preaches against the corporate takeover of the dairy industry.

- I began to realize that if the farmers had to get bigger in order to be competitive economically, that we were increasing production faster than the overall growth and demand for food.

So that meant that some farmers had to fail so that others could become larger.

And I said, "There's something fundamentally wrong with this, if these farmers have to fail in order for others to succeed."

And then I began to look around at the rural communities.

What we've seen all across the country is with industrialized agriculture, you destroy opportunities for farm families to make a decent living on a farm, then you see the depopulation of the rural communities, and you see the rural communities wither and die.

People in Wisconsin need to understand that that's one of the few places that I know of where there are still independent dairy farmers there, where the family can still make a living on those farms in spite of the growth up to this point in the large scale operations.

So there's still something left to be saved in Wisconsin.

- [Rick] Senator Baldwin agrees.

- I would fight furiously against the idea that this is inevitable, that you have to be big to make it in this industry because I think the diversity of our farms and farming practices, that's what makes us the dairy state.

Getting bigger doesn't necessarily make us safer.

Getting bigger and more monopolistic does not necessarily...

I shouldn't understate this.

That can be dangerous too.

- So you feel like this is a of a food security issue then, or even a national security issue?

- All of the above.

(pensive music) - [Rick] Former dairy farmer Shawn Schmitz said it wasn't easy going up against the big guys.

- We couldn't rent the land even though we had have rented some land for 27 years from people.

They said, "Well, if you can't pay us more, we're gonna go somewhere else, give it to somebody else," and that's what they did.

- [Rick] I think your dad was saying you lost about a hundred acres at one point.

- Oh, we lost probably 200 all total.

But like I said, then, if you needed something, your bank was willing to work with you.

- [Rick] Yeah.

- And as time went on, that turned out to not be the case anymore, so- - [Rick] Okay.

Okay.

- Unless you were big, real big.

- [Rick] Darla Sikora is an ag banker at Citizens State Bank of Loyal.

- [Darla] Size is not the defining factor in success by any means.

Through my years, I told you earlier I have been 18 years at this job, I don't know how many times people have said, "What size dairy farm is the most profitable?"

Wrong question.

It's got nothing to do with size.

It's got everything to do with management, with the ability to look into the future, to be flexible, to make sure that you understand that...

There are no businesses that look today like they look 20 years ago.

(pensive music) (cattle mooing) - To get a better idea of what dairy farmers must do to survive, we invite a global futurist Jack Uldrich to the Roehl Farm.

Uldrich said two key factors will help: technology and diversification.

[Rick] And for some farmers, could it mean that maybe they're not necessarily milking cows for their main income, they might be doing something else?

- [Jack] I think that that is true.

I think they're going to have to look at diversifying.

I think that there is going to be the opportunity for dairy and cheese.

But some innovative farmers, in the off season, are growing hazelnuts, they're doing other things.

What else could you be doing with the land?

I think the advances in renewable energy are gonna become astounding, so there's still a lot of open space here: solar panels, wind turbines, producing some energy, look to diversify your farm.

The very farm that we're at also has an event center.

And I think that that it's a wonderful way to diversify their income.

(engine droning) - [Marty] We have a very diversified farms.

So we do the maple syrup, the pumpkins, the sweet corn, the milking cows.

Everybody helps with it.

Even when they don't live here, they come back.

All of our children come back on weekends when they can and help with the syrup business.

Ready?

(syrup splashing) Steaming-hot syrup.

- I think that diversifying is what's keeping us going.

I think by selling the beef on the side has helped.

- By doing these other businesses, keeping those going?

- Diversification has probably kept us afloat the past year.

- [Rick] Okay.

- Yeah.

- [Rick] And your diversification?

- Is by raising the steers and selling them for beef.

(radio jingle music) - [Mike] But I think we're ready to go to our next.

Ken Seehafer, Seehafer Acres.

Ken, are you with us?

- [Ken] Yes, yes.

- You have an interesting situation there because your farm has diversified.

Maybe just talk about the diversification with the dairy farm side of it, and now the retail side of it, and how that all happened, how that all played out, how you came to make that decision.

It was a big decision to make, I'm sure, for you guys.

Maybe just talk about what you've done there and how it's been working out.

- [Ken] Absolutely a big decision.

Bigger decision than I... At first I underestimated it so I had a lot of surprises along the way.

But it was a goal I always had.

Actually in high school I had that goal of having a retail store on our farm.

And I thought we had the location and traffic.

But it took me my entire farming career almost to get to this point.

But, yeah, it has challenges, but there's rewards with it.

And I've always enjoyed the people part of it.

I enjoy the hired help.

There's a lot of good.

It's not easy, but farming wasn't really easy ether.

(gentle music) - [John Ikerd] You can develop technologies that will pick the drudgery out, but will leave the thinking, the imagination, the creativity that's uniquely human.

And also the caring about the land, the caring about people, you can't build that into technology, it has to come from people.

- [Steve Kelm] I think that all, kind of regardless of size, are going to have enhanced use of technology and utilizing data to make better decisions, or make decision period.

And so whether we're talking about, for example, animals that have pedometers, so essentially you've got cows that have a Fitbit.

(cattle mooing) - [Jack] The look at robotic technology I think is absolutely spot on.

I think the difficult thing is to know when to pull the trigger.

I mean, robotic technology is gonna get better, and it's also going to get more affordable over time.

- [Rick] They know he's their friend.

- Yeah.

And he's pushing the feed up to them so they can reach it.

- [Rick] And he can run for 24 hours a day.

- 24 hours a day and every two hours.

Yeah.

Pushing the feeder at the cows, which it's hard for me with a broom to push up with that much feed.

Later in the day there's not so much, but it's a big labor saver.

And he's doing this night and day.

- [Jack] The farm in the future will look pretty much the same; but on the insides, it is going to be...

There's gonna be a lot of very sophisticated technology.

And for a lot of young people, I think it's going be a really attractive job.

I mean, if you actually look at the future of the farm, I mean, I think there are going to be robots that are going to be manless tractors.

There are going to be satellites looking down on your individual farm fields, identifying which crops are growing, which ones aren't, and you are going to be able to apply the exact amount of water, the exact amount of pesticide, herbicide, whatever you need on it.

And you're doing things efficiently today; but in the future, I mean, farmers are gonna take their game to another level.

- [Rick] The Roehls decided to take their game to that next level.

They will have four robotic milkers installed by early 2022, similar to these, at a cost of $200,000 each plus the expense of retrofitting the barn.

The robots will lower labor cost.

- [Dennis Roehl] I think our biggest challenge on the farm, other than financial, is hired help, it's getting people here, it's really tough.

It's tough.

And even a lot of Hispanic help that we have, they're getting more rare too.

- [Jim Briggs] It can be a challenge.

I mean, to find someone that can do everything if I wanna be gone, that can run equipment, take care of a sick cow, call the vet, order feed, whatever.

- [Mike] Let's go up into Marathon County, Heeg Brothers Dairy.

Jay, are you with us this morning?

- [Jay] I am.

Good morning.

How are you doing?

- Well, the migrant worker issue is a kind of, I don't know, front and center at your farm.

Just talk about the workforce you have, the diverse workforce that you have, and why you have it, and how it's worked out for your farm.

- [Jay] We got some Hispanic workers on our farm.

We've been fortunate to have a good team.

Some have been with us for up to 20 years, a lot over 10 years.

So they got families in the area, go to local school, some of them graduate and come back to the farms even.

And it's been good.

(lively music) - [Rick] The president of Clark County's Grassland Dairy, one of the nation's largest butter producers, agrees that farmers must address the workforce issue.

- [Trevor] I think labor is a big issue.

Nobody really wants to work as a farm hand that much today anymore.

80% of our class were farm kids; today it might be under 10, if that.

So there's not a lot of farm kids, which means there's not a lot of farm help available here.

So the alternative is robotics and/or Hispanic labor or some other alternative.

(horse trotting) - [Rick] Some dairy farmers rely on their Amish and Mennonite neighbors to help out, if they're not already too busy on their own family farms.

They help keep the number of small dairy farms going, especially in Clark County.

- [Mark] In the area right here, where we're at here, there's a huge population of Mennonite and Amish.

As a whole, they tend to stick to smaller farms and they have strength by being in numbers.

- [Rick] The fate of many small dairy farms remains uncertain, but those close to the industry believe the ability to adapt, technology and diverse sources of income will help offset some of the pressing issues.

Trevor, what was you thought about the future of these small farms?

I mean, what will it take to keep them in business?

- If you look back when the settlers came to this area, why they settled here to farm in Clark County, Marathon County, Central Wisconsin, it was because of the farm land was not conducive to produce wheat or other crops, it was to milk cows, and that still holds true today.

We have clay soil here that's great for raising cattle and farming.

And I think that's gonna, in the long run, help us another generation or two down the road.

If you want to farm, it's gonna be here on ample conditions, no urban sprawl whatsoever, and just great natural resources.

- [Rick] Will the small farms still be viable though?

You talked about the 60 to 100 cows, will those guys be able to make it or will they just have to continue to get a little bit bigger?

- I think they can make it.

I think they need to possibly innovate in the future.

And when I say innovate, is that the robot, is that adding 10 more cows, is that whatever innovation that's gonna help them to sustain their business plan, but it's definitely viable.

(pensive music) - [Rick] Meanwhile, the University of Wisconsin has predicted that by 2040, there could be as few as 2,000 dairy farms left in the state.

Many will have reached the end of the road rather than a crossroads.

"The only way to predict the future," says futurist Jack Uldrich, "is to create it yourself."

- This is a huge opportunity for dairy farmers because consumers do want to know where their food is coming from, and they actually want to know how you're treating the animals, how you are a steward of the land, how you're supporting local communities.

People love that story.

- [John Ikerd] And you find local people within the community that care about that, and they will pay you enough to make those kinds of operations economically viable.

I think the opportunities are there, and it's important that we grasp those opportunities at the local level, even if they're small scale, because this will create the model.

This will show other people that you can do this in community after community, after community, until you change the whole of the food system.

- [Suzie] I think it's gonna change from what we've been used to, and we have to adapt to the changes.

I do think farming is gonna continue, but I do think we have to change for our children to want to continue.

It's a hard job, it's a lot of hours, it's a lot of work, but there's payoff to it.

So I think we have to adapt to the changes.

- [John Ikerd] The ultimate change has to come from an informed public.

People have to wake up to the fact that what's going on.

Now, that's difficult to do at the state and federal level, but you can do that within a community.

And if you do that within a community, and can move from the community to community, then eventually you gain the political power to change state laws, and eventually you gain the power to change federal laws.

- [Rick] Where do y'all see yourselves five years, 10 years from now?

What's your plan?

What's your vision?

- I mean, it depends what day you ask me, really?

(Jenny and Jim laugh) I mean- - Early retirement.

- Yeah.

I mean, some days, yeah, you feel like you can do this for another 20 years, and other days you're ready to give it up tomorrow.

- My dad said, when were driving up the lane, when I was ready to take over the farm, he says, "Marty, there'll be two things that will keep you farming.

One, you've got to really like it.

And two, always think next year will be better."

It's the optimistic attitude.

And once you lose that optimism of not thinking next year will be better, than maybe it's time to do something else.

But I've always said that and I still do, I always think next be better.

- I think you gotta have the smaller farms.

You can't count on these big farms all the time.

You still gotta have the little guy.

And I think Wisconsin always will be America's Dairyland, I hope to God it is.

(pensive music)