OPINION The National Farmers Union is co-leading an effort with the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture to secure funding for the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network. More than 30 agricultural, rural and mental-health professional organizations joined the National …
OPINION The Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed a rule, “The Enhancement and Standardization of Climate Related Disclosures for Investors,” mandating extensive climate disclosures by public companies – including measured impacts for their entire supply chain.
OPINION The U.S. Dairy Export Council and the National Milk Producers Federation have sent a letter to the Biden administration recommending specific steps to provide relief and support to dairy farmers and exporters facing supply-chain constraints.
OPINION During the past eight weeks our nation and the world have watched Russia’s unjust war in Ukraine unfold and progress. I believe for many of us it’s truly difficult to fathom what it’s like on the ground. As the first missiles launched Feb. 24, I was amazed and disgusted that Russia …
OPINION Every day is Earth Day to a farmer. Preserving and protecting our natural resources has always been and will always be a priority in every aspect of food production. Farmers are innovators; they continue to create and adopt methods to progress toward our goals. We care for the envir…
OPINION February 2022 marked the 100th anniversary of the Capper-Volstead Act, one of the most important agricultural laws ever approved for farmers. Capper-Volstead gave agricultural producers the right to collectively bargain their production in partnership with other producers. That’s no…
Four environmental and agricultural groups, working as partners to bring about long-term solutions to Wisconsin’s water-quality issues, cheered the recent signing of legislation aimed at reducing nitrates in rural wells. It’s a move they hope will build momentum for broader efforts.
OPINION The state of Maine made headlines in the agricultural world this past November. Maine approved a “right to food” amendment to the state’s constitution, the first of its kind in the nation. It states “All individuals have a natural, inherent and unalienable right to food.” The amendm…
OPINION Inflation has been a hot topic in the United States for the past few months. While it affects everyone, farmers and ranchers are seeing greater rates of inflation than most industries. Some of that’s because of America’s great resignation. Many people knew that as baby boomers start…
OPINION Even though legislative floor sessions have come to a close, legislative committees continue to meet and take action on important issues. This week the Senate Committee on Agriculture & Tourism joined the Assembly Committee on Agriculture for a joint public hearing on Clearingho…
OPINION It’s always been my priority to be accessible to the people I was elected to serve. In my four years serving in the State Assembly in the 2000s, I scheduled town-hall listening sessions as often as I could. My office arranged listening sessions at town halls, libraries and other pub…
OPINION I find that most people today have very little connection to farming or ranching. When I grew up in the late 1960s and 1970s, there seemed to be a general sense that most people knew where their food came from. In my youth in suburban Connecticut, there was agriculture all around the area.
OPINION The events of the past weeks have shocked people around the world. In addition to the aggression by the Russian president against a sovereign country and its people, the war in Ukraine has also laid bare the risks that come with dependence in the energy and food sectors. Everyone is…
OPINION In the late 1920s the federal government understood healthy farm economies make our country stronger. The agriculture-parity concept was created to ensure farmers received fair prices for their back-breaking work.
OPINION The distinction of my hometown as the center of the dairy industry was always a matter of pride for me growing up. While I didn’t then understand how milk pricing worked, all that mattered was that Eau Claire was the center of the milk industry – and played a big role in determining…
OPINION March 22 is National Ag Day, a time for us to thank farmers and landowners for feeding, sheltering and powering our nation. We also want to celebrate and recognize the pivotal role of producers in mitigating climate change through voluntary conservation efforts.
OPINION Large beef packers and their allies are fighting to hold Congress at bay – to prevent any meaningful reforms to the broken cattle market. This isn’t a new fight because they’ve successfully held Congress at bay for decades. Throughout the 2000s they blocked legislation to ban packer…
OPINION Thirty-six years ago my wife and I built our home from the ground up in Brunswick, a rural part of Eau Claire County, Wisconsin. We both grew up in the area and didn’t think twice about leaving. Before we started laying the foundation of our home, we started with a blueprint showing…
OPINION Climate change and greenhouse gases have been hot topics for agriculture in the past few months. Farmers are being considered as a part of the solution. Companies who spew greenhouse gases want to pay farmers to put in place practices that will sequester carbon in the soil.
OPINION FarmFirst Dairy Cooperative approves of the U.S. Department of Agriculture investing $250 million to support independent, innovative and sustainable American fertilizer production to supply American farmers.
OPINION The World Organization of Animal Health – or OIE – was founded in 1924 through an international agreement to “ensure transparency in the global animal-disease situation, in order to collect, analyze and disseminate veterinary scientific information.” Through the years it has encoura…
OPINION My bill to send precious rural-broadband-expansion grant funds to the communities where they are needed most, Senate Bill (SB) 365, was approved Feb. 15 by the Wisconsin Senate. The bill modernizes the Rural Broadband Expansion Grant program to direct state investments to communitie…
OPINION Can you imagine being a member of a group in which your vote counts, but you can’t cast your own ballot? Sadly this very situation exists currently within America’s dairy industry. Specifically I’m referring to bloc voting, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture allows to dairy co-ops.
OPINION For the past two years we’ve heard stories of farmers and ranchers unable to access the precision-agricultural tools needed to compete in the global marketplace, parents driving their children miles to access the nearest public Wi-Fi hotspots, individuals unable to apply for or rece…
OPINION Country of Origin Labeling – COOL – has peppered agricultural news and consumer sites for many years. The 2002 farm bill led the way for agricultural product labeling in retail markets with the country where a particular food came from before being imported to the United States.
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