Dairy farming continues to decline in Wis, and Trump and Walker aren't helping

You may have heard our president gave a little talk yesterday in our state . And our Fair Governor was more than happy to roll out the welcome mat and hide behind Trump on an issue that's not breaking the GOP's way.

Check out the hat I’m going to give President Trump when he’s here -- to thank him for sticking up for Wisconsin’s dairy farmers in the trade deal with Canada! #MakeDairyGreatAgain pic.twitter.com/Kmu3uugMiT

— Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) October 24, 2018

As usual, Walker was BSing if not outright lying, and using the occasion to kiss up to deplora-trash that have backed Trump. But hours before the event at the airport hangar, people who know more than Trump and Walker said the big talk about "fixing NAFTA" is likely to generate next to nothing for the people in need of help.

The renegotiated trade agreement between the U.S., Mexico and Canada is of little use to the dairy farmers President Donald Trumpinsisted on helping, Federal Reserve banks in the Midwest are reporting.

"Gains from the new agreement are seen as "too small and too far in the future to help dairy farmers," the Chicago Fed reported in the central bank's periodic report on economic conditions across its 12 districts.

The Minneapolis Fed reported that "a substantial number of dairy operations have exited the business since the beginning of the year." The report, called the "Beige Book," was released Wednesday.

And few places have seen this more than Wisconsin. The state has lost more than 1,000 dairy operations since Trump's election, and more farms have closed so far in 2018 than they did in all of 2017.



The Midwestern Fed offices note that while there is a slightly opened Canadian market for milk, the restrictions for many other agricultural products are still in place, causing the prices that farmers get to keep plummeting.

Before, U.S. dairy farmers faced strict import quotas and tariffs. Under the new agreement, which still needs to be approved by Congress, Canada agreed to drop restrictions, allowing U.S. producers to supply up to 3.6 percent of Canada's dairy market.

Even so, the Chicago Fed reports "dairy farmers continued to struggle," and Canada and Mexico kept their tariffs on pork, dairy and other agricultural products that they imposed in retaliation for Trump's tariffs on steel and aluminum products imported to the U.S.

And yet the overwhelming majority of the major Agri-business organizations are supporting a Governor who has encouraged the CAFOs and other overproduction that has driven so many of these farms out of business.

Proud to have the endorsement of leaders in Wisconsin’s agricultural industry. https://t.co/ibZqZnXuz2

— Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) October 19, 2018

In addition, Walker took the stage last night with a president who wants to massively curtail the immigration and residency of many of the foreign-born workers that dairy operations depend on. Note this passage from a report earlier this year by UW-Extension Agricultural Agent Trisha Wagner in the Wisconsin Agriculturist, where dairy farmers admit that immigrants are the only people they can find to do the work.

Farmers interviewed in UW surveys reported difficulties finding U.S.-born workers willing to fill dairy farm jobs. Farmers said many young people in rural Wisconsin have little desire to work on dairy farms, and it is hard to find U.S.-born people willing to work long hours, night shifts and weekends.

One Wisconsin dairy farmer said: “So as our last two children entered high school, and I realized that soon I would have no family labor to rely on, we moved our farm to all hired labor. I have not been able to hire an American citizen since 1997. I have tried! The way I see it, if we didn’t have Hispanics to rely on for a workforce, I don’t believe I could continue farming.”

Farmers insist that this demographic shift in the dairy labor force is not an effort to undercut the local wage rate but, instead, to find “reliable,” hardworking, year-round employees willing to work the demanding hours and do the necessary tasks.

In the words of another Wisconsin dairy farmer: “It’s not about Hispanics. It’s about who wants to do the job. We don’t get a lot of applications from people who want to do the job. There are lots of myths out there. … In our area, you hear from some people that these people [Hispanics] are taking jobs away. But the fact of the matter is that there is nobody here who will work for those wages. The folks in ag cannot afford to pay those wages.”

The real Wisconsin farm scene.

In addition, immigrant workers and their families keep the already-declining populations of rural Wisconsin from falling off a cliff, and likely keeps some of the local schools open. You can bet a lot of the (Anglo) people that went to last night's hate rally in an airport hangar in Mosinee don’t recognize that, nor how fragile things really are for them and their communities.

But they should. Because the only chance those people have in breaking the downward spiral of farming and small-town losses is to reject the deregulatory, “big business over everyone else” mentality that Donald Trump, Scott Walker and Leah Vukmir share. And they need to do it this November, before it is all gone.