[Music]
Major funding for In Wisconsin is provided by the people of
a lion to energy who bring safe, reliable, and
environmentally friendly energy to keep homes,
neighborhoods, and life in Wisconsin
running smoothly, a lion's energy, offering
energy saving ideas on the web.
Coming up in Wisconsin, dairy farmers may face a legal battle
over the way they market milk.
Spend the day with a Milwaukee County probation and
parole agent, and sled dogs pull a stouten woman
through a fight with cancer.
It's all ahead in Wisconsin.
[Music]
Hello and welcome to In Wisconsin.
I'm Patty Lo.
Wisconsin dairy farmers get about $11 for every hundred
pounds of milk they produce.
That's a dollar less per hundred weight than a year ago.
But there's another group of dairy farmers
who's twice as much for their milk.
They've jumped on the bandwagon.
Make that the milk wagon for organic dairy foods.
Our packet says organic dairy farmers are watching their
incomes rise while I'm a lawsuit that could
throw a wrench into their marketing efforts.
25-year-old Cowan Maxwell is doing what few people his age
or any age for that matter, are doing these
days. He's going into the dairy business.
Maxwell started helping out on Dean
Swenson's farm near Irrina when he was 12 years old.
Last fall he purchased Swenson's cows and is now
renting Swenson's land.
Maxwell says he took over the farm because
it's an organic farm and organic farmers are able
to get twice as much for their milk as conventional
farmers. There's no way I could start up as a
young person.
I don't think being conventional
with the milk price and organic was a set price
and you couldn't beat it.
Swenson's fields have been organic since the 1980s.
He switched because falling prices made
paying for egg chemicals difficult.
I am old enough to realize how my father
found and that was with rotating crops
manure from livestock.
And that's basically always been filling.
In 1988, Swenson and six other organic farmers
started the Koolie Region Organic Producers Pool or Crop.
Crop markets, cheese, milk, meat and other products
under the name Organic Valley Family Farms.
Organic Valley Nell Market's products from
550 farms nationwide.
This year we're going to be $156 million in sales
and we're the largest organic farmer cooperative in the
world as far as we know but for sure in
the United States.
Tim Parker, who operates a 40 cow,
200 acu-dairy farm near LaFarge, started
shipping to the co-op a year ago.
I was never a big lover of herbicides and
insecticides chemicals and I just thought I
wanted my ground to be a little bit healthier
which it is now and the other reason was was the money.
The switch to organic doesn't happen overnight.
Parker had to raise the corn and alfalfa he feeds to his cattle
without using pesticides or herbicides for three years
and not use antibiotics or other drugs on his
cattle for one year.
Before he could start shipping to an organic theory.
Organic farming is more expensive but there is a payoff.
The seed corn is probably double what conventional is.
Fertilizers are about $100 more tonne
but that's my newt because we're only talking
on a farm my size here of using 6 to 7 tonne
of fertilizer a year well that's only an
additional $600 to $700 where I'm getting $18 for
milk versus what conventional guys are getting 9.
So yeah I'm getting you know I'm making more money all year long
not just certain periods.
We started with so little with the co-op
that we really took a loss at times
and the farmers stuck with it realizing that in the end
there would be an advantage.
The advantage is a higher price.
An average organic milk is twice the price
of unlabeled milk.
But in spite of the higher price University of
Wisconsin Agricultural Economist Jeremy Fultz
says consumers are flocking to organic milk.
In the late 90s it was nearly doubling every year
it's now it's tailed off some so now it's going
up by 20-30% a year.
The main reason why people inner organic food is health
and concerned for their well-being and their children.
But after that you know organic brings you to a new awareness
of what food is and people start buying it for
because they're making environmental statement
because they want to support a cultural statement
of supporting family farms people like supporting
a co-op like ours.
In this Madison supermarket there are three brands
of organic milk to choose from.
Plus there's Swiss Valley which isn't fully organic
but does point out on the cap that its farmers certify
they don't use recombinant bovine growth hormone
also referred to as RBGH or RBST.
RBGH which increases milk production in cows
has been on the market since 1994.
It's now used in about 15% of the nation's dairy herds
but a recent University of Wisconsin study found around
40% of farmers who tried BGH abandoned its use.
Some of the early studies that we're looking at it
and said oh everybody's going to use it
they've forgotten to get milk out of cows
you've got to feed the cows and the feed cost money
and the RBST cost money and so that's an economic decision.
The maker of RBGH, Monsanto argues there's
a different reason farmers are avoiding
the hormone.
In a lawsuit Monsanto filed against
Okur's theory of main which has a no artificial
growth hormones pledge on its label Monsanto's
theories like Okur's are making misleading
representations that directly disparage
BST and milk from cows supplemented with it.
There are federal rules on milk labeling
but they're in conflict.
The US Department of Agriculture doesn't restrict claims
such as no drugs or growth hormones as
long as they're true.
But the Food and Drug Administration says such
claims must be put in context.
The label must add that there's no significant
difference in RBGH free milk or give a reason
other than safety or quality for not using the drug.
Organic Valley argues the FDA rule doesn't apply in their case
because they don't refer to RBGH alone.
We don't go after RBGH specifically.
We go after all synthetic and added hormones in production.
That's what our claim is.
But the broader claims of organic brands are
also coming under fire.
In June, the lacrosse Tribune carried this ad which alleged
organic dairy labels misled consumers.
It was paid for by the Center for Global Food Issues
which is connected to the Hudson Institute,
a conservative think tank.
There may be claiming we're doing some mislabeling.
I think they're doing an awesome job of mislabeling.
They're not a public group.
They're representing Monsanto.
The ad argues that because organic valley milk,
like virtually all milk, contains added vitamin D,
which is a hormone, the no added hormone claim is false.
We're required by law to put vitamin D in the milk
by the federal rules.
So for them to hold a hostage that something we
can't do anything about is quite of a cute trick.
Their milk has the same too.
What we claim is that our farmers do not use hormones
in their production.
And they want to say, "Yabba cows have hormones."
That's not what the consumer's concern is.
Is it the consumers right to know how their food is produced?
And that's the big question.
Dean Swenson was using organic methods
when a similar battle over labeling was
fought 10 years ago.
Farmers who want to tell dairy customers they don't use BGH
apparently will have to fight the labeling battle again.
In a courtroom in New England, and perhaps with
Washington regulators.
The FDA has told Monsanto it will start checking milk labels
for language it considers false representations.
[Music]
We move now from rural areas to the inner city of Milwaukee.
Wisconsin has more than 64,000 people on probation or parole
but less than 2,000 full-time agents to manage them.
These probation and parole agents work long hours.
One of these agents, Beverly Dillon,
let us spend the day with her a few months ago
as she made her rounds in Milwaukee County.
[Music]
I tend to have a lay of foot so if I'm driving too fast.
Beverly Dillon begins her 10-hour work day at
about 8 in the morning.
Today is her once-a-week round of home visits
to those she supervises on probation or parole.
But the home visits the verified residents,
you want to make sure they live where they say they're living.
I mean, because someone can give you an address,
address in, it's not really a house, it's
not really a residence.
You go looking and it's not there.
So, you want to make sure they have a stable place to live.
When you go inside the house, you want to make sure
they're belongings are there.
Maybe they have some mail that's there.
You know, you look for pictures.
You know, just pictures on a wall family, man.
You just make sure when you go there, you want to
make sure they live there.
First stop is with Haiti, a woman who has been on
probation for 18 months for disorderly conduct.
Yeah, but I like Haiti.
She's one of, you know, I like all of my family.
I'm a client, I don't like to say offenders.
We're like, we're thinking positive.
We're looking towards the future.
You know, that's, that's old.
Haiti has been depressed and suicidal in the past.
Her probation ends tomorrow.
But I'm going to miss her.
But I do want her to call me because I want to make
sure she's doing okay.
You know, there's one thing about this job.
I mean, it goes beyond the job.
You know, if you really care for people,
because these people have real problems.
We don't have real problems.
They have real problems.
Haiti lives on supplemental security income and is going
to school for her GED and to get a driver's license.
I live on a budget.
You know what I'm saying?
If I buy food, I can't pay electric.
Okay. So I'm getting a disconnection,
but I got to live.
Yeah, I complain because it's hard.
It's hard and I cry.
But it's like, okay.
Another day.
Got to give me another day.
Thank you.
I got to do something with this day.
Beverly's, I look at her as not only the probation
officer, but my counselor.
It's that counseling relationship.
Haiti says she will miss now that her
probation period is ending.
But call me.
I'm serious.
Okay. Call me if you need to talk.
I will.
I don't care what time.
Call me.
I always check my voice mail.
Saturday Sunday, whatever.
I'll call you back.
Okay. Call me whatever.
Okay. I'm serious.
I will call.
Okay. See the good thing is
you can call me and I can tell you what to do.
Despite the apparent closeness between agent and client,
Dylan says there could be no hugs as they part.
I'm not hating.
I hate it.
Sometimes you got to cut it off.
Yeah. We can't hug.
We're not supposed to hug.
That's against the friendization policy.
Let's say if she wasn't an honest person.
She said, well, I hugged during an idea this era.
And then when you get into hug and you get emotionally
involved, you know, you want to kind of draw
the line.
You know, you want to maintain, you want
to keep the professional.
Dylan immediately moves on to her next client,
Melissa, who's on probation for writing bad checks.
When she got pregnant and she got put in custody
for upscoundering, she did a complete turnaround,
a complete turnaround.
And that has been, it has to be going on a year that
she's been 100% compliant.
And with everything, I mean, she's paid all her restitution.
She reports that she's supposed to.
I just have to praise.
I can't do anything but praise it.
Dylan actively supervises more than 50 clients.
In the number of times of months she sees each
person varies case by case.
Today, she's making eight home visits.
Her ex-boyfriend is threatening to shoot the house up.
Yeah, and I told him, well, I suggested that
she tell him to leave.
But you know, and it just started just because
of a child, the baby.
And so now he's threatening to shoot the house up.
So I told him, you need to call the police, but
she's going to get a restraining order against him.
I'm walking.
Second district, please.
I have somebody's call my house, they throw a shoot
at my house and everything else is an ex-boyfriend.
And I can't get down to the courthouse to a tomayah
be getting restrained.
So what can I do in the meantime?
What can I file a report against him now?
Okay. Thank you, bud.
Good. All right, will you call me or let me
know with this thing?
Because I mean, you just can't take these kind of risks.
So keep your door locked.
Don't answer the door.
And why risk it when you can do something about it?
Because then what happened?
She came, she get killed, then all of a sudden what?
Well, she told her PL, you know, and then when
did anything about it?
The warning signs were this, people are going to be
searching for someone to blame.
That's what's going to happen.
So we know the threat is there.
Let's follow through.
Probation in parole officers or POs work with a partner
a majority of the time.
But whether or not it's a day with a partner, a PO
always keeps to a schedule.
Check in with the office regularly and
carries a cell phone.
Take my cell phone.
Safety. There are four levels
of supervision from minimum to high risk.
Probation is a privilege.
It's an alternative to going to jail.
So we revoke based on behavior.
Okay, so if you're not acting appropriately in the
community, then the sentence, the original sentence
needs to be enforced.
Adric, how are you doing?
Is everything going to be okay?
Well, why don't you meet me over at your house?
Take my family.
Okay, bye bye.
Adric, now this is the person who came out of the
institution doing well.
When he got out, well, he didn't have a place to go.
He said I'm with emergency housing until
he got on his feet.
And now he's in a one-room.
Dylan says she sometimes doesn't remember what her clients
were originally charged with.
And unless they continue with criminal behavior, she
prefers to think about the future instead of the past.
So what's up?
Will you look at Mighty Dapper today?
Adric is on parole until March 2004.
He served three years in prison for armed robbery
and being party to a crime.
My first came out.
I went through a program there.
And they used to have like more in meditations and little
things and everything that they would have every day.
And I remember one that stuck with me and it
said if you failed to plan, you plan to fail.
And my plan was to gain employment immediately.
And a lot of people, including yourself and some other
people, help me with that.
He's doing really good.
Just keep it up.
Yeah, hopefully after I'm off, then I can give my
silver rights restored.
I can just put this behind me and go forward.
The length of each visit varies from a few minutes
up to an hour, depending on what needs to be discussed.
Fred is next on today's list.
He's on probation for disorderly conduct and bail jumping.
He says he found his wife with another man.
Fred got a knife and threatened to kill him.
When I first met Fred, boy, he would cry.
And he would cry.
And I mean, he would cry.
I mean, I was like, look, I ain't never
seen me in front of him.
And he was just so hurt that this woman, his wife
would do this to him because he loved this woman.
And I mean, he loved her.
Fred spent three and a half months in jail.
Agent Dylan has helped him deal with divorce, child
custody issues, bad health.
Now Fred says his ex-wife wants to come back home.
I love, I miss a quick deal.
Sometimes I think I should just call up and say, come on home.
But I can't find it in my heart to ask that.
I want to, but I can't find the words to say, you know.
It's hard.
As an agent, you have to do family intervention.
Most of the time, that's the first thing you have to do
before I have to deal with his issues before I can even
address anything I want to deal with or ask about probation.
The day contains visits with Randall on probation
for disorderly conduct.
Sammy, on probation for first degree reckless endangerment,
he was with a group that tried to kill another man, Eddie,
on probation for domestic violence, and a new client
for Agent Dylan, Timothy, on probation for auto theft.
I need a full tour of the house.
This is my first time here, you know, since
it's my first time here.
Where are we going to just, I'm following you.
I'm here with my kitchen, everybody.
But just a little bit of trim.
It's kind of messy, so in this room, we don't really use that.
Okay, Timothy.
At about six o'clock, Agent Dylan's nearly 10 hour day
of home visits is finished.
Yeah, but I had a good day today, huh?
But you know, I always have good days, no home.
Tomorrow, Agent Dylan will be back in her department
of corrections office where she will meet with
another round of clients.
She will do whatever needs to be done to keep them
out of trouble, and on the road back into society.
[Music]
We're in the dog days of summer now, and it's hard to
remember those long, cruel Wisconsin winters and how
they can lead to cabin fever.
In our next story, we meet a woman who's found a way
to beat the winter blues.
Candy Bradley took up dog sledding almost a decade ago.
What she didn't know when she started is that her dogs
would help pull her through more than a season of snow.
We caught up with Candy Bradley last winter near Stoughton.
It's fun.
And it's fun to watch more.
You watch to see that everyone has a tight tug line so you know
that they're not goofing off.
Good girls.
Slub dogs are neat because they're so happy.
Candy Bradley loves to take her dog sledding.
It's a passion that her husband Mike shares.
When they brought my dogs, I asked them to bring
a few more dogs, so Mike could get a hook too.
It's always nice to have health and it's nothing better
than having your sweet heart.
Go dog sledding with you.
The Bradley's have 19 Alaskan Huskies.
They're a mixed breed so they don't all look the same.
They have different personalities too, but
they all enjoy attention.
"Gertus, good puppies."
"Yeah, too.
Yes, very good puppies."
"They're hooked to each other and then you attach
it to the tug line."
Snowfall comes too late in the season to get the
dogs in shape for racing, so they take to the
trails in the fall with an ATV instead of a sled.
"All right."
A few years ago was great snow and we had 10 miles of trails.
Last year there wasn't hardly any snow anywhere in Wisconsin.
The success of a team in a race depends on the
performance of the lead dogs.
"Gee." A good leader is essential,
but you also have to have a relationship with that leader
where they'll listen to you.
And Lepard does when she comes to an intersection, you can
visibly see her kind of perk up.
And you don't tell her ahead of time which way to turn.
You wait until she's right at the turn and then you
just say, "Gee, or hawk."
And she knows which way to go.
Each pair of dogs in the line has a job to do,
starting with the leaders who not only have to
know which way to turn, but have to run fast enough
to keep the line tight.
"Next dogs are called Point.
After the Point Dogs are called Team Dogs,
and they help carry the sled.
And real dogs have the dogs in the back.
And they have to get the sled around trees
and other obstacles."
Candy bought her first dog team almost 10 years ago.
She enjoyed them for only a few months before receiving
devastating health news.
In October of 1994, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
"Bress cancer is not something that is cured.
It's something that can come back in 16 years, 20 years.
So it's kind of one of those things where you
could be waiting for the other shoe to drop.
The other shoe dropped only two years later.
The cancer came back in her lungs.
At that point, doctors said she had only two
to three months to live.
"They did tell me that if it ever went to my lungs,
I should consider taking those trips I've
always wanted to take."
There was a trip she had always wanted to take,
but could never afford.
The I did erod dogs letting race in Alaska.
"I wasn't thinking that I'd ever be able to go, so when
my friend called and said, would you like to go to the
I did erod and like, yeah."
Her friends collected donations at the Java Junction in Stotin.
They raised enough money to send the Bradley's to Alaska.
And they got her a ride with one of the professional
muskers before the race.
And the ride was awesome.
Just to see how a real I did erod team ran was great.
It was great.
Since her trip to the I did erod,
Candy has continued to pursue her love of dog sledding.
Her two to three month prognosis has stretched
to almost nine years.
And even though a few years ago the cancer recurred in
her bones and in her brain, she remains positive.
She says her attitude comes from
spending time with her dogs.
"It's a great motivator to get up and get out of bed.
I never think about if I'm hurting or anything
when I'm playing with the dogs, I'm just having fun."
"They're never in a bad mood.
They're just sweet, lovable dogs that want to play."
"And I think she's pretty."
"Yeah, I think I'm pretty."
"And when you're around someone or something that's so happy,
you can't help but rub off on you."
Since we taped that report last winter, Candy Bradley
continues to cope with the side effects of weekly chemotherapy,
but still keeps active carrying for her dogs.
That's our show for tonight and the end of our In
Wisconsin pilot season.
We'll be back in September with a full weekly series of shows.
Before we return though, we'd like to get your feedback.
You can email your comments to us at inwisconsin@wpt.org.
You can also call us at 1-800-253-1158.
We leave you with a walk through the Avan
Bottoms floodplain forest.
Producer Joanne Garrett narrates the scenic tour.
Good night.
State natural area, Avan Bottoms.
Tom Meyer describes.
Avan Bottoms is what we call a floodplain forest,
a southern wet forest.
And it's in the floodplain of the river, a place
where waters typically rise during the spring floods.
They cover the entire ground.
And when the waters go down, the landscape is left with
small little pockets of water, great places for amphibians
and reptiles and ethnic turtles and things like that.
Things like this, fields of spring flowers, part of this
floodplain forest, a special place, a unique place, saved.
Avan Bottoms on a day in May.
[birds chirping]
Major funding for inwisconsin is provided by the people of a
lion's energy who bring safe, reliable and environmentally
friendly energy to keep homes, neighborhoods and life
inwisconsin running smoothly, a lion's energy, offering
energy saving ideas on the web.
[music fades out]