pretty close to the same except for one of different warms up a little bit more.
Natural snow will keep its shape better than homemade snow.
Well
You
Wisconsin farmers are likely on edge watching the slashing and freezing of federal funding
billions of dollars of which goes toward farm programs.
President of the Wisconsin Farmers Union, Darren Von Ruden joins us
and thanks for being here.
Thanks for having me.
So in the midst of moves to eliminate things like world food aid, freeze federal grants and loans
and the latest congressional resolution to cut the USDA budget,
how on edge are Wisconsin farmers?
Well, I think really on edge, you know, especially looking at folks that have
applied for grants in the past of mainly in the renewable energy side
have we have an extra neighbor that installed the system this summer.
Just put it online here a few weeks ago and got a notice on Tuesday morning
that the $70,000 grant that he was supposed to be receiving from the federal government is now on hold.
So, you know, that's not pocket change.
It's not something that you can just go out and make up in a couple days.
So, you know, we're really hoping that the freeze gets taken back
and that those funds get distributed.
But then also looking at what's happening with the USA aid AID program.
We haven't heard directly from any farmers here in the state of Wisconsin,
but certainly from some of the other states around the upper Midwest
and corner and soybean programs that are involved in that really on edge
because they've become accustomed to providing those corner and soybeans for that program.
Yeah.
Indeed.
So, the first program you talked about with the $70,000 investment,
this is the kind of grant program where the farmers are supposed to be reimbursed
for work they've already done.
Yeah.
It's a renewable energy for America program.
And, you know, it's a longstanding program.
It's not like it's new.
It's been around for a dozen, probably 15 years already.
And it's really to help put solar and wind either on your buildings or on your property
and get some help with it.
It isn't like it's paying for the whole system.
It just provides a little bit more of an incentive to get it installed.
How likely is it that anything to do with climate mitigation or alternative energy
will, in fact, be on the chopping block?
You know, with the words coming out of the President's mouth,
it's a real good chance that that's going to happen.
So, as farmers also look ahead to spring planting, what is the uncertainty like?
Well, it's pretty high right now, you know, because of really two factors.
If the USAID program does get stalled, that's just going to back up a supply chain.
There's a lot of corner soybeans that go into that market.
And so that just means lower prices any time that there's excess food.
It's going to mean lower prices and fertilizer and all our input costs,
certainly are not going down with some of the tariff trade war talks.
Those prices are probably just going to go up.
So we're going to continue to see that difference of not being able to pay our bills
at the end of the month.
Just taking a little bit of a turn here.
We keep reading that bird flu is on the increase.
What are dairy farmers thinking about that?
Well, you know, very concerned.
And, you know, on two fronts, there are two, I think, number one, not knowing when it's going to stop
or if it's going to infect, you're heard.
But number two, being able to get the accurate information that we need because of another one of the things
that President Biden or President Trump has done in taking that information away from the public health service.
Are you getting any of that kind of information from state ag officials?
Yes, they've been good about trying to continue to keep that information in front of us.
And I know that cap has a weekly information meeting for anybody in agriculture that wants to participate.
So we've been able to get that there.
But when you're looking at that disease, it's really affecting all of the country.
So trying to figure out where the spread is going to next is vital.
And that takes national help to get that done.
So we've been talking about all manner of kind of uncertainties.
Well, what are your members telling you in the midst of this?
Well, you know, certainly understand that there's some things that do need to happen.
But certainly the amount or the variability that is happening, you know,
we can adjust to certain amounts of things.
But with what we're seeing right now, that uncertainty on, you know, five, six,
some, maybe even eight fronts is totally different than what we've seen in the past.
You know, we certainly can handle that.
One or two different things that might affect your bottom line.
But when you have so many different things all at once, it gets really scary.
All right, well, we will be watching it.
Darren Von Ruden, thanks very much.
Thank you, Frederica.
For more on this and other issues facing Wisconsin, visit our website at pbswisconsin.org
and then click on the news tab.
Join us Tuesday for Governor Tony Evers' 2025 State Budget Address.
It's live at 7 p.m. on PBS Wisconsin.
That's our program for tonight on Frederica Fryberg.
Have a good weekend.
Thank you.