Midwest Farm Weekly 12/30/23
[Music] Farm family community this is Midwest Farm weekly good morning I'm main Wells and thank you for joining us on Midwest Farm weekly on today's show you could call them buoyant bow Vines we will take you on a tour of a Cutting Edge dairy farm on the water and for permitted Farms across our state we have dates and locations for an annual set of meetings to get your questions answered from the DNR then in life on the farm using solar energy to power an electric tractor we will meet a local farmer working to cut down his fuel use the rise in America and around the world the United States anticipates a record 2% increase in cheese production reaching 6.5 million tons in 2024 significant investments in processing capacity and accelerated milk production growth contributes to this projected surge the US is poised for an 8% jump in cheese exports to 4, 466,000 tons driven by higher demand from Japan China Mexico South Korea and the Philippines this past year there has been a shift in the types of cheese produced with cheddar production experiencing a 3% decrease while overall cheese production increased and that indicates a move towards specialized varieties catering to our export markets to boost milk prices many industry experts say exports will be key finding new markets for Wisconsin products is a major Focus for the Department of Agriculture trade and consumer protection I had the chance to sit down with secretary Randy romansky to see how building relationships really leads to Growing sales finding markets for product around the world is a really important aspect of what we should be doing in fact Governor iers has prioritized uh us working with the w Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation and the industry to get Wisconsin egg and food products around the world um uh and it's you know so far so good over the last two years we've had record years of egg and food exports which is that's the direction we want to be going uh and uh for the first time ever like two or three years ago dap got some State funding for our small But Mighty International Agra Business Center team uh to help Wisconsin companies find their footing abroad and the great thing about that program the way it's structured is the dollars come to deap deap gets those dollars right back out to the businesses and organizations that are trying to Market a product in the international marketplace uh they can find what countries they should be looking at they should find what products they're looking at um and that's really that's really been helpful it takes a little while for those relationships to de develop so it's really important that we're making this investment and connecting the dots as it were between Wisconsin products Wisconsin companies and the world you know our our Farmers have a great story to tell our businesses have a great story to tell and when we bring uh delegations in from other countries and you're right we do a lot of that um we uh we get to have them do the whole Seafield touch experience they get to see a modern dairy farm they get to uh see a processing facility they get to talk to businesses um and that's really important part of it that they're looking at sustainability part of it they're seeing the quality of the product which again Wisconsin has a tremendous story to tell there uh all of which makes products that are from here really attractive in the international marketplace there is a new Dairy labeling bill that's circulating in Madison it was introduced by state representative Joy Goin who's a republican from Hobart under the Bill dairy products are defined as products derived from the milk of cows representative Goin says quote Wisconsin Dairy Producers and consumers are strongly impacted by the mislabeling of non-dairy products and the confusion surrounding it this bill would help consumers make informed decisions about Dairy consumption and protect Dairy Producers from misleading competitors end quote the Food and Drug Administration says that one in four Americans has felt misled while shopping for non-dairy products because of its Dairy labeling quick trip is planning to expand its dairy in Lacrosse the company plans to invest more than $151 million to expand operations at multiple locations throughout Wisconsin they say more than 500 jobs will be created by 2027 and this qualifies quick trip for $15 million in tax incentives in addition to its 865 convenience stores Quick Trip manufactures and distributes more than 80% of the products featured in those stores this newly proposed capital investment would help grow their Dairy commissary and bakery facilities and allow for construction of a new satellite Distribution Center the Wisconsin agricultural tourism Association has been awarded a nearly $100,000 Grant from the United States Department of Agriculture the team will use the money to increase the educational resources for Family Farms interested in entering or expanding agricultural tourism efforts another goal of this grant is to make it easier for people to find these farm-based Adventures throughout the state you know the farmtable concept is not easy for people who live in a major city but one project in the Netherlands is bringing Fresh Dairy closer to home by swapping dry land for a floating Farm cbs's Ian Lee reports among the cranes in this Dutch shipping Port sits a floating Barn dozens of cows help deliver fresh milk and cheese to the city of reram we see that they are doing very well their fur is shiny they produce a lot of milk and the milk the quality of the milk is very good the cows graze on hay and leftover orange rinds from a local grocery store robots milk the animals and even clean up their manure owner mink Von wingerden calls it an Innovative climate solution especially in countries that suffer from flooding or drought when you have floating Farm you are climate adaptive so you can keep on producing fresh healthy food for the city Mink's husband floated the idea after fresh food ran out when Hurricane Sandy flooded New York City in 2012 well if you like our milk of course visitors now come from far and wide to see the floating Farm many from big cities City dwellers they also like to visit the farm and to see how food is produce critics say the outcome of these Farms will vary by region of course there's a huge carbon expenditure in the crafting of this you know three story floating steel vessel owners are moving on to the next stage after the success of the buoyant bow Vines planning a second floating Farm to grow vegetables with the cow pies providing the heating Ian Lee CBS News London sounds Cutting Edge but efforts to put egg ulture on the water are as old as the Aztecs and they are also used in India and Bangladesh farmers and egg Business Leaders are invited to Madison for egg day at the capital it's coordinated by the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation it's coming up get this one on your calendar for January 31st the goal is to meet with legislators to bring Clarity to issues impacting agriculture in our state and on the same day the dairy Innovation Hub will host an informational session at the state capital to highlight select projects funded by this in initiative a $7.8 million annual state investment supports the dairy Innovation Hub to drive research and development across three UW campuses ahead on Midwest Farm weekly with the goal of lowering his fuel bill this farmer turned to solar we'll show you how he is now adapting his [Music] equipment Jeremy Hansen here from Fox Valley Technical College for life on the farm and joining me again today is Bob Brown Bob you know last time we talked quite a bit about your electric tractor can you give me a quick overview of of what you have here okay there's a couple real special things that we had to do for developing this electric tractor first off you have to find an application like we did here with this Farmall M and this m has been with me for decades and decades but it has a belt pulley design an old old school design and allows us to get the power from the electric motor into the transmission so I can Propel the tractor and I also will be able to run the uh PTO and all that off electric I've got a very large array of batteries here and they're going to take the energy off our solar but I still the engine is still viable so the engine can run it can and I can Propel the tractor off the gasoline engine in this case here I can run it off the electric or a combination of the two so Bob my next question for you is why why why did you do okay that that is really the the big question there the the why portion is kind of crazy we put in a high-powered solar system in here so I've got a 10kw system and I'm uh real happy with the way I'm real happy with the way it works here's where the problem comes in you can see around me I got my refrigerators and my freezers for our egg and our meat business I got all the lights here in the shop it hasn't changed one bit of what fuel comes out of my tank and my leading cost on the farm here is still the fuel fuel so the solar took away my electric bill yeah you could save from right pocket left pocket but what do I do and that's what really generated this whole thought of I need an electric tractor I have an electric golf cart I utilize the Drone to take a lot of the normal driving I was doing out to the field to check on the live stock but I thought to myself I got this older utility tractor I use it all the time even though I got some newer stuff this thing just works for me right and I and then I had that vision of what a way intake the power so instead of going with pulling the engine out and putting a full Electric in there that's where the whole idea came in but the key there is I need to harness the power off the solar I charge my batteries and I've got massive Bank of batteries on this so I take that energy and I'm going to be able to run off my solar and knock my fuel cost down significantly and that's really the objective is not really building this whole exotic kit but how well is it actually going to work in the application my goal right now is I'm in a frost seed I got 20 acres that need to be frost seated and I'm hoping to have well this I will have this unit all shored up all enclosed all hardened off and ready to go in March to get out and do my Frost seating so that's going to be its maiden voyage is going out I might have a little snow that's normally what you do on on the ground but that's the exciting part so my thing is really kind of an environmental and economic right so Bob there's a significant cost here and you did get a grant for I yes I was I was able to get a S Grant and they were very uh interested in this because this could and it's open architecture so I've received the grant it's helping offset some of the costs not completely but some of the cost some of this is out of pocket some is very graciously supplyed by the uh by the people at s and what I will what I'm our plan is here is when we're complete it this information will be available to any farmer that wants this information everything from uh overall design here of our governor control to our the belt system to the motor I chose and so on and then any other hiccups we might learn along the line so Bob you know I really look forward to coming back in a couple years when you come up with something else that you want to do but absolutely fascinating um information here and um thank you so much for your time today you're very welcome I appreciate you coming out and um it's moving along so because I'm back in uh in June July it will be out used every day right look forward to seeing that thank you so for life on the farm I'm Jeremy Hansen Innovation and action that's for sure thank you Jeremy Farms can now apply to be honored for their longevity at the Wisconsin State Fair Farms reaching 100 Years of continuous family ownership are honored as our properties reaching the 50-year Milestone according to award organizers many of the properties that receive the century and cesa Centennial Farm awards are still actively farming we have application details available in the midwest Farm section of we areg greenbay.com Farms
that qualify will then be honored at the State Fair in [Music] August welcome back to Midwest Farm weekly Kevin herb joining us now from the University of Wisconsin Madison division of extension with some meetings you will want to get on your calendar it is the season right Kevin it definitely is we get into this time of year things have slowed down in the field it's time for farmers and others really to get up to date on the latest in technology and science and one of the specific meeting sessions you wanted to highlight is for some of our larger farms in the state right extension of the DNR for the past 12 13 years or so have done a workshop for The kfo Operators their consultants and key staff really to improve communication and we're back live after the pandemic mic and actually seven locations around the state this year and there are several of them locally we will link you up to that on our website what do we need to do ahead of time register is there a cost so the Thursday before we like to have registration in because we're providing lunch as part of the registration fee or in the case of Mana to walk breakfast and so we want to make sure we've got enough food for everyone because people are not happy when we don't have enough food at meetings they're Farmers they like to eat we've learned as much talk about Farms that are maybe reaching this size or have plans expand and we we'll need a capable permit in the future right so the purpose of the meetings really is to get everybody up to speed on what's new in terms of the paperwork really to prevent problems because we find that if people don't understand what's expected it's easy to make a mistake that can get much larger than it needs to be and so the primary audience is those larger Farms that already have a permit but we do have a number of folks every year that come because they're either thinking well I'm at 400 500 I want to expand in a few years years or I'm right at that threshold and want to find out what's going on without actually having to pick up the phone and talk one-on-one with somebody at the DNR we were talking about the importance of networking certainly the experts who have prepared comments and can answer those technical questions but sometimes talking to other Farmers is the most beneficial exactly this is an opportunity not only to hear some of the latest information from the agencies but also the university but also a chance to talk with other producers who are in that same situation Lar Farmers dealing with that same paperwork Farms looking at expanding to that size it's a really unique opportunity to do that because these Farms certainly have some additional things they need to prepare and plan for one of the key points you wanted to mention was emergency response planning talk about the importance of that so our large Farms know The Importance of Being prepared for a manure spill because unfortunately sometimes accidents happen but when we look at what's occurring on farms knowing what to do for other situations is really important and so this year we're bringing in an expert who can talk to that but the other thing with a lot of our presentations is not only do we have somebody from the University or the agency speaking but we've got a group of farmers manure applicators crop Consultants who are going to be talking about the same thing sharing their own experiences with those same situations I love that another topic on here relates to community Dynamics making sure that neighbors understand operations and know that these are also their community members yeah and this is something we've talked about several times in the past but for three of the locations this year we're really focusing on success stories what have local farms done to really improve communication diffuse some of those situations and improve community relations well we look forward to joining one of these sessions we're going to stop by and get some updates for you but we hope that you are there as well as mentioned you do need to register ahead of time so they have enough food for everyone to enjoy we'll have links for you on our website in the midwest Farm section of We Are greenbay.com Kevin thank you for being here thank you very [Music] much good morning I'm Storm Team 5 meteorologist Alexa stanc can't believe it is already the end of the year of 2023 this year we averaged a highight temperature of 55.6 degrees so that's roughly an inch above our normal average high temperature for the year of 54.7 degrees this year we also averaged a low temperature of 37.1 De so a little bit
above again our normal average low of 36.7 de and we average total precipitation so liquid and snowall of 33.5 6 in a little bit above as well by a couple of inches our normal average precipitation of 31. 61 in now for the month of December we were below average for precipitation not by much though not as bad as it was in the summer and early fall we were below precipitation normals up by about 3/4 of an inch here in Green Bay about a half of an inch in walaw almost 3/4 of an inch in Rylander above average in some areas and places to our South and West do still stay in an exceptional drought can't believe it's already the New Year our average high temperature for the month of January will be 25.5 Dees and our average low temperature will be 11.1 degrees so this
is easily our coldest month of the year for precipitation we will average liquid preep of 1.3 9 in and snowfall of 14.3 in so this is also going to be our snowiest month typically of the year however the climate Prediction Center has put us in this above average category for temperatures cooler temperatures to our South and West this doesn't mean we will be hot it just means temperatures will be a little bit above average Saturday the 30th of December 37 degrees so above average by about 10° 34 degre to finish up the year of 2023 we start off the new year on Monday at 30 2° 37 Tuesday mid-30s for most of the first work week of the year and then uh the end of our first week of this new year will say above average as well now for precipitation looks like we will be with equal chances to be above and below precipitation the rest of the country with the chance to be above average for prip looks like we will see maybe an inch a couple inches come through within the next week and a half for snowfall so not too much more of it will be that liquid precipitation so rainfall could accumulate up to maybe a quarter of an inch of prip as those temperatures are staying above average now we are technically in El Nino so that means we do see those warmer and drier uh Winters right now the rest of winter is looking to be above average with temperatures as we look ahead for our temperature Outlook from January to March and then same thing with our precept looks like we we will be below normal for precipitation heading into the rest of the months of winter so we are right on track to have a very accurate El Nino year uh kind of crazy that it's working out exactly like that very warm for December to a lot of equipment being washed when you drive through the country I guess getting a few things off the to-do list thank you Alexis and thank you for joining [Music] us
2024-01-03 17:40
