Wisconsin Ag Connection - WFU Leader Would Like to See Tweaks in Dairy 30X20

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WFU Leader Would Like to See Tweaks in Dairy 30X20
Wisconsin Ag Connection - 03/20/2012

The president of the Wisconsin Farmers Union says Governor Scott Walker's heart was in the right place when he unveiled the Dairy 30X20 Initiative last week, but said he would like to see a couple of changes in the approach that the state is taking to strengthen the dairy industry. In an editorial piece written by Darin Von Ruden, who is also a Vernon County dairy producer, the WFU leader says he would suggest a few additional criteria to the program.

"Increasing the value of Wisconsin dairy production, and the local economic activity and farm income it generates, by 2020," was the first suggestion Von Ruden made, with the second being an increase in the number of new and beginning dairy farmers.

The program aims to boost Wisconsin's milk production from 26 billion pounds to 30 billion pounds by 2020. Von Ruden adds that one of the reasons that the dairy industry generates so much economic activity is the number of steps between the dairy barn and the cheese case.

"Each step adds value to the milk that the farmer produces, and every addition of value results in additional economic activity in our rural areas," he wrote. "If we play our cards right, we can use the Dairy 30x20 program not simply to increase the volume of milk produced, but to increase the value (and the resulting economic activity) of the milk that we're already producing."

As for specific ways to add more value to Wisconsin's milk supply, he suggests developing new and better uses of whey from cheese plants and transforming whey from a waste product to be disposed to a valuable secondary product line. He says manure digesters transform waste products from dairy farms and processing plants into energy and other valuable byproducts.

"Another approach to adding value to our dairy industry would be to invest in on-farm cheesemaking and other processing enterprises," Von Ruden said. "Organic production is yet another avenue for increasing value. I talked with a farmer recently who transitioned his dairy herd from conventional to organic production. He hasn't added a single cow to his operation, but by the end of the three-year transition process the value of his production has nearly doubled."

Not a fan of larger mega-farms, he said he would like to see an increase in the number of new dairy farms in the state and increase the number of productive farms that are transferred to a new generation. Von Ruden says programs like the Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship Program and the School for Beginning Dairy and Livestock Farmers are effective in providing mentoring and practical education to train the next generation of producers.

Gov. Walker says the Dairy 30X20 program was birthed from discussions by most of the state's farm organizations and agencies, including the WFU, that brought their ideas to the table and drafted a program that could effectively grow Wisconsin's dairy industry.

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