I can't believe Vos/Fitzgerald are trying to wipe out Farmers and Rural communities, wow!

To help their all-important rural voters, the Vos/Fitzgerald authority reached into their pocket of GOP "solutions" and came up with...wait for it, TAX CUTS? Uh, Wisconsin farmers, forget about broadband, saving local schools, access to community medical clinics, road repair, the labor shortage, and young people moving out...tax cuts, their answer to everything.

I'm Not Kidding: Now, after Wisconsin lost 819 dairy farms in 2019, Vos/Fitzgerald is going to make it even easier for small farms to go out of business. 

Remember this jaw-dropping offhand comment from Ag Sec. Sonny Perdue that left most farmers breathless:

Perdue told reporters that he doesn’t know if the family dairy farm can survive as the industry moves toward a factory farm model ... “In America, the big get bigger and the small go out. I don’t think in America we, for any small business, we have a guaranteed income or guaranteed profitability.”

Here are two farmers reactions, and they're not good:



Wake-up Farmers, tone-deaf Republicans want to kill your Family Farm: The story below should make it all perfectly clear. WPR:

Republican Rep. Travis Tranel needs a comb...

Rep. Travis Tranel, R-Cuba City, one sponsor of the plan, said it would give farmers the confidence they need to get bigger ... 

"The way that farming is working is farmers are continually having to get bigger and consolidate, not because they want to, but in order to compete. I'm not necessarily saying that I like that, but that is the reality."-Tranel

But if Rep. Tranel doesn't like it, then why go big-corporate-farm? Why not?

Goodbye Local Control...Again: Like what happened under Walker, Rep. Tranel wants to take local control away, and put Vos/Fitzgerald and lobbyists in complete control:

The bill would also take the decision out of the hands of local governments that have adopted the state's livestock siting standards ..."It shifts what are state rules, state responsibilities, back to where we believe they belong," said Wisconsin Towns Association President Mike Koles. "The state."

Remember city guy Scott Walker's really bad idea to increase milk production? Yes, Walker started this downward slide:

In 2012, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker announced an incentive program to produce, as a state, 30 billion pounds of milk a year by 2020 — a 15 percent increase. Despite record production every year since 2002, Walker urged farmers to step it up even more.

Dairy farmers ... reached 30 billion pounds in 2016 — four years ahead of schedule. By then, however, the market had turned and many dairy farmers were having trouble breaking even on their new investments. Some felt duped by the agribusiness system. “The more surplus farmers produce, the lower the price of agricultural commodities for food processors," said Kara O'Connor, government relations director for the Wisconsin Farmers Union.

But it gets worse. Getting bigger through more Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations will actually destroy small rural communities.

But don't take my word for it, here's a comment made at the Minnesota Farmfest about CAFO's, explaining how this will happen: 

Biodigesting Walker's Plan for more Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO's)!!!

Under the guise of "protecting" drinking water in rural Kewaunee County, or just about anywhere in the state for that matter, Scott Walker handed corporate farming special interests a Christmas gift that will keep on giving for decades.

Walker is proposing a biodigester, not to clean up the Kewaunee Counties ground water, but to build more concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). Looks like rural voters can keep on hating government, while voting in their "small" government Republican abusers.

The state will take proposals to build a centralized plant that would convert manure into energy. Locals in Kewaunee County, such as Lynn Utesch, a small farmer and activist with the group Kewaunee Cares said, "This is not a 'win-win' for Kewaunee County. This is a win for the industry that wants to make it look like this is a solution when in reality all it is a way to consolidate and expand the industry."

With the possible dismantling of the EPA under Trumpian Republicans, governors like Walker can freely experiment on a statewide level, "balancing" business interests against clean drinking water...which is an absurd idea.