10thirtysix

We recently brought you the story of Loyal, a small Wisconsin dairy town and how small businesses and farmers there struggle to survive during the onset of the pandemic. In recent months, 1,036 producers along with our partners at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel looked back at Loyal to examine the future of dairy farming. They found some next generation farmers who just might help save America's dairy land. (upbeat music) (birds chirping) When you look at the dairy industry, I don't think small farmers have a lot of hope. It's been on the family. It's in our blood. You don't wanna be that one that it just ends at you because then you feel like it's on you the rest of your life. -

Rick

The small dairy farm has been the backbone of America's dairy land. I'm Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter, Rick Barrett, and I've been covering the dairy industry for years. Thousands of those family farms have been sold or forced out of business because of low milk prices, labor challenges and new competition like non-dairy beverages. The future of dairy farming is being passed from one generation to another in places like Clark County, Wisconsin. How will the next generation of dairy farmers survive and succeed? I visited three families to find out. (soft music) At Roehl Acres, you'll often find Dennis and Suzie Roehl's three children doing their daily chores. -

Rick

What do you want for your kids? Do you want them to be the next generation on the farm? Oh, I think so. I think so. As long as you embrace the change. -

Rick

The Roehl kids would be fourth generation dairy farmers if they continue the family business. "Younger minds could help save America's dairy land." Says global futurist, Jack Uldrich, who I invited to join me at the Roehl farm. If you wanna survive in the future, you have to have a beginner's mind. Having a beginner's mind when you're 40 or 50, it's hard to go back. So if you're blessed with children, they are inherently curious. One of the changes that I think both you Suzie and Dennis, you're gonna have to be open to is learning from your children. The world is changing so fast and be open to their ideas. And I think there's gonna be so much change in the next decade. And children are just more exposed to some of the technological change, especially at the digital level that you have to be willing to listen to younger people. -

Rick

Do you think you'll be a farmer someday? Probably. -

Rick

Why is that? I don't know, I was in the barn since I was three. Okay. And Kathryn, what about you? I'm more in between both of them. I wanna be interior decorator and help Jackson on the farm. I do think we have to change for our children to want to continue. But I think, probably one of the things that we're looking at very hard is the robotic milking. That would be, I think, our biggest challenge on the farm other than financial is hired help. It's getting people here. It's really tough. It's tough. And Jack, are they on the right track here or how do you feel about it? The look at robotic technology I think is absolutely spot on. I think the difficult thing is to know when to pull the trigger. Robotic technology is gonna get better and it's also going to get more affordable over time. And I think that many kids look at you and your parents and they saw that you were working 24/7, 365 and said, "That's a hard life." But suddenly with robotic technology, it is actually going to make farming more attractive for the next generation. (upbeat music) I've been doing it since I was a little kid. I think I have a photo right here of me helping my dad. And so I've been doing it for forever, but I still learn things every day. -

Rick

Next generation dairy farmer, Max Malm uses technology to succeed. His family is among the first in the state to have an automated cow feeder in addition to their milking robots. -

Max

My dad and my grandpa, they have allowed the farm to embrace technology. -

Rick

They've been pretty open to your ideas on letting you try different things. Yeah, they are. I have to convince them, but I think they trust me and we've done a lot of things that I wanted to do. And sometimes, it hasn't worked out, but I think overall, they listen to me and we work well together. So what you're looking at is our software program. It has your milk production, your milkings per day. If you wanna save labor, you want the cows to do everything on their own. You want them to get milked, you want them to eat and you want them to be healthy. -

Rick

How much would it cost for someone who would like to put in robots? -

Max

Well, one robot, I think there are anywhere from 200 to $250,000 per robot. And then you have to build the barn around that. -

Rick

Wow. So yeah, you're looking at, for a two robot barn, easily, a million dollars. And it's an investment that's a long-term investment and you just have to believe and want to do that the rest of your life. It's like buying a house. You're kind of stuck with it. -

Rick

Yeah. -

Max

It allows us to do a lot more, especially on the cropping side of things and just taking care of your other animals. -

Jack

Well, if you actually look at the future of the farm, I think there are going to be robots, there are going to be manless tractors. There are going to be satellites looking down on your individual farm fields identifying which crops are growing, which ones aren't. And you are going to be able to apply the exact amount of water, the exact amount of pesticide, herbicide, whatever you need on it. And you're doing things efficiently today, but in the future, farmers are gonna take their game to another level. -

Rick

Most small dairy farmers are like brothers, Chris and Robin Rueth, who say high-end technology is just not feasible right now. It's like a roller coaster, and like I said, you get your good years and you're making extra money and all. You're paying bills off or upgrading stuff. But then you've got your down times, and it's just like, okay, you gotta be careful financially, what you spend on. -

Rick

Do you wanna get into robotics or anything like that for milking? -

Robin

yeah, it's in conversation. It's an idea we're just kind of bouncing around. We're not gonna say not for sure, but time will tell. -

Rick

It's a lot of money. -

Robin

Yeah, it is. Other guys go with the robots because it's hard to find a really good employee that sticks it out. Nowadays, it's basically a good employee is a needle in the haystack. (truck engine roaring) -

Rick

What do you like about, Chris, what is it about farming that you really enjoy? -

Chris

I would say it's the flexibility of owning your own business, and at the end of the year, seeing what you achieved, what you've been through. I don't know, farm is one thing not everybody can do it. You really got to enjoy it to be doing it because it's a 24/7 job. And I like farming. I grew up with it and it's a rewarding life, but it could be a challenge too. Some days are better than others. You gotta be there. You can't shut the cows down. -

Rick

And for some farmers, could it mean that maybe they're not necessarily milking cows for their main income, they might be doing something else? I think that that is true. I think they're going to have to look at diversifying. I think that there is going to be the opportunity for dairy and cheese, but some innovative farmers in the off season are growing hazel nuts, they are doing other things. What else could you be doing with the land? I think the advances in renewable energy are gonna become astounding. So there's still a lot of open space here. Solar panels, wind turbines producing some energy, look to diversify your farm. The very farm that we're at also has an event center. And I think that that, it's a wonderful way to diversify their income. We have dairy cows, but we also raise all our bull calves and we feed them out and sell them when they're about 1500 pounds. And we also run enough land. We own 650 acres of crop lands that we can sell excess corn and beans. (soft music) -

Rick

For generations, Wisconsin has been America's dairy land, helping to feed the world, but struggles remain. (soft music) Futurist Jack Uldrich in our next generation farmers, say you have to creatively build your own future despite the sobering reality of disappearing dairy farms across Wisconsin. -

Jack

We are going to return to small medium-sized farms that are distributed throughout the world. So I would be cautiously optimistic. But this isn't to say that they don't need to change. They need to leverage today's existing technology to do what they've always done, but to do it better, faster, more affordably and move into innovative new products and services. You kind of wonder at times too, how long is the family farm gonna last? Like 10 or 20 years down the road, how many of these family farms are gonna be gone? Especially people Chris and I's age. -

Rick

What's your advice if you are saying, if you all are gonna get into this, Jackson, Devon, Kathryn, if you're all gonna do this, what's your advice for them? What do you wanna teach them? Well, everything is always evolving. So you can't be afraid of change and things are gonna change. They always have, they always will. And I think as long as you embrace the change instead of trying to stay away from it, I think you'll be okay. So it's still gonna be a lot of small farms. And the way our generation is going, I think if you want to continue farming, you're gonna have to try to do things that benefit not just yourself, but the community and the environment, your land. That's what the future is going to be. (soft music) -

Portia

Please check out milwaukeepbs.org/dairy to read reporter Rick Barrett's story on the future of Wisconsin's dairy industry.