Here & Now

Wet Fields Continue to Slow Planting

Frederica Freyberg:
Forecasts for rain may dampen weekend picnic plans but rain is a much bigger threat to state farmers. In tonight’s inside look, a status report on a challenging and wet spring and early summer. Last week the State Department of Agriculture encouraged farmers with fields still too wet for planting to take advantage of a federal conversation program. The program provides farmers income for land taken out of production and changed into grasslands and other buffers again future flooding. We get an update on the growing season now with president of the Wisconsin Farmers Bureau, Jim Holte, who joins us from Eau Claire. Thanks a lot for being here.

Jim Holte:
Nice to be with you.

Frederica Freyberg:
How are Wisconsin farmers being affected by the amount of rain that we’ve been seeing going back into the spring?

Jim Holte:
Honestly, it varies from place to place depending on your likelihood of getting rain and also types of soil you have. In general it’s been much delayed from normal. So there’s many farmers that have land that they have not and probably will not plant currently in this season. So it’s challenging. Yet each one of us lives by the weather a little bit. I mean, for instance today it’s kind of warm and muggy out and that impacts us all. But for us in farming it’s a big deal. Weather is a big part of our day.

Frederica Freyberg:
It always is. Difficult growing conditions are a way of life for farmers. But this comes on top of depressed milk prices and trade wars and labor shortages. What are your members telling you about how they are faring as we hit what should be peak growing season?

Jim Holte:
Well, you’re exactly right, Frederica. This is one more challenge built on top of other ones that places a little more stress and strain on a lot of farmers. I wish I could say there’s an easy, quick, simple solution. I don’t know if that’s true. The weather continues to be a problem not only with the planting season, but now as some struggle to make dry enough weather to make hay and those sort of things. So the challenges go on, although I would say farmers know the weather can be different every year and so we know we have to adjust and we’ll do the best we can.

Frederica Freyberg:
With 49 Wisconsin farm bankruptcies last year, the highest in the nation, are market and weather conditions resulting in some farmers opting, as we’ve suggested, for putting their land into conservation reserve programs?

Jim Holte:
Well, I think those different options look inviting at times. There’s certain insurance programs as well as certain government land set aside programs that become more of an option when you face these challenges. And each one of us has to make that decision for ourselves, whether it fits our current year and long-term plans. So it certainly is a consideration.

Frederica Freyberg:
What else can farmers do to stave off financial collapse? We know it’s bad out there.

Jim Holte:
Well, I would say that to be a farmer you have to be an optimist to start out with because you spend quite a bit of money and put a lot of things in the ground assuming they’re going to come out and come forward for you for harvest in the fall. So I think amongst farmers ourselves, we need to be a positive voice for our neighbors. We need to stop and have a conversation at times when you know somebody is struggling with the weather or with the fact they may have not planted or harvested their crop on time. So a lot of times it gets to be a social thing that we can help each other with.

Frederica Freyberg:
Are farmers looking forward to getting the new NAFTA ratified?

Jim Holte:
Well, the new NAFTA, as you’ve described it, the USMCA is a trade deal that’s been negotiated between the three countries of Mexico, Canada and the U.S. and while negotiations always have ups and downs and the results are always ups and downs, in general we would like to see it completed through the process and accepted by Congress. Because it will provide some more certainty, both to our farmers and to other business people across the country.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. Jim Holte, thank you very much and have a good holiday weekend.

Jim Holte:
Thanks. You too. It’s a great Fourth of July.