Frederica Freyberg:
Wisconsin’s deep partisan divide is sometimes discussed in terms of rural versus urban values. In tonight’s look ahead, a preview of a new Wisconsin Public Television documentary. A one-hour special that explores the challenges of life in the country. It’s called “Portraits from Rural Wisconsin.” In this scene, Gays Mills feed service owner Tammy Olsen organizes an emotional town hall meeting on milk prices.

Tammy Olsen:
We want to say thank you. The support we’ve received for this has been tremendous. So just a few quick announcements.
Uncharacteristically, I reached out and I made some phone calls and sent some emails to my state representatives. And much to my surprise, and much to my happiness, we are now having our own town hall-type meeting.

Andy Soth:
Tammy put together a panel of politicians, their aides, civil servants, with industry representatives.

Tammy Olsen:
And we have Kevin Walleser. He just walked in from the Milk Marketing Board, and I believe we have a seat of honor for you too.

Andy Soth:
Before the first question, Tammy gets a round of applause.

Tammy Olsen:
Thank you. This has really been a labor of love right straight from my heart.

Andy Soth:
The gathered dairy farmers whose livelihoods are dictated by the laws of supply and demand have questions about both. On the demand side, ideas about schools.

Woman:
And my thought is, get our kids drinking good milk. How do you get good milk into schools?

Man:
Kevin, go ahead and answer that one.

Kevin Walleser:
Essentially, they want kids to drink chocolate milk that tastes like dirty water. Like in your after school vending machines, it’s got to be a 12-ounce bottle. Well, none of the vending machines work for 12-ounce bottles. They work for 16-ounce bottles. So then everything’s got to be retooled. It’s total government is what it is.

Woman:
We had a question here.

Andy Soth:
There are worries about competition in the marketplace.

Woman:
We went to Wal-Mart, my daughter and I the other day. Check out the milk section. Almond milk all the way across the top. That’s not milk. Seems like everybody’s against us. They can take stuff from a nut and sell it as nutritious for milk. To me, that just blows my mind.

Andy Soth:
Then the questioning turns to supply.

Man:
I want to address this to Kevin. What are we overproducing right now?

Kevin Walleser:
Nationwide, how much do we need?

Man:
Nationwide.

Kevin Walleser:
We’re probably 15% long.

Man:
We’re 15?

Kevin Walleser:
Yeah.

Man:
Big number.

Kevin Walleser:
We’re probably 15% long. We can’t drink our way out of this domestically.

Woman:
Do we have the microphone? Thank you.

Man:
I went the short course in Madison, and that was in 1988 and they told me that 80 cows is enough for one family. If you’ve got two families, 160 cows is enough for that. So why, why does everybody want to overproduce, you know? Why can’t we cut back our numbers on cows? This thing of always letting the bigger farmer get more cows because they want more money then they can produce it at $10. For what, you know? We can’t even — we can’t even buy equipment. We can’t do anything to do our own stuff. These young farmers here, how the hell do they start farming?

Woman:
Exactly.

Man:
You know? What do they got? Do I say to my two young kids that want to go into farming? Do I say, “Oh, no,” you know?

Andy Soth:
Some emotions are close to the surface.

Woman:
I think we’re all looking for a silver bullet. We’re looking for a scapegoat and we’re looking for an easy answer. And I don’t think any of those exist. And I just made a little note here that kind of bad things happen when people get backed in a corner and you have a whole room full of people here who feel like they’re backed in a corner.

Frederica Freyberg:
Andy Soth is the producer of “Portraits From Rural Wisconsin.” The debut of the one-hour documentary is next Thursday, April 11 at 8:00 p.m., on Wisconsin Public Television.