Brian Roebke photo
Highlighting the federal investments she helped secure to help Wisconsin’s farmers, producers, and growers mitigate the impact of climate change and build sustainable agriculture operations, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (right) visited Brickstead Dairy in Greenleaf last week.
By Brian Roebke
Editor
U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin visited Brickstead Dairy in Greenleaf on Oct. 11 to highlight the federal investments she helped secure to help Wisconsin’s farmers, producers, and growers mitigate the impact of climate change and build sustainable agriculture operations.
During the visit, Senator Baldwin toured Brickstead Farms, a five-generation family-run dairy farm that’s a United States Department of Agriculture grant recipient.
“It’s an amazing story,” Baldwin said, noting the farm was started around the time Wisconsin became a state.
“There’s a lot of headwinds facing people in farming in particular,” she said. “There’s fluctuating costs, prices for milk, the challenges brought on by climate change, there’s also fluctuating costs of inputs.”
All of these combine to make farming very challenging at this time.
“In terms of climate change, we’re dealing with things like drought, flooding, extreme temperatures, and depletion of soil nutrition,” she said. “These are all significant factors.”
She outlined the Inflation Reduction Act that supported that included $19.5 billion to help farmers implement and expand conservation and sustainable agricultural practices.
“The act has some real strong investments in rural communities,” Baldwin said.
She was looking forward to seeing all of the forward-thinking ideas about “climate smart agriculture” that Dan Brick has implemented at the farm.
You’ve been a steward of this land and doing it long before it was popular,” Baldwin said.
These conservation programs have long been popular with farmers, and this funding is provided to existing programs that are already oversubscribed and underfunded. Brickstead Dairy, along with partner organizations, is the recipient of a nearly $5 million USDA Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities grant to support the production and marketing of climate-smart commodities.
Also present for the farm tour were representatives from Healthy Climate Wisconsin, Faith in Place, Climate Action Campaign, National Wildlife Federation, NRCS/Fox River Demo Farms/WI, and Brown County Land Conservation/Fox River Demo Farms.