Wisconsin's dairy industry is dealing with a big shock after one processor, Grassland Dairy Products Inc., dropped its contracts to buy milk from dozens of farms, citing a new Canadian policy that favors that nation's domestic milk producers.
Spring has brought gut-wrenching uncertainty to scores of dairy farms around Wisconsin. On April 1 a Clark County-based processor dropped their contracts, leaving them without a place to sell their milk.
The concept of farm to school — improving nutritional options and expanding educational opportunities for students through agriculture — has an inherently local character.
An ongoing rash of illegal harvesting in northern stretches of Minnesota and Wisconsin is helping hasten the decline of the region's paper birch trees.
A glut of milk and cheese has had the dairy industry struggling with lower and more volatile prices for a several years. Now there's growing price uncertainty on the horizon for soybean growers.
Schools in rural areas of Wisconsin with decreasing populations also face a decline in student enrollment, a trend causing budget anxieties for district administrators.
The amount of money a school district in Wisconsin receives from the state in a given year depends on a series of funding equations that factor in enrollment, student poverty, local property values, transportation needs and other criteria.
