Dairy Respondents Worried About Land

Changes in agricultural-land use have adversely affected the dairy industry and communities in southwestern Wisconsin, according to a study conducted by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. Within the study, residents of four counties expressed concerns about outside investors buying land for residential development as well as for solar-power generation.

Claudine Pied, an associate professor of sociology, conducted the study along with Shan Sappleton, an associate professor of political science, both at UW-Platteville. The project involved in-depth interviews with 55 residents of the counties, both dairy farmers and other individuals with connections to the dairy industry. And a survey of 57 questions was sent to dairy producers in Wisconsin’s Grant, Dane, Crawford and Lafayette counties; it also was available online.

The researchers received 398 responses to the survey. Of the total respondents, 86 percent were dairy farmers or other farmland owners. The other respondents were comprised of people who had been raised on farms or whose businesses rely on farms, Pied said. More than half of dairy producers who responded to the survey had herds of fewer than 99 milking cows. And of those producers, about half farmed in either Grant or Dane counties.

Both interview and survey results indicated that respondents from the four counties were concerned that outside investors – as opposed to neighbors or people the respondents already knew – were buying land. They indicated it was having a negative effect on agriculture. The investors were buying land for residential development or solar-power generation.

More than half of survey respondents indicated that farm consolidation was having a negative effect on the environment.

In the interviews respondents expressed loss of a sense of community. Fifty percent of those respondents added that there had been a decline in religious and family values. They talked about how life had changed from when they were raised on their family farms. They also pointed to communities becoming smaller and to a decline in schools.

“We heard about that a lot,” Pied said.

The researchers asked participants to tell them about their connections to farms. Dairy farming, land and family were discussed in generational terms – looking back as well as looking forward. The respondents expressed a strong commitment to maintaining connections to farm and land, often because of family history. They acknowledged that for the next generation to take over the farm there needs to be an investment in it. But families don’t want to commit to such an investment if they’re not sure there will be another generation to take over the farm.

Source: agupdate.com

Photo Credit: GettyImages-Minchen Liang EyeEm