On Tuesday, May 28, Wisconsin Dairy Alliance urged lawmakers to reject Gov. Tony Evers’ budget proposal to increase fees that pay for state regulators. Below are highlights from an article by Steven Verburg that appeared in the Wisconsin State Journal on May 30, 2019.
“Dairies of all sizes have been (devastated) by low milk prices and tariffs in recent years,” alliance president Cindy Leitner said in a press release. “Now is not the time to nearly double the current $345 annual CAFO permit fee or implement a massive new five-year renewal fee on CAFOs.”
Amid low milk prices and other pressures, a record number of Wisconsin dairy farms have closed. Most are smaller operations, but an unknown number of large feedlots have been among them, said Paul Mitchell, a professor of agriculture and applied economics at UW-Madison.
Farming contributes $88.3 billion to the state economy, according to the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.
