Question: You don't have the mass dairy barns here, as you have in California, say?
Hagedorn:“Well you know, the way dairies are structured here in Wisconsin…in Brown County, the "old golden triangle" as you'd look at it, over here in the northeast corner of the state, you'll see some larger facilities with 1,500 to 2,000 head and free stall barns with rotary parlors; a lot of technology being used, and some extraordinary unbelievable production records being achieved, being as we have to deal with the kind of weather that we're dealing with right now with surplus rain and the long winter we struggled through, the info-structure is slightly different, but we hold our own in size, and yuh know there are pros and cons for critical mass. You, take a look at large dry lot dairies with 3,000 to 4,000 head, they have some of their own problems to deal with, also. So, I think that Wisconsin has done a good job of acclimating the new technology, and I think you're seeing farms continue to grow in size and scope, and you still see smaller traditional family farms hanging in there pretty well, as long as they pass these down to their kids or relatives, and they're willing to live within the parameters that kind of facility asks that you live within.”
Question: Expert economic forecasters have been predicting the extinction of the family farm for years. How do you see the future of the family farm with that in mind?
Hagedorn:“I continue to see family farms all over the state, whether it be Northwest Wisconsin, over here in Northeast Wisconsin, even the central part of the state and Clark and Marathon counties. You probably don't see as many small family farms just because it's difficult for a family to survive off of 35 or 40 cows, because you do want to maintain a quality of life, but I think you can honestly make an argument that; take a look at the host farm for Farm Technology Days this coming month, they are going to be milking close to 1,800 head, but it's a father, 2 sons, managing, owning and operating this facility. And, keeping a work force of probably 15 to 20 people around to help with milking and field work. Now, how do you define what a family farm is? You may have smaller numbers in a family farm, you may have larger numbers in the family farm, so I guess it may start boiling down to semantics!”
Question: Technological research in the future…how do you see that affecting the future of family farms in general, and the whole ag business economy? Have we been making great strides, and are there some new things we ought to look at out there?
Hagedorn:“You know that is a good point, and good food for thought. We are (Extension), in conjuction with UW Extension, Brown County fair board, and the Wisconsin Livestock Identification Consortium are going to be implementing a R.F.ID. (Radio Frequency Identification) "tag program" for all of our 4-H youth projects this year. And, this is technology that 4 or 5 years ago was so expensive and so cutting edge that people couldn't get their arms around it, and we see a lot of farms in Brown County that already have R.F.ID tags for identification of animals, for maintenance of herd health records, continuity in milk production and record keeping systems; and here we are starting to use this kind of technology in our 12 and 14 year-olds in their fair projects, so they can understand the importance of premises ID, and just how this all fits in to keeping our country's food supply safe and being able to follow back and cross check if something should transpire that needs to be looked after. We can handle an issue now better than the tomato producers handled the recent salmonella outbreak. I think that technology is getting more affordable. The big key is to what kinds and types of technology will fit in to a certain farmer or farm's individual needs, and where they can benefit from it the most. So, even if you take a look at technology such as TMR mixers, that nowadays are seen everywhere, but in the late 1980's there were very few of them to be seen any place. And, some technologies take a little longer to come along, but now with the advent of computers and the internet, and all of these interesting little twists, we're sort of looking forward to Farm Technology Days in July here in Brown County, cause that's what this show is all about. We're going to have a year's worth of technology all in one tent city, and everybody from the North Central United States, and even farther, can come in and start to get their arms around what is available whether you're looking at tillage equipment, harvesting equipment or cattle care and comfort.”
