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Agriculture

Agriculture, Daily Bread, Economy, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 4.28.25: Needless Uncertainty During Wisconsin Agriculture’s Planting Season

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be windy with evening thunderstorms and a high of 80. Sunrise is 5:52 and sunset is 7:54, for 14 hours, 0 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 1.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s School Board meets at 5:15 PM, goes into closed session at 5:30 PM, resuming open session at 7 PM. Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1845, the first issue of Scientific American magazine is published.

Where agriculture requires as much certainty as possible, Trump brings uncertainty beyond mere vagaries of the weather:

As Wisconsin’s planting season gets underway, cuts at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and fluctuating tariffs on foreign trading partners are creating a new level of uncertainty for farmers.

Since President Donald Trump took office in January, the USDA has ended two programs that gave food banks and schools money to buy food from local ranchers and farmers. One of the programs, the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program, was used in more than 40 states, accordingto Politico. 

The other program, The Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program, was used in all 50 states and provided up to $900 million in funding, according to the USDA and the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.

See Trevor Hook, Wisconsin’s growing season arriving with uncertainty amid USDA cuts, tariffs (‘Reciprocal tariffs on US agricultural products and cuts to the federal agriculture department are adding new complexity to Wisconsin’s planting season’), Wisconsin Public Radio, April 25, 2025.

A New York Florida real estate man, having failed time and again at his business ventures, was the last person on Earth to grasp the needs Midwestern agriculture. See also Farmers and Farmers, Part 2 (Slogans and Reality).

Metamaterial origami robots:

Mechanical metamaterials are structures carefully designed to give rise to unique or unusual physical properties. Now a team has taken inspiration from origami to create a modular metamaterial system. These units couple twisting movement with compression or expansion, and by combining these modules in different ways the researchers behind this work have found applications across a range of fields, from lightweight dancing robots to mechanical computing.

Agriculture, Business, Daily Bread, Economy, Tariffs, Taxes/Taxation, Trump, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 4.16.25: Farmers, Part 2 (Slogans and Reality)

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 55. Sunrise is 6:11 and sunset is 7:38, for 13 hours, 28 minutes of daytime. The moon a waning gibbous with 89 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Parks & Recreation Board meets at 5:30 PM.


On this day in 2018,  The New York Times and the New Yorker win the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for breaking news of the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse scandal.

Yesterday’s post, Farmers, cited reporting on the effects of a trade war on farmers. Trump is aware of these concerns, and so he used his Truth Social platform to publish his position on a trade war’s effects on agriculture. Below are Trump’s remarks contrasted with real experiences.

Trump’s post:

Our farmers are GREAT, but because of their GREATNESS, they are always put on the Front Line with our adversaries, such as China, whenever there is a Trade negotiation or, in this case, a Trade War. The same thing happened in my First Term. China was brutal to our Farmers, I these Patriots to just hold on, and a great trade deal was made. I rewarded our farmers with a payment of $28 Billion Dollars, all through the China deal. It was a great transaction for the USA, until Crooked Joe Biden came in and didn’t enforce it. China largely reneged on the deal (although they behaved during the Trump Administration), only buying a portion of what they agreed to buy. They had ZERO respect for the Crooked Biden Administration, and who can blame them for that? Interestingly, they just reneged on the big Boeing deal, saying that they will “not take possession” of fully committed to aircraft. The USA will PROTECT OUR FARMERS!!!

The farmer John Pihl’s genuine experience with Trump’s subsidies:

The payments were helpful, Pihl said. But they weren’t a fix for the longer-term damage done by Trump’s first-term tariffs.

“That was just for the one year. What about the market loss that continued through his term and into Biden’s term? I think the amount is incredible,” he said.

Of Trump’s remarks:

  1. The greatness of farmers has not made them targets; Trump’s trade war has done that.
  2. As lifetime farmer John Pihl explains above, Trump’s deal in his first term did not make farmers whole, and that deal was insufficient on its own, apart from the Biden Admin. See also Adriana Belmonte, Trump’s massive farmer bailout failed to make up for the ‘self-inflicted’ trade damage, January 18, 2021. (Trump’s bailout was a failure even before Biden took office.)
  3. Trump claims that China has ‘behaved’ during his administration, but he admits in his post that (a) they’ve hit back at Boeing and (b) China has applied huge retaliatory tariffs across the board.

Meanwhile, here’s how ordinary Chinese are depicting the Trump Admin:

Even ordinary TikTok users on the other side of the world have Trumpism’s number.

One can and should oppose the Chinese government without stumbling into an inflationary trade war.

Meanwhile, where did Trump get all those gaudy gold appliqués with which he’s littered the Oval Office? Trump’s vulgar additions are surprisingly similar to what the Chinese sell on Alibaba:

Agriculture, Business, Daily Bread, Economy, Tariffs, Taxes/Taxation, Trump, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 4.15.25: Farmers

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 50. Sunrise is 6:12 and sunset is 7:37, for 13 hours, 25 minutes of daytime. The moon a waning gibbous with 94 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.


On this day in 1922, U.S. Senator John B. Kendrick of Wyoming introduces a resolution calling for an investigation of a secret land deal, which leads to the discovery of the Teapot Dome scandal.

Farmers in the rural Midwest and across America will feel the consequences of Trump’s trade war:

Tariffs are making life more expensive for John Pihl. He’s been farming in Northern Illinois for more than 50 years.

“These tariffs are going to affect everything. It’ll affect our parts — it’s just across the board. Which is going to hurt everything,” he said.

Not only do tariffs affect the cost of farm supplies, but they also raise the risk of retaliation against exports of U.S. crops: a double-whammy for farmers like Pihl.

“It’s a good way to lose your customers,” he said. “And I think we’ll probably lose more on this round too, because I know that Mexico is our biggest importer of corn. But this time, they may figure out that they can get corn from South America just as easily as from the U.S.”

….

All told, the first Trump administration spent $28 billion bailing out farmers. This time around, the tariffs are much higher than they were six years ago, and it’s unclear how long they will persist.

NPR asked the White House for details on what relief is under consideration this time, but received no response.

The payments were helpful, Pihl said. But they weren’t a fix for the longer-term damage done by Trump’s first-term tariffs.

“That was just for the one year. What about the market loss that continued through his term and into Biden’s term? I think the amount is incredible,” he said.

See Danielle Kurtzleben, China put steep tariffs on U.S. exports. Farmers are worried, NPR, April 12, 2025.

But it’s all fake news, right? These consequences for can’t be true, can they? Mr. Trump has a plan, of course he does. (He had a plan before each of his six business bankruptcies, didn’t he?)

Come for the culture war, stay for the inflationary trade war.

Elephants huddle in ‘alert circle’ to protect young during California earthquake:

Elephants formed an ‘alert circle’ to protect their young after a 5.2 magnitude earthquake in southern California. Video footage from the San Diego zoo safari park showed elephants instinctively circling their young, as soon as they felt the earthquake on 14 April

Agriculture, Culture, Daily Bread, Nature, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.29.25: Three Wisconsin Generations Tap Maple Trees

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 68. Sunrise is 6:41 and sunset is 7:18, for 12 hours, 36 minutes of daytime. The moon is new with none of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1999, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above the 10,000 mark (10,006.78) for the first time, during the height of the dot-com bubble.

Three generations tap maple trees during Saint Patrick’s season:

Each Saint Patrick’s Day weekend, generations of the O’Brien clan gather in the family’s maple grove to tap the sap, cook the syrup and enjoy each other’s company. The family’s creation of combination sap shed and gathering space ensures their family tradition will go on for many generations.

James Webb Space Telescope captures a ‘cosmic tornado’:

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) captured an amazing video of the outflow Herbig-Haro 49/50 (HH 49/50), a newborn star.

Agriculture, America, Daily Bread, Federal Government, Legislation, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 12.16.24: Slow Going on the Farm Bill (From Those Who Say the Farm Bill Matters)

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 42. Sunrise is 7:19 and sunset is 4:21, for 9 hours, 2 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 97.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater School Board goes into closed session shortly after 6:15 PM and resumes open session at 7 PM. Whitewater’s Library Board also meets tonight at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1773,  members of the Sons of Liberty disguised as Mohawk Indians dump hundreds of crates of tea into Boston harbor as a protest against the Tea Act.

If rural America matters, and if it needs what advocates for rural America insist it should have1, then there’d be a new Farm Bill by now. The best that these advocates and professed defenders of rural America will produce, however, is likely to be a second extension of the existing legislation:

Wisconsin’s federal lawmakers are blaming the other side of the aisle for getting in the way of extending the farm bill.

The legislation is renewed every five years to fund programs around agriculture, conservation and food assistance.

Congress failed to pass a new farm bill in September 2023 and have instead extended the 2018 bill in order to keep programs operating. After making little progress on new legislation this year, federal lawmakers are expected to pass another extension as part of a deal to fund the government into early 2025. 

See Hope Kirwan, Partisan approach to farm bill delaying updates for Wisconsin farmers, Wisconsin Public Radio, December 16, 2024.

Rescuers seek cyclone survivors in devastated Mayotte:

Emergency workers race to find survivors and restore services to the French overseas territory of Mayotte, where hundreds, possibly thousands, are feared dead from the worst cyclone to hit the Indian Ocean islands in nearly a century.

_____

  1. Not what this libertarian blogger insists rural America should have, but what professed advocates of rural America (from both parties) insist rural communities should have. ↩︎

Agriculture, Daily Bread, Economy, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 12.2.24: Wisconsin Agriculture Grows More Slowly than Rest of State’s Economy

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 28. Sunrise is 7:07, and sunset is 4:21, for 9 hours, 14 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 2.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Police & Fire Commission meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 2001, Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Hope Kirwan reports that while the Wisconsin agriculture industry grew over a 5-year period, agriculture became a smaller part of Wisconsin’s overall economy:

Wisconsin’s agriculture industry has grown over the last five years. But new data shows farming and food’s contribution to the state’s economy has gotten smaller.

The study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that agricultural production and food processing contributed $116.3 billion in revenues to the state’s economy in 2022.

That’s nearly 11 percent higher than the same report from 2017, growth that’s been celebrated by Gov. Tony Evers’ administration and the ag industry.

The study also found that farming and food processing made up 14.3 percent of the state’s total revenues, which is 2 percentage points less than in 2017.

Steve Deller, UW-Madison professor of agricultural and applied economics and co-author of the report, said that’s because the state’s overall economy is growing.

“The size of the pie is getting bigger,” Deller said. “Agriculture’s slice of that pie is also getting a little bit bigger, but it’s not growing at the same pace as the state’s economy is growing.”

See Hope Kirwan, Report: Wisconsin farm, food industry grows slightly behind the rest of state’s economy, Wisconsin Public Radio, December 2, 2024.

Wind power is making a comeback in shipping:

Agriculture, Daily Bread, Eric Hovde, Farming, Ignorance, Sen. Baldwin, Sloth, US Senate Race 2024, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 10.26.24: Hovde Rationalizes His Ignorance and Sloth

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 56. Sunrise is 7:22, and sunset is 5:54, for 10 hours, 32 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent, with 28.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1818, Lewis Cass, governor of the Michigan Territory, declares the first counties in Wisconsin:

The counties included Michilimackinac (all areas drained by Lake Superior tributaries), Brown, and Crawford counties, which were separated through Portage. Michilimackinac County is now part of the state of Michigan. Governor Cass later became the Secretary of War under President Andrew Jackson, as well as the Minister to France and a Michigan Senator. Cass, a Democrat, also ran for president in 1848, but lost to Whig Zachary Taylor due to factions within the Democratic Party and the formation of the Free Soil Party.

 On this day in 1881, Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday participate in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona.

Eric Hovde, a California livin’ man with a Utah bank, admitted at his debate with U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin that he’s not read up on the farm bill on which Wisconsin agriculture depends. See California Carpetbagger with an Utah Bank Doesn’t Bother to Read Farm Bill on Which Wisconsin Agriculture Relies.

Predictably, Hovde has a rationalization for his ignorance and sloth:

“Why in God’s green Earth would I know all the details in a farm bill when I’m not serving in this Senate right now?” he told reporters after he voted Tuesday.

A job applicant walks into an interview with a prospective employer, and the interviewer asks the applicant what he thinks the most important goal for the bank should be. The applicant replies, “I’m not employed by this bank yet, so I cannot opine on what might be a good next move. In fact, why in God’s green Earth would I know all the details in about this bank when I’m not yet employed?”

A question like this is conventional and predictable: it’s a test of what research about, and interest in, the bank the applicant has. It’s a test of enthusiasm and diligence. Of course the applicant can say he does not yet have all the details, but he or she should have some sense of what might matter from public sources.

(A candidate should have the ability to express the limitations on his knowledge in a language intelligible to other humans. English, for example, is a language with a large vocabulary for expressive possibilities beyond “I can’t opine specifically.”)

Previously at FREE WHITEWATER:  California Carpetbagger with a Utah Bank Doesn’t Bother to Read Farm Bill on Which Wisconsin Agriculture Relies, Hovde & Baldwin, Hovde Spreads Lies About Hurricane Response (Of Course He Does), These Aren’t Subtle Men, Eric Hovde’s Banking Deal with a Cartel-Linked Mexican Bank, Hovde’s Evident, Ignorant Racism, Eric Hovde Treats Wisconsin as a Side Hustle,  It’s Not Going So Well for Hovde, Eric Hovde Should Fire His Political Consultants and Hire a Therapist, Tim Michels 2.0 Eric Hovde Announces U.S. Senate Run, and Another Vanity Candidate.  

Kevin the Canadian Chihuahua Know the Best Season When It Comes Along:

Agriculture, Daily Bread, Eric Hovde, Sen. Baldwin, US Senate Race 2024, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 10.19.24: California Carpetbagger with a Utah Bank Doesn’t Bother to Read Farm Bill on Which Wisconsin Agriculture Relies

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 72. Sunrise is 7:13, and sunset is 6:05, for 10 hours, 51 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous, with 93.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 202 BC, during the Second Punic War, Roman legions under Scipio Africanus defeat Hannibal Barca, leader of the army defending Carthage, at the Battle of Zama.

Eric Hovde, a fast-talking, strangely nasal carpetbagger from California wants to be a United States senator from Wisconsin but he’s been too busy to read up on the farm bill on which Wisconsin agriculture depends:

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He can’t opine? It’s a Wisconsin debate, with a predictable question, important to the state from which he is seeking federal office.

Bonus error: This California livin’ man, who wants to tout his local ties when he was in school here decades ago, isn’t aware that his Wisconsin-based and Wisconsin-focused opponent is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School:

Post by @american_bridge
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It’s been many years, and thousands of miles, so Hovde may not even recall the location of the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Filled as this bleeding-heart libertarian blogger is with love for all my fellow creatures, I’ll offer Mr. Hovde a map with directions from his California home to the University of Wisconsin Law School:

It’s 29 hours by car, but, ya know, a man whose “ocean view mansion is located in one of Laguna Beach’s most affluent and luxurious gated communities with California’s only private beach, a private fire department, and private yacht parking dock” can probably spring for a plane ticket, or even his own plane, truly.

Previously at FREE WHITEWATER: Hovde & Baldwin, Hovde Spreads Lies About Hurricane Response (Of Course He Does), These Aren’t Subtle Men, Eric Hovde’s Banking Deal with a Cartel-Linked Mexican Bank, Hovde’s Evident, Ignorant Racism, Eric Hovde Treats Wisconsin as a Side Hustle,  It’s Not Going So Well for Hovde, Eric Hovde Should Fire His Political Consultants and Hire a Therapist, Tim Michels 2.0 Eric Hovde Announces U.S. Senate Run, and Another Vanity Candidate.  

You’ve Never Seen Graffiti Like This Before:

French artist Guillaume Legros AKA SAYPE living in Switzerland makes real-life graffiti. From Switzerland to France, Canada, Italy and even Burkina Faso, he is on a mission to document the stories of migrants through art leaving his mark one spray paint at a time, painting interlinked hands across different countries to bring humanity together.

Agriculture, Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 6.8.24: Are Vertical Farms the Future of Agriculture?

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy with afternoon showers and a high of 70. Sunrise is 5:16 and sunset 8:32 for 15h 16m 03s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 4.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 789,  three Viking ships from Hordaland (in modern Norway) landed on the Isle of Portland on the southern coast of Wessex, the beginning of Norse activity in the British Isles.

Just after midnight on this day in 1984, about 90 percent of the town of Barneveld was destroyed. Ninety-three homes were flattened, and 64 were damaged. Seventeen of 18 businesses and public buildings in the village were obliterated. This tornado was rated an F5 on the Fujita Scale, the highest rating a tornado can achieve.

Are Vertical Farms the Future of Agriculture?:

Have you ever wondered how in-flight meals are made or where the ingredients come from? ? Welcome to the innovative world of vertical farming with an inside look into the largest vertical farm in Dubai that supplies fresh greens to @emirates. Filmed in the heart of Dubai, we dive into these cutting-edge farming techniques that are revolutionizing agriculture in the region. This is how they utilize advanced technology to grow sustainable, pesticide-free produce, ensuring a constant supply of fresh greens to Emirates and beyond.

Mealtime:

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Agriculture, Daily Bread, Dairy, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 2.15.24: Dairies Decline in America’s Dairyland (But Lesser Decline in Milk Cows)

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 Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 37. Sunrise is 6:51 and sunset 5:26 for 10h 35m 40s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 38.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1862, Confederates commanded by Brig. Gen. John B. Floyd attack General Ulysses S. Grant’s Union forces besieging Fort Donelson in Tennessee. Unable to break the fort’s encirclement, the Confederates surrender the following day.

Madeline Heim reports Wisconsin lost 10% of farms, 30% of dairies in 5 years, U.S. agriculture census shows:

Wisconsin lost nearly 10% of farms, 30% of dairies since 2017

Wisconsin had 58,521 farms in 2022, census data show, representing a nearly 10% loss since 2017.

Dairy farms, long the state’s calling card, continued to plummet. There were 6,216 dairy farms in Wisconsin in 2022, down from just above 9,000 in 2017. Further, state data show the number has dropped more since the census data was recorded. As of Feb. 1, Wisconsin had 5,644 milk cow herds.

As the number of farms decrease, existing ones are getting bigger. The average Wisconsin farm in 2022 was 236 acres, the largest it’s been in more than two decades. And it’s not just acreage. Herd sizes are getting larger as well. The number of milk cows in the state declined less than 2% since 2017, despite the drop in dairy farms.

Private US moon lander launched into space:

Agriculture, Daily Bread, Dairy, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 10.29.23: | Dairy Farm Life

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 Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 42. Sunrise is 7:26 and sunset 5:50 for 10h 24m 50s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 99.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

  On this day in 1969, the first-ever computer-to-computer link is established on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet.

 Wisconsin Life | Dairy Farm Life:

When Rosario Ibarra arrived from Mexico for her internship, she had never seen a Holstein cow. Ibarra now runs one of Manitowoc County’s largest dairy farms. It’s a tireless job that has become a lifestyle.

365 Marathons In 365 Days:

Would you run a marathon? Maybe you’ve run a few? What about running a marathon every single day? If that sounds completely crazy, well — we would agree. But Gary McKee did just that – every day of 2022. Gary ran a marathon each day for an entire year, but his steps were driven by more than just personal drive. Every mile was to raise funds for Macmillan Cancer Support. As days turned into weeks, his ambition transformed into a town-wide movement. With New Year’s Eve as the grand finale, the community came together like never before with hundreds of supporters rallying to celebrate with him at the finish line. The result? A united community, countless inspired morning runners, and a staggering £1 million raised.