Good morning.
Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 43. Sunrise is 6:28 and sunset is 5:45 for 11 hours 17 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 99.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater School Board’s Policy Review Committee meets at 4:30 PM.
On this day in 1949, Captain James Gallagher lands his B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II in Fort Worth, Texas, after completing the first non-stop around-the-world airplane flight in 94 hours and one minute.
Perhaps Wisconsin’s farmers somehow thought that Mr. Trump, returned to office, would improve their economic prospects. Hope (or at least wishful thinking) springs eternal.
No: Wisconsin farmers are struggling under weak market conditions that the federal government exacerbated:
The U.S. Department of Agriculture last month announced the list of specialty crops that will qualify for payments under $1 billion set aside last December under the administration’s Farmer Bridge Assistance program.
Referred to as the Assistance for Specialty Crop Farmers, or ASCF, payments will be based on planted acres in 2025. USDA won’t announce the payment rates for each commodity until the end of March, with payments coming sometime after that.
But fruit and vegetable industry leaders are already asking for more help.
“It’s simply not enough, especially when it’s spread out over all these specialty crops, as well as sugar and some of these other commodities are now tapping into that,” said Tamas Houlihan, executive director of the Wisconsin Potato and Vegetable Grower Association.
His group, along with more than 100 other specialty group organizations, is asking Congress for an additional $5 billion in assistance for specialty crops as part of a larger aid package being pushed by the ag industry.
Houlihan said potato growers alone have faced losses estimated at $789 million over the past three years. He said that’s due in part to a roughly 20 percent reduction in buying from the country’s largest processors.
“We’re just seeing a decrease in consumption, and we are also seeing an increase in imported products and a decrease in our ability to export products,” he said. “With all those factors combining, we’ve got a massive oversupply situation.”
Houlihan said competitors in China and India have stepped up their exports, creating more competition for U.S. companies selling overseas. At the same time, tariffs on machinery and other inputs coming into the country have raised the cost of production for both growers and processors.
(Emphasis added.) See Bailout for specialty crops has yet to arrive. Growers warn they need more than $1B promised (‘Farm aid promised last December is still months away from being paid out to fruit and vegetable growers. But industry groups say it won’t be enough to get them through tough market conditions.’), Wisconsin Public Radio, March 2, 2026.
Mar-a-Lago is many things. A farm is not among them.
Sky & Telescope’s Sky Tour Podcast — March 2026: