Developing Dairyland
Suburban growth making it hard for farmers to keep land
jsonline.com
By AMY RINARD and MIKE JOHNSON
arinard@journalsentinel.com
Last Updated: Sept. 21, 2002
From his kitchen window, Town of Waukesha farmer Bob Stigler can see new subdivision roads winding through a rolling, 90-acre field he used to rent every year and plant with corn and soybeans.
"I always thought I'd farm here until I retire, but now there's so much development I don't know if I'm going to make it," said Stigler, 52, who's been farming in Waukesha County for 20 years.
Farming
Photo/Erwin Gebhard
Sue Bielinski, owner of Shadowood Farms in the Town of Ottawa, brushes one of her purebred Arabian mares Friday. Next to the mare is her colt. In recent years, the number of horses in Wisconsin has dramatically risen, while the number of milk cows has fallen.
Photo/William Meyer
Bob Stigler repairs equipment in the barn on his farm in the Town of Waukesha on Friday. Many Wisconsin farmers are finding it hard to keep farming in rapidly growing suburban areas.
Graphic/Journal Sentinel
Fewer Milk Cows
Quotable
There's just too many people out here now. We've got people driving trucks through our cornfields just for the fun of it. Every time they do that, I lose money. My machinery can't pick the corn that's knocked down.
- Bob Stigler,
Waukesha farmer
I always thought I'd farm here until I retire, but now there's so much development I don't know if I'm going to make it.
- Bob Stigler, 52,
who's been farming in Waukesha County for 20 years.
"I can't farm without land. And I can't compete for land with developers. I never could."
Farmers throughout Wisconsin are struggling to stay in business in the face of increasing costs and declining farm prices.
But Stigler and other farmers in Waukesha, Ozaukee, Washington, Racine and even some parts of Jefferson County are dealing with a host of other problems that make it increasingly difficult to keep farming in their rapidly growing suburban areas.
Development pressure has made farmland scarce, and farmers like Stigler who rent land have to scramble to find it and hang on to it.
"I just got a call this week from a lady I rent land from who said she's selling," said Stigler, who rents about 1,100 acres for corn and soybeans and has some beef steers.
"She and her husband farmed it years ago. I can't blame people. They get offers from developers and so they sell."
Rural-urban collision
Commuter traffic makes taking a tractor, combine, manure spreader or any other farm implement out on the roads a dangerous proposition. And complaints from newly arrived and well-heeled neighbors about the odor of manure are escalating.
"It's getting worse," Stigler said. "There's just too many people out here now.
"We've got people driving trucks through our cornfields just for the fun of it. Every time they do that, I lose money. My machinery can't pick the corn that's knocked down."
Just last week, it was learned that Waukesha County is losing its biggest dairy farm - Hickory Hill, west of Sussex, owned and operated by the Meissner family.
The family will phase out its operations over four years, but it already has agreed to sell 540 acres to a development company. The family is moving to a 1,800-acre farm near Sioux City, Iowa.
In a reflection of the changes in America's Dairyland, as the number of cows in Wisconsin has plummeted, the number of horses has increased as more people buy a few acres in rural areas and set up family stables and paddocks.
While there are no solid statistics on the number of horses in every county, the number of horses statewide increased from an estimated 84,300 in 1992 to 120,000 in 1999, according to the Wisconsin Agricultural Statistics Service. The change, in large part, can be attributed to the growing affluence of suburban areas, where people can afford large estates and horses.
Sue Bielinski, who breeds national champion Arabians at the 38-acre Shadowood Farm in the Town of Ottawa in Waukesha County, said it seems as if every other house in her area has a horse these days.
"It's really quite profound; when people visit us they are always impressed with the number of family horse barns and paddocks," she said.
Cows dwindling in state
But the number of milk cows in Wisconsin, one of the best gauges of commercial farm activity in the state, declines every year. Last year, there were 1.29 million milk cows in the state, down from 1.34 million in 2000 and far off the prewar, pre-suburban building boom of 2.2 million in 1940.
Even in good years, the offers from developers who want to buy land can be hard for farmers to reject. In shaky economic times - or when the problems of farming in the suburbs seem overwhelming - those offers look mighty tempting.
August Storck, 79, who has been farming in Racine County's Union Grove and Kansasville area for 50 years, said he routinely gets inquiries from developers about whether he's interested in selling some of the 1,000 acres the family owns.
"There's a lot of people looking for home sites," he said.
But Storck said he plans to keep farming as long as his health holds out, and he hopes two sons will be interested in taking over the operation someday, despite all the problems associated with farming in the suburbs - including the daily battle with traffic.
"On the road out front, there used to be two cars in the morning and two cars at night that'd go by," he said. "Now, there's hundreds of cars all the time."
Valuable nest egg
Other farmers without family members interested in taking over their operations plan on selling their land when they retire. Their land is their retirement nest egg, and farmers in suburban areas reap the rewards when they sell land that's in high demand.
"There's advantages and disadvantages to farming in Southeastern Wisconsin," said Tom Thieding, spokesman for the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation.
"There's the day-to-day pressure of highway use, complaints about manure and the problem finding land. Yet, those farmers are in an area where there is demand for their property, and that adds value to their capital assets."
Carl Schmidt, who farms in the Town of Polk in Washington County, now fends off inquiries from developers. But he plans to sell out when he and his wife retire, even if they are not very happy about presiding over the demise of their family farm.
"We aren't really ready yet to sell," said Schmidt, who was born and raised on the 200 acres he farms with his wife, Marilyn. "In a couple years, the farm will be in the family 100 years. Once my wife and I decide to retire and quit, that will be the end of farming. I have three sons, and they are all in a lot better-paying occupations than we are.
"It doesn't make us feel good. . . . I'd like to see this stay in agriculture, but nobody can buy it for agriculture (for) any more (than) what you'd get from a developer."
He said he probably could get five to six times more money for his land by selling it to a developer than selling it as farmland.
Schmidt, 55, has seen a lot of changes over the years.
"I'm on Mayfield Road. That's at least 10 miles," he said. "Out of that, only two of us are milking cows. Twenty-five years ago, there were 25 of us."
It has been a sour year for farmers in the milk business. This year, Schmidt said, he is getting $10 per 100 pounds of milk, compared with about $16 last year.
"I'm taking in $3,000 to $5,000 a month less," Schmidt said.
He and his wife have 40 milk cows, the same as when they started out.
"We're small. But bigger operations are having the same problems. Bigger doesn't seem to be better. . . . This has got to be about one of the worst years. It's survival of the fittest right now."
Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Sept. 22, 2002. |
