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A bill moving through the Wisconsin Legislature would offer low-interest loans to small dairy farmers to boost efficiency as the state’s dairy industry rapidly consolidates into larger industrial operations.

But ahead of the state’s legislative session, which resumed in early January, major farm and dairy industry representatives pushed for changes that would allow large industrial farms to access the loans, according to lobbying communications and draft legislation obtained by Investigate Midwest through open records requests.

The state has lost nearly 18,000 dairy farms over the past two decades and, as of 2022, has roughly 6,000 operating dairy farms, with small-scale farms dwindling rapidly. 

Wisconsin dairy farms with fewer than 500 cattle have decreased 67% since 2002. Almost every county in the state has lost at least half of its small farms in that same time, according to an Investigate Midwest USDA data analysis.

Senate Bill 323, introduced in July 2025, would set aside $20 million to create an innovation program for dairy farmers in the state to fund the purchase of new equipment or expand animal health practices to produce more milk. Farmers would apply through the state’s agriculture department.

Bill authors said farmers could also use the funds to develop manure management plans, create products from manure and improve animal health and outputs to produce higher-quality products, such as buttermilk. Medium and small dairy farmers can access up to $500,000 administered by the state’s agricultural department. 

The bill was passed by the Senate 18 to 15 on Jan. 21 and can now be heard by the state Assembly.

Dispute over dairy herd sizes

State Sen. Rob Stafsholt, a New Richmond Republican who authored the bill, said economic sustainability has been an issue brought to him by farm operators throughout his rural, northwestern district.

“Some of the technology that can make farmers as efficient as possible and would help the smaller guys to compete with the bigger guys is often financially out of reach for our small and medium farms,” he said. 

The Wisconsin dairy industry is worth nearly $53 billion, and its farms have become increasingly larger in recent years, while the overall number of farms continues to decrease. This trend has created legal clashes between rural towns and dairy farms across the state.

Bigger farms increase profitability by working with consolidated dairy processing companies. Small operations also work with large-scale processors but often rely on boutique dairy product sales, such as those from small-scale creameries or co-ops.

Cost is a major factor in the decline of small farms. The cost of operating a dairy farm in the U.S. has nearly doubled in the last decade, while the price farmers receive for their milk has fallen 15% in the same time frame, according to an analysis of USDA data.

The Wisconsin Farm Bureau and the Dairy Business Association, lobbying and advocacy groups for the state’s dairy and agriculture sector, both asked bill authors to remove the bill’s limit on the number of animal units a farm could have to apply for funding.

In Wisconsin, animal units are a metric primarily used to determine whether a farm meets the threshold for being considered a concentrated animal feeding operation, otherwise known as a CAFO. A single animal unit does not equate to a single animal. For example, a dairy cow is the equivalent of 1.4 animal units, while it would take roughly 30 chickens to equal a single animal unit.

Farms with 1,000 or more animal units have to apply for additional permits through the state’s Department of Natural Resources to manage waste. As farms get larger, increased waste can lead to runoff and pollution problems for nearby communities and waterways. Livestock runoff has been linked to cancers, infant deaths and miscarriages. 

The current bill language sets an applicant’s limit at roughly 999 animal units, or roughly 700 dairy cattle.

In a letter to the bill authors, the Wisconsin Farm Bureau requested that the cap be removed, allowing the size of the farm to be part of the determination when applying for funding, rather than disallowing a larger farm from applying altogether. 

“By aligning the program’s design with its intent, the bill can more effectively support on-farm innovation and ensure that Wisconsin farmers of all sizes have the opportunity to modernize, improve herd health, and maintain our state’s leadership in agricultural innovation,” the letter stated. 

The Dairy Business Association, a trade group headquartered in Green Bay and operated by a board of executives with ties to CAFOs across the state, dairy processors and cheesemakers, told lawmakers in a letter that the state’s large farms provide stability to the milk supply and should be a part of the funding pool.

“A strong dairy economy depends on participation from farms of all sizes,” the letter states. “If this program’s eligibility criteria exclude large farms, the ripple effects will weaken — not strengthen — rural Wisconsin.”

Records show that Dairy Business Association lobbyists met with bill authors soon after the bill text was circulated in early June 2025 to discuss the herd size provision and other concerns with the legislation. The Dairy Business Association did not respond to requests for comment. 

The office of state Rep. Clint Moses, a Menomonie Republican who co-introduced a similar bill in the state’s Assembly, provided an early draft of a bill amendment to Dairy Business Association lobbyists ahead of the release of the amendment, according to an Aug. 5, 2025, email.

Despite meetings with lobbyists to express concerns about the bill’s language regarding herd size, the language has not changed to remove the animal unit cap. 

Darin Von Ruden, president of the Wisconsin Farmers Union, said that if the legislation caps farm size, the funding will help more farmers. He said the Wisconsin Farmers Union supports maintaining the animal unit limit in the current legislation and will continue to watch the bill closely. 

“The dollars that are available there could be easily swallowed up by two or three of the biggest farms in the state, and then nobody else will be able to be a part of that process,” Von Ruden said.

Stafsholt, the senator who introduced the bill, said that the original purpose of the bill was to support small and medium-sized farms and that keeping a limit on animal units will stop large farms from taking larger pieces of the program’s budget. 

“Going forward, I have no intention of switching that number,” he said. 

Bill addresses dairy’s undocumented workforce

The bill also points to the realities of drafting legislation affecting the dairy industry and navigating the sector’s open secret: undocumented labor. 

Draft legislation shows bill authors intent on blocking farms that use undocumented labor from qualifying for the loan program. The current version of the bill would only allow farms that employ workers who are authorized to work in the state to apply for the program.

There are no definitive counts of the number of undocumented laborers working on Wisconsin dairy farms, but research estimates that nearly 70% of the state’s dairy industry relies on undocumented labor. 

“I don’t have an issue with (farms) doing what they are doing,” Stafsholt said. “It’s more about following the law. We want to make sure taxpayer dollars funding the dairy cattle innovation program are not necessarily being utilized by those who fail to follow the basic law.”

In September 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested dairy farm workers in Manitowoc County as part of a larger raid in the area. This comes as ICE raids have hit major agricultural industries and cities, detaining workers and increasing anxiety throughout the labor force. 

Lobbyists from both the Farm Bureau and the Dairy Business Association initially expressed concerns about the impact this limitation would have. 

In an August email from a member of Stafsholt’s staff to the senator, meeting notes show that Dairy Business Association representatives expressed concerns about the original requirement that farms employ only individuals legally authorized to work in Wisconsin, but that language remains in the current version. 

“After conversations with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection on how the bill provision will be facilitated and discussions with the bill authors, staff, and stakeholders, we are not prioritizing changing that provision,” Jason Mugnaini, a Wisconsin Farm Bureau lobbyist, told Investigate Midwest in December.

This article first appeared on Investigate Midwest and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

CAFOs want in on proposal meant to help Wisconsin’s small dairy farms is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 8 minutes

Jack Link’s, the world’s largest manufacturer of meat snacks, has spent years integrating itself into the country’s cultural and political arenas.

Riding a wave of protein-crazed consumers and a booming snack industry, the company’s iconic Sasquatch marketing campaign has helped its products become a staple in gas stations, grocery checkout lines and school vending machines.

The company has also spent years cultivating deep political ties, funneling millions to Donald Trump and nurturing a relationship with the president that has led to White House access.

Trump has been a strong supporter of the meat industry and welcomed Jack Link’s officials to a White House event during his first term. However, the Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement is currently pushing for healthier eating standards and for states to restrict processed foods in their nutrition programs.

Now, Jack Link’s and the processed meat industry are caught between conflicting ideologies within the Trump administration and a battle over the future of food policy.

“There’s very much a conflict within this administration about the role of corporate power and public health,” said Judith McGeary, executive director of the Texas-based sustainable agriculture and farmer advocacy group Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance.

In May, the federal MAHA commission, led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., recommended in a new report that Americans consume fewer sugary drinks, snacks and processed foods.

While the report didn’t specifically mention processed meat snacks, it grabbed the attention of snack giants like Jack Link’s and other corporate agriculture groups, which are opposed to any additional regulations or changes to the food industry, McGeary said.

The report did note that low-income children and families consume more processed meat than their peers and that these products have been classified as carcinogens linked to serious health risks.

Kennedy, along with U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, has encouraged states to restrict what foods can be purchased with benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP.

States, from West Virginia to California, have responded by approving bans that limit purchases of sugary beverages, snacks and foods with dyes and artificial ingredients.

Jack Link’s responded by hiring a lobbying firm, a move that paid off when it faced increased regulations during Trump’s first term.

Jack Link’s benefits from political, consumer trends

Minong, Wisconsin — a small, rural village in the state’s northwestern tip, home to taverns, gravel roads, rows of northern Wisconsin pine trees, and plenty of grazing land for beef cattle — is one of dozens of small towns across the state with roots in the cattle and lumber industries.

Minong is also home to a bigfoot-sized footprint of Jack Link’s that is hard to ignore.

Jack Link’s, owned by Link Snacks, is a $2 billion, privately owned company with dual headquarters in Minong and downtown Minneapolis, a few hours away.

The company employs roughly 4,000 people worldwide. Jack Link’s leadership has long served on local college and hospital boards and, in 2016, broke ground for the Jack Link’s Aquatic & Activity Center in Minong.

What started in the late 1980s as a family-owned jerky company has evolved into a global enterprise with offices and production plants in Canada, Australia, Mexico and Brazil.

Troy Link, son of company founder and current board member John “Jack” Link, has led the company’s global expansion since he became CEO in 2013.

Link has also developed a relationship with the Trump administration over the years by hosting private fundraising events and donating to his campaigns.

Last year, Link also donated half a million dollars to America PAC, a political action committee founded and operated by Elon Musk, according to Federal Elections Committee filings.

This donation placed Link among a highly influential group of donors and prominent technology and cryptocurrency industry moguls, such as Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss.

Link donated $1.3 million during Trump’s 2020 re-election bid and also welcomed the president to a private fundraiser in July 2020 at his Florida mansion.

As a whole, the Link family has donated roughly $2.3 million to candidates, committees and state parties in the last decade. The majority of this occurred during the 2020 and 2024 Trump campaigns.

In 2018, the company was invited to the White House as part of a “Made In America” exhibition, where each state showcased a single business with products made in the country.

Troy Link did not respond to repeated requests for comment regarding the relationship of Jack Link’s and the Trump administration.

This relationship with politicians has served the company in the past. In Trump’s first term, Jack Link’s lobbied for beef jerky and meat snack sticks to qualify for the nation’s Child Nutrition Programs, such as school meals.

An Obama-era rule prohibited the reimbursement of beef jerky and dried meat products for school food purchases in 2011. When the rules were revisited under Trump in 2018, Jack Link’s argued in documents submitted to the USDA that dried meat products should receive the same crediting and treatment as other meat, like hamburgers and chicken strips.

“These food products should be held to the same standard as any other meat product when determining eligibility,” a Jack Link’s attorney wrote. “Currently, this is not the case because USDA has arbitrarily disqualified dried meat products from the program.”

A bipartisan trio of Wisconsin federal officials came to the aid of Jack Link’s during this regulatory update, with Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson and former Congressman and current U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy writing in support of this change soon after.

“We are concerned that (Food and Nutrition Service) has overstepped in excluding this entire product class from consideration,” the officials wrote in a February 2018 letter. “Therefore, we respectfully request USDA to reevaluate this categorical exclusion.”

Link family members donated a combined $73,000 to the authors of the letter.

The lobbying effort worked. The Food and Nutrition Service announced in December 2018 that beef jerky and dried meat products were now eligible for reimbursement as part of school snacks and meals. Jack Link’s currently markets its snacks directly to school food purchasers.

The addition of school contracts and other market growth helped fuel the company’s expansion.

In recent years, Jack Link’s has broken ground on new manufacturing facilities across the country and purchased jerky companies from Tyson Foods and British packaged goods giant Unilever.

The company also launched Lorissa’s Kitchen, a healthy meat snack brand fronted by Troy’s spouse, Lorissa, and sold at Walmart and Costco nationwide. The brand differentiates itself from Jack Link’s by selling snacks “without added preservatives, nitrites or MSG and allergen-free products,” according to company media statements.

During the 2024 Republican National Convention, Link also appeared on a Fox News business segment to argue that inflation under Biden was making it more expensive for consumers to purchase snacks.

“Buying snacks should not be a luxury item; this should be an everyday occurrence,” Link said. “We just need to put more money back into the consumer’s pocket.”

Protein snacks boom amid calls to reduce meat consumption

As Jack Link’s worked to build a close relationship with the Trump administration, meat consumption was booming, especially thanks to right-wing influencers.

Online personalities, such as podcast hosts Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson, have advocated for all-meat diets, including raw meat and eggs.

The connection between meat consumption and conservative politics dates back decades, according to food studies researcher Adrienne Bitar.

“Higher meat consumption has always been understood as sort of more conservative,” said Bitar, author of “Diet and the Disease of Civilization.”

“Where it comes up in the alt-right is the idea that the feminizing effects of civilization are unnatural, restrictive, repressive, and to liberate yourself from the accoutrements of civilization means to follow your appetite, with the hunger for meat being one of those appetites.”

Meat snacks sales increased 40% from 2019 to 2022, according to an industry report. The desire for more protein-dense snacks has risen across the entire food sector, from protein-packed popcorn to chocolate muffins.

However, the nation’s protein consumption far outpaces that of similar nations and needs to be reassessed, according to grocery experts and leading nutritionists.

“Unless you’re a competitive athlete or competitive bodybuilder, you’re probably eating too much protein,” said Errol Schweizer, publisher of The Checkout Grocery Update, a grocery industry publication, and former vice president of grocery for the multinational supermarket Whole Foods.

Schweizer said the popularity of protein snacks has ebbed and flowed with American consumers, following the trends of certain diets and lifestyles over the past few decades. U.S. consumers are “obsessed” with protein intake, he said, and typically have diets that consist of fewer fresh fruits, vegetables, fiber and healthy fats.

Schweizer’s observations align with the nation’s blueprint for diet and nutrition.

Updated every five years, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans helps shape national standards for nutrition labeling, school meals and chronic disease prevention.

In October 2024, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, a 20-person group of nutrition experts, released its recommended updates to both the USDA and the HHS. Now those two agencies will review recommendations and public comments to set the final dietary guidelines later this year.

Since 2000, the panel has consistently urged Americans to cut back on red and processed meats in favor of lean meat, seafood and plant-based proteins.

The committee’s 2024 report recommends diets “lower in red and processed meats, sugar-sweetened foods and beverages, refined grains and saturated fats.”

The country’s leading meat industry group, The Meat Institute, whose members include Jack Link’s and other major meatpacking and meat snack companies, has argued against the committee’s recommendations.

“The Meat Institute is extremely concerned that consumers will inaccurately perceive meat and poultry products as poor dietary choices, which may lead to a variety of unintended consequences, including nutritional deficiencies in certain sub-populations,” the Virginia-based group wrote to the HHS in February.

The National Pork Board, the pork checkoff organization based in Clive, Iowa, wrote to the health department in February, stating that recommendations to reduce consumption of red meats are short-sighted and efforts to push foods such as legumes and beans over meats “does not seem to be supported by a robust body of evidence.”

“The elevation of plant-based protein sources over lean meats could inadvertently discourage the consumption of nutrient-dense lean meats, thus increasing the risk of nutritional deficiencies,” the letter stated.

In its inaugural report, the MAHA Commission wrote that the Dietary Guidelines for Americans has a “history of being unduly influenced by corporate interests,” noting how a past attempt to reduce the push for reducing intake of processed meats has been met with backlash and scientific discrediting from the meat industry.

Processed food industry fortifies as feds debate SNAP, diet guidelines

In late June, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, flanked by Kennedy in the state capitol, announced a sweeping set of executive orders to remove processed foods and foods with additives from the state’s nutrition programs.

“For far too long, we have settled for food that has made us sicker as a nation,” said Stitt at a June press event. “In Oklahoma, we’re choosing common sense, medical freedom, and personal responsibility. President Trump and Secretary Kennedy have led the charge nationally; I’m grateful for their support as we Make Oklahoma Healthy Again.”

Other states have followed suit with Arkansas, Indiana, West Virginia and California enacting bans on processed foods from SNAP purchases, or are exploring ways to reduce ultra-processed foods in the state, often with the support of Kennedy and Rollins and other federal leaders.

However, Joelle Johnson, deputy director for the food and nutrition consumer advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest, said despite growing debates about ultra-processed foods in the nation’s food programs, there is a lack of clear guidance from the federal government to retailers and food purchasers about what would and wouldn’t qualify as being ultra-processed.

“I would be surprised if we see bans of ultra-processed foods in SNAP, beyond candy and sweetened beverages, anytime soon,” she said.

Still, major snack and processed food companies, including Jack Link’s, are bracing for any changes that could harm their sales.

Consumer Brands Association, a Virginia-based organization representing major packaged food companies, including Tyson Foods and Coca-Cola, spent $42 million in lobbying over the past decade, focusing on issues including SNAP funding and dietary guidelines, among other issues.

Since 2023, the organization has worked with lobbyist Clete Willems, the deputy assistant of international economics during Trump’s first term and a former Obama administration official, according to lobbying disclosure documents.

Conagra Brands, the publicly traded, packaged food conglomerate that owns major brands such as Slim Jims, Orville Redenbacher, Birds Eye Frozen Foods and Reddi-Wip, spent over half a million dollars in the past year lobbying federal officials and has spent $4.6 million in lobbying in the past decade. Conagra and Consumer Brands Association did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

In April, Link Snacks, the parent company of Jack Link’s, hired lobbying firm Bockorny Group, which has also represented the meatpacking company Agri-Beef Co. and pork industry publication National Hog Farmer. This was the first time the beef jerky giant has lobbied federal officials.

Lobbyists working for Jack Link’s include Pete Lawson, a former VP for Ford Motors and staff attorney for Virginia Democratic Congressman Jim Moran, and Eric Bohl, a former staffer for the congressional offices of Missouri Republicans Vicky Hartzler and Jason Smith, who worked on the 2014 Farm Bill.

This year, Link Snacks has spent $25,000 on lobbying the federal government to support “protein snacks in SNAP program” as well as issues with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, according to lobbying disclosure documents.

This story was originally published on Investigate Midwest.

Jack Link’s beef: How the snack giant is lobbying Trump and fighting the Make America Healthy Again movement is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.