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Video: life, death and resilience at Wonderfarm

Piglet nurses next to a large mama pig and other pigs.
Reading Time: 2 minutes
In this video, Wisconsin Watch reporter Bennet Goldstein discusses his recent story about Jess D’Souza, a pork farmer in Dane County affected by the loss of the Local Food Purchase Assistance program that was cut by the Trump administration earlier this year. The video includes images by Joe Timmerman and Patricio Crooker and was produced by Joe Timmerman.

About this video

The Local Food Purchase Assistance program, or LFPA, was a federal program that awarded states two-year grants to help small farmers invest in their local food systems while growing their businesses. 

The Trump administration gutted the program in March, just as farmers started placing seed orders. The timing particularly affected livestock farmers who often need to commit to the size of their herd and harvest over a year in advance. 

Wisconsin Watch staff writer Bennet Goldstein spent weeks talking with producers affected by the loss of LFPA, including Jess D’Souza, a pork farmer in Dane County. During one of several visits to her farm, he and photojournalist Patricio Crooker watched meat processors harvest her pigs to fully appreciate how food travels from farm to plate.

On a separate visit to the farm, Joe Timmerman photographed Jess and her herd of Gloucestershire Old Spots pigs, documenting many beautiful moments on the piece of agricultural land that she purchased nearly a decade ago and eventually named Wonderfarm. 

Collectively, the images tell a story of life, death and resilience on a small farm – but  some viewers may find some of the images in the video uncomfortable or even emotionally upsetting. Our decision to include them was the result of many discussions that touch on long-standing debates in newsrooms about when it is justified to publish or showcase disquieting images related to death, injury or violence. 

Some of the questions raised in these discussions don’t have simple answers. For instance, Bennet wonders whether our desire to outsource meat production to others —  and hide the bloody parts of that business — contributes to the characterization of these photos as being in poor taste or emotionally disturbing.

We welcome your thoughts and feedback on any of the issues and questions raised in this reporting.

As for the LFPA program’s future, Wisconsin producers hope to see funding restored in the yet-to-be-debated federal Farm Bill. 

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

Video: life, death and resilience at Wonderfarm 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.

Wisconsin pig farmer holds on at Wonderfarm as Washington breaks a promise

Woman stands amid pigs.
Reading Time: 12 minutes
Click here to read highlights from the story
  • Jess D’Souza, a small-time pig farmer in Klevenville, is challenged to sustain her livelihood in the wake of a sudden federal funding cut.
  • After years of taking no salary, she had hoped 2025 would be the first year she turned a profit, aided by Wisconsin’s participation in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Local Food Purchase Assistance program, designed to support underserved farmers and bolster local food systems. But the Trump administration abruptly rescinded the program, upending Jess’ plans.
  • As she contends with the government’s broken promise and weighs whether to raise or sell her newest piglets, Jess seeks to build a more resilient food system independent from political whims.

Two piglets jostled in the barnyard as Jess D’Souza stepped outside. Neither youngster seemed to be winning their morning game of tug-of-war over an empty feed bag.

Jess approached the chicken coop. She swung open the weathered door. The flood of fowl scampered up a hill to a cluster of empty food bowls.

Groans resembling bassoons and didgeridoos leaked from the hog house as groggy pigs stirred. Jess often greets them in a singsong as she completes chores.

Hi Mama! Hi babies! 

She asks if she can get them some hay. Or perhaps something to drink? The swine respond with raspy snorts and spine-rattling squeals.

Jess unfurled the hose from the water pump as pigs trudged outdoors into their muddy pen.

“Is everybody thirsty? Are you all thirsty? Is that what’s going on?”

That morning, Jess slipped a Wisconsin Farmers Union beanie over her dark brown hair and stepped into comfy gray Dovetail overalls — “Workwear for Women by Women.” The spring wind was still crisp. Bare tree branches swayed across the 80-acre farm.

She filled a plastic bucket, then heaved the water over a board fence into a trough.

Woman pours water from a bucket over a fence toward pigs.
Jess D’Souza, owner of Wonderfarm, pours water for pigs at Wonderfarm during her morning chores, April 8, 2025, in Klevenville, Wis. She knows she shouldn’t view her pigs like pets, but she coos at them when she works. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)

Growing up, the Chicago native never imagined a career rearing dozens of Gloucestershire Old Spots pigs in Klevenville, Wisconsin — an agricultural enclave surrounded by creeping neighborhoods of the state’s capital and surrounding communities.

She can watch the precociously curious creatures from her bedroom window much of the year. Their skin is pale, dotted with splotchy ink stains. Floppy ears shade their eyes from the sun like an old-time bank teller’s visor.

Jess spends her days tending to the swine, hoisting 40-pound organic feed bags across her shoulder and under an arm. Some pigs lumber after her, seeking scratches, belly rubs and lunch. Juveniles dart through gaps in the electric netting she uses to cordon off the barnyard, woods and pastures up a nearby hill.

She knows she shouldn’t view her pigs like pet dogs, but she coos at them when she works. Right until the last minute.

Jess D’Souza, owner of Wonderfarm, installs new electric fencing as she prepares to move her pigs, April 8, 2025, in Klevenville, Wis. (Photos by Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)

Jess hadn’t anticipated politics would so dramatically affect her farm.

Last year, Jess doubled the size of her pig herd, believing the government’s agriculture department, the USDA, would honor a $5.5 million grant it awarded to Wisconsin. 

Under the Biden administration, the agency gave states money for two years to run the Local Food Purchase Assistance program, or LFPA, which helped underserved farmers invest in local food systems and grow their businesses.

In Wisconsin, the state, Indigenous tribes and several farming groups developed a host of projects that enabled producers to deliver goods like plump tomatoes and crisp emerald spinach to food pantries, schools and community organizations across all 72 counties.

The Trump administration gutted the program in March, just as farmers started placing seed orders. For her part, Jess must anticipate the size of her pork harvests 18 months in advance. She banked on program funding as guaranteed income.

This was supposed to be the year Jess, 40, broke a profit after a decade of toiling. She has never paid herself.

Jess chuckles as she admits she worries too much. She’s an optimist at heart but mulls over questions that lack ready-made answers: How will she support herself following her recent divorce? How are her son and daughter faring during their tumultuous teens? How will she keep the piglets from being squished by the adults?

Now, if she can’t find buyers for the four tons of pork she expects to produce, will she even be able to keep farming?

The world, she thinks, feels like it’s on fire. 

Piglet nurses next to a large mama pig and other pigs.
A piglet nurses at Wonderfarm in Klevenville, Wis., April 8, 2025. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)

***

In childhood, Jess, the elder sibling, strove to meet her parents’ expectations. School was her top priority. Academic achievement would lead to a good job, material comfort and happiness. She realized only as an adult that her rejection of this progression reflected a difference in values, not a personal deficiency.

She almost taught high school mathematics after college, but didn’t like forcing lukewarm students to learn.

Woman in a kitchen and dining area of a house
Jess D’Souza, who raises Gloucestershire Old Spots pigs at Wonderfarm in Klevenville, Wis., looks out the window of her home on April 8, 2025. She doubled the size of her pig herd last year, believing the federal government would honor a $5.5 million grant it awarded to Wisconsin. But it didn’t. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)

Jess moved in 2005 to Verona, Wisconsin, where she planted fruit trees and vegetable gardens in her suburban yards. But a yard can only produce so much. She wanted chickens and ducks and perennial produce.

Jess can’t pinpoint a precise moment when she decided to farm pigs.

She attended workshops where farmers raved about Gloucestershires. The mamas attentively care for their offspring. Jess wouldn’t have to fret that the docile creatures would eat her own kids. Pigs also are the source of her favorite meats, and the breed tastes delicious. Her housemate wanted to harvest one.

It took almost 3 ½ years to name the farm after Jess and her then-husband located and purchased the property in 2016. 

She hiked it during a showing and discovered a creek and giant pile of sand in the woods that for her children could become the best sandbox ever.

What did the place encapsulate, she mused.

Woman pets pig.
Jess D’Souza, owner of Wonderfarm in Klevenville, Wis., pets Candy, a female breeding pig, while installing new fencing as she prepares to move her pigs on April 8, 2025. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)

She chronicled life on “Yet to be Named Community Farm” across social media: Photographs of piglets wrestling in straw piles next to lip-smacking pork entrees.

Also, lessons learned.

“I like to tell people I’m a recovering perfectionist, and farming is playing a large part in that recovery,” Jess posted to Facebook. She can’t develop the perfect plan in the face of unpredictability. Farmers must embrace risk. Maybe predators will infiltrate the hen house, the ends of a fence don’t quite align or a mama will crush her litter. 

On the farm, life and death meet.

Some days, Jess can only keep the dust out of her eyes and her wounds bandaged.

Years later, the creatures living on the land still insist she take a moment to pause.

Jess once encountered a transparent monarch chrysalis. She inspected the incubating butterfly’s wings, noticing each tiny gold dot.

The farm instills a sense of wonderment.

When the idea for a name emerged, she knew.

Wonderfarm.

***

In March, a thunderstorm crashed overhead, and Jess couldn’t sleep. Clicking through her inbox at 5 a.m., she had more than five times her usual emails to sift through.

The daily stream of news from Washington grew unbearable. Murmurings that LFPA might be cancelled had been building.

President Donald Trump’s administration wasted no time throttling the civil service since he took office in January. Billionaire Elon Musk headed a newly created Department of Government Efficiency that scoured offices and grants purportedly seeking to unearth waste and fraud.

The executive branch froze payments, dissolved contracts and shuttered programs. Supporters cheered a Republican president who promised to finally drain the swamp. Detractors saw democracy and the rule of law cracking under hammer blows.

Farm silo seen among tall brown grasses
Wonderfarm’s silo stands above the farm on April 8, 2025, in Klevenville, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)

But agriculture generally gleans support from both sides of the aisle, Jess thought. Although lawmakers disagree over who may claim to be a “real” farmer versus a mere hobbyist, surely the feds wouldn’t can the program.

Like the lightning overhead, the news shocked.

LFPA “no longer effectuates agency priorities,” government officials declared in terse letters sent to states and tribes.

Its termination left Jess and hundreds of producers and recipients in a lurch. The cut coincided with ballooning demand at food banks and pantries while congressional Republicans pushed legislation to shrink food assistance programs.

LFPA is a relic of a bygone era, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in May.

She smiled as she touted the administration’s achievements and defended agency reductions before congressional appropriations subcommittees.

Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., pressed the secretary, asking if the department will reinstate “critical” food assistance programs. One in five Wisconsin children and one in 10 adults — often elderly, disabled or employed but struggling — are unable to or uncertain how they will obtain enough nutritious food.

“Those were COVID-era programs,” Rollins said, shaking her head. “They were never meant to go forever and ever.”

But LFPA also strengthened local food infrastructure, which withered on the vine as a few giant companies — reaching from fields to grocery aisles — came to dominate America’s agricultural sector.

The pandemic illustrated what happens when the country’s food system grinds to a halt. Who knows when the next wave will strike?

***

Nearly 300 Wisconsin producers participated in LFPA over two years. A buyer told Jess their organization could purchase up to $12,000 of pork each month — almost as much as Jess previously earned in a year.

Wisconsin’s $8 million award was among the tiniest of drops in the USDA’s billion-dollar budget. The agency’s decision seemed illogically punitive.

Only a few months earlier, Biden’s agriculture department encouraged marginalized farmers and fishers to participate so underserved communities could obtain healthy and “culturally relevant” foods like okra, bok choy and Thai chilis.

Then the Trump administration cast diversity, equity and inclusion programs as “woke” poison.

Person leans over and looks at large freezer with meat in it.
Jess D’Souza, owner of Wonderfarm in Klevenville, Wis., looks through stored meat in her basement after finishing the morning chores on April 8, 2025. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)

Cutting LFPA also clashes with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again initiative and his calls to ban ultra-processed foods. Farmers and distributors wondered what goods pantries would use to stock shelves instead of fresh produce. Boxed macaroni?

The aftershocks of the canceled award spread through Wisconsin’s local food distribution networks. Trucks had been rented, staff hired and hub-and-spoke routes mapped in preparation for three more years of government-backed deliveries.

For a president who touts the art of the deal, pulling the plug on an investment that neared self-sufficiency is just bad business, said Tara Turner-Roberts, manager of the Wisconsin Food Hub Cooperative.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers accused the Trump administration of abandoning farmers, and Attorney General Josh Kaul recently joined 20 others suing to block grant rescissions.

Meanwhile, participants asked the agriculture department and Congress to reinstate the program. Should that fail, they implored Wisconsin legislators to fill the gap and continue to seek local solutions.

Jess is too.

***

Jess alternately texted on her cellphone and scanned a swarm of protesters who gathered across the Wisconsin State Capitol’s lawn.

She had agreed to speak before hundreds, potentially thousands, of people and was searching for an organizer.

Madison’s “Hands off!” rally reflected national unrest that ignited during the first 75 days of Trump’s term. In early April, a coalition of advocates and civil rights groups organized more than 1,300 events across every state.

Woman talks into microphone at left as others hold signs.
Jess D’Souza, a farmer raising heritage pigs at Wonderfarm in Klevenville, Wis., delivers a speech on April 5, 2025, at the “Hands off!” protest in downtown Madison. She is one of nearly 300 Wisconsin growers who over two years participated in the Local Food Purchase Assistance program, which the Trump administration canceled. (Bennet Goldstein / Wisconsin Watch)

Jess pulled out a USDA-branded reusable sandwich bag, which she had loaded with boiled potatoes to snack on. She and her new girlfriend joined the masses and advanced down State Street to the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.

A hoarse woman wearing a T-shirt covered in peace patches and a tie-dye bandana directed the marchers. She led them in a menagerie of greatest protest hits during the 30-minute walk past shops, restaurants and mixed-use high-rises.

“Money for jobs and education, not for war and corporations!” her metallic voice crackled through a megaphone. 

Trump’s administration had maligned so many communities, creating a coherent rallying cry seemed impossible. The chant leader hurriedly checked her cellphone for the next jingle in a dizzying display of outrage.

“The people, united, will never be defeated!”

“Say it loud! Say it clear! Immigrants are welcome here!”

Jess leaned into her girlfriend, linking arms as they walked. 

They ran into a friend with violet hair. Jess grinned sheepishly, trying not to think about the speech.

“You’ll be fine,” her friend said.

The chant captain bellowed. 

“Hands off everything!”

A black police cruiser flashed its emergency lights as the walk continued under overcast skies.

An hour later, Jess stood atop a cement terrace, awed by the sea of chatter, laughter and shouts that swamped the plaza.

A friend took her photo. Jess swayed to the chant of “Defund ICE!” A protester walked past, carrying a sign bearing the silhouette of Trump locking lips with Russian President Vladmir Putin.

Someone passed Jess a microphone. The crowd shouted to the heavens that “trans lives matter!” A cowbell clanged.

She grinned.

“I don’t want to slow us down,” Jess began.

She described her dilemma as the crowd listened politely. The government broke its commitments. She struggles to pay bills between unpredictable sales. Some farm chores require four working hands. 

Jess only has two.

Woman carries fencing
Jess D’Souza, owner of Wonderfarm, installs new fencing as she prepares to move her pigs, April 8, 2025, in Klevenville, Wis. This was supposed to be the year Jess broke a profit after a decade of toiling. But cuts to a federal program jeopardize those plans. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)

“LFPA kind of gave me hope that I’d be able to keep doing the thing that I love,” she said.

Bystanders booed as she recounted the night of the fateful email. Jess chuckled and rocked on her foot, glad to see friends in the audience.

“The structures around us are crumbling,” she said, shrugging. “So let’s stop leaning on them. Let’s stop feeding them. Let’s grow a resilient community.”

The crowd whooped.

 ***

It’s hard for Jess to stomach meat on harvest days.

Naming an animal and later slaughtering it necessitates learning how to grieve. Jess had years to practice.

The meat processor’s truck rumbled up the farm driveway at 7 a.m. in late April.

Jess spent the previous week sorting her herd, selecting the six largest non-breeding swine. She ushered them to either side of a fence that bisected the barnyard.

It took roughly 30 minutes for the two butchers to transform a pig into pork on Jess’ farm. The transfiguration occurred somewhere between the barnyard, the metal cutting table and the cooler where the halved carcasses dangle from hooks inside the mobile slaughter unit.

Man in orange hoodie and jeans puts a metal instrument on a pig outside a barn.
Mitch Bryant of Natural Harvest butchering uses an electrical stunner on a pig on April 29, 2025 — harvest day at Jess D’Souza’s Wonderfarm in Klevenville, Wis. Electricity causes the animal to seize and pass out before butchers cut into it. (Patricio Crooker for Wisconsin Watch)

The butchers unpacked their gear in the gentle morning glow. Jess carried a plastic tray of eggs, squash shavings and mango peels to the pen.

The snack helps lure anxious pigs during the harvest. It’s also a final gift for the one they are about to give.

The butchers employed an electrical stunner that resembles a pair of barbecue tongs. A coiled cord connects the contraption to a battery that releases an electric current.

When pressed to a pig’s head, the animal seizes and passes out. The butchers cut its chest before it awakens.

An hour into the harvest, Jess guided more swine from a trailer, where a cluster slept the previous night, along with a seventh little pig that wasn’t headed to the block.

A male began to urinate atop a dead female — possibly mating behavior. Jess smacked his butt to shoo him away. She regretted it. 

He bolted across the yard, grunting and sidestepping whenever Jess approached.

“Just leave him for the next round,” one of the butchers said.

Man hangs two meat carcasses.
Shaun Coffey of Natural Harvest butchering works at Jess D’Souza’s pig farm in the unincorporated community of Klevenville, Wis., on April 29, 2025. (Patricio Crooker for Wisconsin Watch)

Jess remembers her first on-farm slaughter years ago when a female spooked and tore through the woods. Jess kept her as a breeder.

The agitated male disappeared behind the red barn. He sniffed the air as he peeked around the corner.

The standoff lasted another hour. One of the butchers returned with a 20-gauge shotgun. He unslung it from his shoulder, then walked behind the building.

Jess turned away. She covered her ears. A rooster crowed.

The crack split the air.

The other worker hauled the pig across the barnyard, leaving a glossy wake in the dirt.

Jess crossed the pen, shoulders deflated, and stepped over the dividing fence to feed the others.

A 6-month-old trotted over to her. Jess squatted on her haunches and extended a gloved hand. 

“Are you playing?” she asked. “Is that what is happening?”

Woman crouches next to pig behind fence
Farmer Jess D’Souza greets a pig at Wonderfarm in the unincorporated community of Klevenville, Wis., on April 29, 2025 — a harvest day. (Patricio Crooker for Wisconsin Watch)

***

The May harvest never happened.

Nearly all the females were pregnant, even though they aren’t designated breeders. Jess will postpone the slaughter day for now.

She needs to decide whether to raise her spring piglets or sell them. It all depends on how quickly she can move product, but she’s leaning toward keeping them.

The pork from April’s butchering is on ice as she works her way down a list of potential buyers. She still serves people in need by selling a portion to a Madison nonprofit that distributes Farms to Families “resilience boxes.”

Jess marks the days she collects her meat from the processor. She defrosts, say, a pack of brats and heats them up for dinner. 

She celebrates her pigs.

Jess and her farming peers are planning for a world with less federal assistance.

One idea: They would staff shifts at the still-under-construction Madison Public Market, where fresh food would remain on site 40 hours a week. No more schlepping meat from cold storage to a pop-up vendor stand.

She dreams of a wholesale market where buyers place large orders. One day maybe. No government whims or purse strings.

Like seeds that sprout after a prairie burn, some institutions will survive the flames, she thinks. Perhaps it doesn’t have to be the ones in Washington. 

Those that remain will grow anew.

Large pig follows woman on a hill.
Jess D’Souza, owner of Wonderfarm in Klevenville, Wis., retrieves a bale of hay for one of her “mama pigs” during morning chores, April 8, 2025. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)

This story is part of a partnership with the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an editorially independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in partnership with Report for America and funded by the Walton Family Foundation.

Wisconsin Watch is a member of the Ag & Water Desk network. Sign up for our newsletters to get our news straight to your inbox.

Wisconsin pig farmer holds on at Wonderfarm as Washington breaks a promise 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.

Wisconsin dairy farmer sues Trump administration claiming discrimination against white farmers

Cows inside a barn
Reading Time: 2 minutes

A Wisconsin dairy farmer alleged in a federal lawsuit filed Monday that the Trump administration is illegally denying financial assistance to white farmers by continuing programs that favor minorities.

The conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty filed the lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture in federal court in Wisconsin on behalf of a white dairy farmer, Adam Faust.

Faust was among several farmers who successfully sued the Biden administration in 2021 for race discrimination in the USDA’s Farmer Loan Forgiveness Plan.

The new lawsuit alleges the government has continued to implement diversity, equity and inclusion programs that were instituted under former President Joe Biden. The Wisconsin Institute wrote to the USDA in April warning of legal action, and six Republican Wisconsin congressmen called on the USDA to investigate and end the programs.

“The USDA should honor the President’s promise to the American people to end racial discrimination in the federal government,” Faust said in a written statement. “After being ignored by a federal agency that’s meant to support agriculture, I hope my lawsuit brings answers, accountability, and results from USDA.”

A spokesperson for the USDA declined to comment, saying the agency does not comment on pending lawsuits.

John Boyd, president of the National Black Farmers Association, said the lawsuit is “frustrating for me personally and as the leader of this movement.”

“The farmers that are hurting now are clearly the Black farmers out here,” he said. “You can couch it any way you want.”

The lawsuit contends that Faust is one of 2 million white male American farmers who are subject to discriminatory race-based policies at the USDA.

The lawsuit names three USDA programs and policies it says put white men at a disadvantage and violate the Constitution’s guarantee of equal treatment by discriminating based on race and sex.

Faust participates in one program designed to offset the gap between milk prices and the cost of feed, but the lawsuit alleges he is charged a $100 administrative fee that minority and female farmers do not have to pay.

Faust also participates in a USDA program that guarantees 90% of the value of loans to white farmers, but 95% to women and racial minorities. That puts Faust at a disadvantage, the lawsuit alleges.

Faust has also begun work on a new manure storage system that could qualify for reimbursement under a USDA environmental conservation program, but 75% of his costs are eligible while 90% of the costs of minority farmers qualify, the lawsuit contends.

A federal court judge ruled in a similar 2021 case that granting loan forgiveness only to “socially disadvantaged farmers” amounts to unconstitutional race discrimination. The Biden administration suspended the program, and Congress repealed it in 2022.

The Wisconsin Institute has filed dozens of such lawsuits in 25 states attacking DEI programs in government. In its April letter to the USDA, the law firm that has a long history of representing Republicans said it didn’t want to sue “but there is no excuse for this continued discrimination.”

Trump has been aggressive in trying to end the government’s DEI efforts to fulfill a campaign promise and bring about a profound cultural shift across the U.S. from promoting diversity to an exclusive focus on merit.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Wisconsin dairy farmer sues Trump administration claiming discrimination against white farmers 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.

Federal cuts threaten Wisconsin farm safety center for children, rural communities

Boy on a farm tractor
Reading Time: 3 minutes

A Wisconsin-based research center focused on improving the health and safety of farmers and their children is under “existential threat” due to federal funding cuts.

The National Farm Medicine Center at the Marshfield Clinic Health System researches the causes of farm injuries and fatalities and provides education to rural communities both in Wisconsin and around the country. It’s also home to the National Children’s Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety, one of 12 agricultural centers across the country funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, or NIOSH.

NIOSH is one of the federal health agencies that were demolished by mass firings under the Trump administration in April. The agency is expected to lose more than 90 percent of its staff. 

The National Farm Medicine Center declined WPR’s interview request. But in a newsletter sent last month, director Casper Bendixsen said the cuts pose an “existential threat” to the program, which has relied on NIOSH funding and resources for decades.

“If these cuts hold, approximately three-quarters of the research and outreach carried out by the National Farm Medicine Center is at risk,” Bendixsen wrote in the email. “These potential losses threaten our communities on many fronts. Research, education and prevention of disease and injury in rural places cannot be ignored.”

John Shutske is an agricultural safety and health specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has been a longtime collaborator with the center in Marshfield. He said farming is a dangerous occupation, and new health issues continue to emerge as farms change, from exposure to gas from manure pits to injury risks from new farm machinery. That’s why he’s concerned about the uncertain future of grants through NIOSH and similar agencies.

“Without the continued research that’s made possible with federal funding, it would set us back,” Shutske said. “We’ve seen over the last several decades a pretty dramatic decrease overall in our farm fatality rate. And while I think (the number of deaths) would probably plateau, I don’t think we would be able to continue to make the kind of progress that we’ve had.”

Federal cuts threaten future of safety guidance for farm kids, families

Shutske said the National Farm Medicine Center is a significant resource for Wisconsin, helping to study the leading causes of farm fatalities in the state. But he said the center is known nationally for its work to create a safer environment for children on farms. 

The program first developed guidelines for age-appropriate farm jobs in the 1990s, and Shutske said they’ve been instrumental in helping rural families better understand a child’s limitations when pitching in around the farm.

“(Children) may be tall enough and strong enough and physically mature enough to operate some piece of equipment, but mentally and cognitively, from a decision-making perspective, they simply are not equipped,” he said. “That whole language piece, of talking about child development as it relates to farm safety, can really be traced back in its roots to the people in Marshfield.”

Mary Miller is a retired occupational health nurse practitioner for the state of Washington who spent her career focusing on protecting children in workplaces. She said the National Children’s Center is one of the only places in the country that focuses on protecting farm kids working for their parents or another family member.

“Historically, that’s been kind of the elephant in the room, frankly, that kids are allowed to do anything and everything on a so-called family farm,” she said.

Miller said researchers in Marshfield have been key leaders in getting guidance to farm parents even when regulations haven’t addressed the issue. She said losing that resource will put children and their families at risk.

Programs for rural firefighters also at risk

Jerry Minor, chief of the Pittsville Fire Department in rural Wood County, said his department has worked with the National Farm Medicine Center since it opened in 1981 to develop guidance for fire departments to respond safely on farms. 

“The type of call we get on a farm is usually a pretty high intensity type of call, you know entrapments, severe injuries, and we don’t go to those calls very often,” he said. “We’ve helped them develop programs on how to teach firefighters to enter silos and treat tractor rollovers.”

He said they’ve also created a training program for fire departments that want to proactively work with local farms on improving safety. Rural firefighters are trained to look for common hazards and to provide producers with information on how to safely store farm chemicals or what safety equipment is needed.

More than 170 first responders in 16 states and five Canadian provinces have gone through the training, according to the program’s website.

Minor said these programs are “vital” to both first responders and farm families. He’s worried there will be no one to continue the work if the center loses funding through NIOSH.

“I’m very fearful of what might happen,” he said. “I understand being fiscally responsible, but sometimes you’ve got to sit back and take a look at the bigger picture.”

This story was originally published by WPR.

Federal cuts threaten Wisconsin farm safety center for children, rural communities 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.

Offshore wind supply chain

By: newenergy

Offshore wind supply chain faces systemic pressure as 2030 clean energy targets loom – Shoreline Wind report  Governments should provide clearer policies and integrate new tender criteria, while developers can empower smaller firms through standardized contracts, improved payment terms, and collaboration with specialist service providers    Smaller firms are particularly vulnerable, struggling to compete and …

The post Offshore wind supply chain appeared first on Alternative Energy HQ.

Shoreline Wind and Principle Power Collaborate to Unlock Floating Offshore Wind Opportunity Globally

By: newenergy

 $1.2 Trillion+ opportunity for Floating Offshore Wind (FOW) developers globally says UK report 1  FOW developers urged to learn lessons from European deployment Seoul, South Korea, 27 November 2024 — As the global wind industry prepares for GWEC’s Wind Energy Summit in South Korea later this week, Principle Power and Shoreline Wind demonstrate how Floating …

The post Shoreline Wind and Principle Power Collaborate to Unlock Floating Offshore Wind Opportunity Globally appeared first on Alternative Energy HQ.

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