Wisconsin’s Dairy Crisis: “We Are Losing Two Farms A DAY!”

SHTF Plan – by Mac Slavo

Wisconsin’s dairy crisis has only just begun as the state is losing two farms each day, according to Patty Edelburg, vice president of the National Farmers Union.  As farm bankruptcies soar, it is possible that nearly 10% of Wisconsin dairy farmers may go out of business in 2019. 

“You look at the weather, you look at the crops you can’t get off the field, you look at the bills you can’t pay,” Edelburg, told Yahoo Finance. “Bankruptcies are up. Wisconsin is attributed as the number one bankruptcy in the nation right now when it comes to dairy farmers. That number is up, I think, 24% from last year already. We’re losing two farms a day.”  Between 2016 and 2018, Wisconsin lost almost 1,200 dairy farms. The USDA saw a 6.8% decrease in farms across the entire country in 2018.

Wisconsin’s suicide rates have spiked over the last few years and according to the Wisconsin State Journal, experts are attributing many of those deaths to farmers facing economic challenges.

“Farming is such a stressful occupation by itself,” Edelburg said. “When you start adding financial stress on top of it, it’s just going to add more stress. Farmers can’t pay their bills, they have no extra money, they have people honing down their neck looking to pay bills. They’re going to banks and they can’t get loans. They’re literally being denied loans.”

She explained that the USDA farm agency trains its farm loan officers on how to look for warning signs as part of suicide prevention. “The bankers are the first and the forefront to see a lot of these things,” Edelburg said. “They’re delivering the bad news, and these farmers are dealing with it on that level.”

It isn’t just farmers who are committing suicide either.  The political structure in place, which is designed to steal from the producer and redistribute wealth to the government is widening the wealth gap, creating more poverty, and generally destroying the mental well being of so many Americans.

SHTF Plan