This story was updated because an earlier version included an inaccuracy.
You would think it’s good that our state representatives are doing things for agriculture in the Farm Bill.
Farmers should expect as much, with the House Agriculture Committee featuring two Wisconsinites — Republicans Derrick Van Orden and Tony Wied. Republicans control that committee, allowing them to craft the Farm Bill and its provisions that deal with everything from price supports for producers to food assistance for needy families.
Testament to the importance of agriculture in our state, one congressmen not on the committee, namely Republican Glenn Grothman, also got an amendment into the bill that just passed the House and is now in the Senate.
But digging into what they put into the legislation leaves much to be desired. In fact, our leaders could do better, as the problems in agriculture are severe.
Wisconsin farmers suffer by Trump’s choices
To start, the disruption to oil supply chains caused by Trump’s war on Iran has hit everyone at the pump, including farmers, who also are seeing the prices of other key inputs like fertilizer, jump up in price.
Far from creating economic difficulties for farmers, the war just made their existing ones worse.
Wisconsin experienced in 2025 a surge of farm bankruptcies compared to 2024. Data from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) shows the decline going back further, when in 2004 there were about 12,000 dairy farms in the state, and as of 2026, that number has been more than halved, falling to about 5,000. Trends nationwide are similar for all operations, as since 2017, the number of farms has fallen by 8%, from a little over 2.04 million, to 1.9.
Meanwhile, our agriculture system is becoming internationalized. Currently, about 20% of farm income comes from exports, while 50% of the fruits and vegetables we eat, like broccoli, potatoes, asparagus and tomatoes, are imported.
How do these transformations embody Trump’s “America’s First” message? Our President touts bringing back manufacturing jobs, but seems willing to throw farmers under the bus with ill-thought out tariffs and wars, as our food increasingly comes from who knows where.
Enter the Farm Bill, where lawmakers could do something about these matters.
Unfortunately, their work on this critical law has been woefully inadequate.
Wisconsin leaders would rather punish poverty than help farmers
Grothman’s amendment pushed for greater oversight of low-income people receiving SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits, ensuring that they don’t buy soda, for instance. Van Orden wasn’t too involved lately in adding or cutting things from the Farm Bill. He was last year, supporting the passage of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, which cut over $186 billion from food assistance.
If taking food from hungry people wasn’t enough, Grothman and Van Orden also chose to vilify migrants. Rather than thinking of ways to legalize the people who make up 70% of the workforce on Wisconsin dairies, they spent taxpayer dollars to do political stunts by visiting the Southern Border. Van Orden did introduce legislation on farmworkers, but it dropped like a lead balloon as it forces workers to leave the country and reapply to return. Overall, there is nothing serious coming from either office for agriculture.
Rep. Wied has tried, working to improve monitoring of organic standards and imposing fees on SNAP-authorized retailers for EBT transactions. Still, these changes do little to fix an agricultural system hemorrhaging producers.
Adding insult to injury, there are bills that could move our food and farm system in a different direction.
For instance, there is the recently introduced Farmland for Farmers Act. This bill would prohibit corporations from acquiring agricultural land, as well as restricting them from accessing assistance from the USDA. With land access a primary challenge facing new and beginning producers, this legislation would help keep this resource in the hands of those poised to grow food for their communities. There is also the Family Grocery and Farmer Relief Act, which takes on corporate concentration. The bill would limit concentration in beef markets, triggering the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to order divestitures until markets become competitive.
Unfortunately, instead of including items from such legislation into the Farm Bill, our lawmakers either engage in minor reforms, or take aim at vulnerable people. With a food and farm system in crisis, we need real change. So, come November, if agriculture is our priority and being “America’s Dairyland” is to be more than a slogan for a bumper sticker, perhaps we should begin with voting into office new people with new ideas.
Anthony Pahnke is Vice President of the Family Farm Defenders and an Associate Professor of International Relations at San Francisco State University. He grew up in the Fond du Lac area where his family still has a farm. He can be reached at anthonypahnke@sfsu.edu.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin farmers are in crisis. Lawmakers aren’t helping. | Opinion
Reporting by Anthony Pahnke, Special to Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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