During Gov. Tony Evers’ State of the State address Wednesday, he listed his priorities for the state.
At the top – extending more resources to our farmers.
Thursday he signed an executive order that would address some of the issues they’re facing and was in Manitowoc to talk about them.
His three prong appraoch includes creating the Wisconsin Initiative for Dairy Exports, generating a regional mental health program that would provide mental health support for farmers and promoting farmers’ programs to schools, hospitals, local businesses and hopefully bigger venues.
“Supporting the rural community of Wisconsin, particularly the dairy community means growing the market,” says farmer Karl Klessig. “And that’s one of the critically important parts of Governor Evers plan, is access to the international market.”
Evers says these aren’t new a ideas.
“Some of these issues were actually in my budget that I proposed to the legislature a year ago,” he says. “Those were pulled out of the budget.”
The governor created the plan after visiting with farmers around the state, an effort he says alerted him to their biggest wants and needs.
“They’re not interested in higher levels of production because there’s already an over supply, but they need help and it’s investing in technology so that they become more efficient so that they’re actually making money,” says Evers.
Until all the details are ironed out the farming community is just hoping to see some light at the end of the tunnel.
“Anything that can help the dairy community grow and prosper including marketing, education, support of our health, especially emotional health, is really important right now,” says Klessig.
The legislature will meet to take up those bills in a special session next Tuesday, January 28.
