Every five years, Congress negotiates to renew a suite of agricultural legislation known as the Farm Bill. It has twelve sections or titles that cover different areas of policy. Congress is currently deliberating the bundle of legislation that could have a big impact on all of Wisconsin’s 64,000 farms and their operators.
Michael Dolan is one the many Wisconsin farmers interested in the bill and concerned about the future of farming. Dolan began farming in 2015 after finishing college. But his family has farmed the driftless terrain of Iowa County for more than 150 years.
It began as a dairy farm, but during Dolan's childhood his grandmother rented out the land.
"This was corn and beans and hay rotation. So, it was mono-crop planted every year and harvested every year," Dolan says.
That changed in 2007 when his parents bought the farm. Their dream was to grow their own food. "They began with 14 Murray Grey's (beef cattle)," Dolan says.
They now own a herd of 220 along with hogs.
"Now we're farrowing to finishing around 150 hogs a year. We're calving to finishing around 60 to 70 head of beef a year," he says.
Dolan's brother runs the mechanical side of the farm. The family owns 200 acres and rent another 500.
"Ultimately, I want to be contiguous, have mainly contiguous land because in a grazing system, you're not trucking cattle," he says. "Also integrating more cropping and livestock."
Dolan is also incorporating trees on the landscape as part of his livestock grazing system on the family's home farm.
"We did 12,000 fruit and nut trees planting on the home farm here on 70 acres, mainly chestnuts as our deciduous tree, but also lots of fruit trees — apple, pears and plums and as well as four acres of hazelnuts," he explains.
Dolan says up until recently he hadn't found any government programs that would assist with the kind of projects his family has brought to life.
"We did sign an NRCS contract on the 65 acres across the road here to fence silvopasture establishment and water, which is exciting that we can grow the grazing aspect," he says.
Dolan believes their approach to food production could serve as a model. "Producing nutritious healthy foods that could revamp our food system and produce food in a very reliable, productive way," He says. "It's part of decentralizing the food system, bringing more money into our rural economies and bringing back maybe the butcher shops in our rural economies."
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