Rosenholm Dairy hosts Sen. Tammy Baldwin

WAUMANDEE, Wis. — On Aug. 14, Rosenholm Dairy outside of Waumandee got a visitor from the capital. The 600-cow dairy, owned by John Rosenow and his wife, Nettie, hosted Sen. Tammy Baldwin for a farm tour as she discussed the reintroduction of the Dairy Pride Act.

  “It’s really important that the Senator can get out here in the real country and see us,” John Rosenow said. “I can’t imagine being a senator and having to deal with all the issues she has to. For her to take a couple of hours of her time to come here to rural Waumandee, it’s kind of amazing.”

The Rosenows also own and operate Cowsmo Compost, using their manure to create an organic compost, with retailers in four states.

Rosenow took Sen. Baldwin on a tour of the farm, stopping in the double-9 herringbone parlor first. The senator prepped a cow for milking before seeing the holding area, maternity barn, youngstock in hutches and feed lots, and the Cowsmo Compost product.

“I especially love visiting our small and medium-sized farms,” Baldwin said. “They face some of the most significant headwinds.”

The Dairy Pride Act has been introduced several times over the past six years but has not been made into law. It attempts to restrict which products can use dairy-specific terms, such as milk, yogurt and butter.

Baldwin said dairy farmers work hard every single day to create a high-quality, nutritious product, and they face incredible obstacles.

“Whether it’s rain, Trump’s trade policies and tariffs, there are a lot of headwinds for farmers, especially dairy farmers,” she said. “I want to share that what the last thing they need is imitators using dairy’s good name for their own profit.”

Sen. Baldwin discussed what made the introduction of the Dairy Pride Act different this time, compared to other years without success.

“There have been modifications to the bill in consultation with Farm Bureau and the milk producers,” Baldwin said. “There are a couple things that are different this time around. We have more bipartisan support than we’ve had in years past.”

Sen. Baldwin also spoke on the need for a new farm bill, something that she thinks can help the Dairy Pride Act be passed.

“We’re overdue for a farm bill — way overdue,” Baldwin said. “So when we have great ideas like the Dairy Pride Act, we hope that in the process of putting together the farm bill, that we can include this provision within it because we know once that’s moving, that becomes a must-pass piece of legislation.”

Continuing to speak on the potential of a new farm bill, Baldwin reinforced renewing the Dairy Business Innovation Act, which provides grants to dairies or processors that perform value-added activities on the farm.

“You have all sorts of folks able to see what used to be unmarketable and add value to the operation,” Baldwin said. “There’s a lot of ways in which our dairy farmers, especially our small and medium-sized farmers, have been super creative and figured out ways, especially when milk prices are low, to keep ahead.”

Rosenow spoke about what he hoped Sen. Baldwin learned from their time together touring his fifth-generation farm.

“When someone like that comes here, I hope they learn what the real world is, rather than what’s going on inside of the rotunda, or what the 24-hour news stations are saying,” Rosenow said. “A lot of us out here aren’t as concerned about politics as everybody else in the world is. And we need to get the work done.”

Rosenholm Dairy experienced some of the challenges that Senator Baldwin discussed, as the farm was hit by a tornado in May. As a result, the farm saw a semi turned over, calf hutches destroyed, and the roof come off a portion of the barn.

“We were gone when it came, and it seemed like it only struck our farm,” Rosenow said. “We had calves running around all over the place in the middle of the afternoon. We’ve been spending the rest of the summer putting everything back together.”

Sen. Baldwin was not the first senator to set foot on the Rosenholm Dairy. Rosenow also hosted Sen. Kohl in the late 1980s. During Kohl’s first campaign, his opponent, Susan Engeleiter, knew the Rosenows and introduced Kohl to the dairy farmer.

“When Sen. Kohl ran the first time, he had an event but didn’t know much about agriculture, but his opponent introduced us,” Rosenow said. “After our barn burnt down in 1989, Senator Kohl came up to see what we built and even milked a cow.”

Rosenow also discussed the importance of representing Wisconsin’s dairy industry to government representatives.

“Over 10% of the economy in Wisconsin is dairy based,” Rosenow said. “Whether it’s a farm, or people that are servicing farms or the processing plants, it’s really important for the state of Wisconsin to keep family farms running.”