Where I come from

Hello, Dairy Star readers. Since I’ll be in your mailbox once a month, I should say who’s knocking.

My name is Andrea Brossard, and I’m a third-generation dairy farmer near Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. I farm alongside my brother and parents at Brossard Dairy Farm LLC.

FFA is where I grew into myself: speaking contests, parliamentary procedure, competing nationally in poultry and agricultural sales and earning my American FFA Degree. In 2024, I was honored to receive the Wisconsin FFA Distinguished Service Award for two-plus decades of dedication to the agricultural sales contest. I may not wear the blue corduroy jacket anymore, but it still lives in me.

From there, I followed my brother to the Farm and Industry Short Course at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where I served as a housefellow and later as alumni association president, and I came back to teach for 5-plus years. FISC holds a special place in my heart for the education, the people and the connections made.

After one year with FISC, I stayed to complete my degrees in dairy science and agricultural journalism, and that combination has shaped everything since. My heart and foundation are rooted in the dairy farm, and I love telling the story of the people who care for them.

Today, when I’m not in the barn, I do agricultural communications, working with cooperatives, agribusinesses and organizations on everything from marketing strategy to content that drives agriculture. Much of it is strategy. Agriculture is complicated, and the people we need to reach are far from the barn, so figuring out what to say, to whom and how is the part I enjoy most. Some of my favorite work is teaching supply chain and sustainability professionals what happens on a farm. The thread through all of it: Agriculture has a good story, and farmers are the right people to tell it.

Farm Bureau has been a big part of that. I’ve served as secretary and young farmer chair for Dodge County Farm Bureau, chaired the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Young Farmer and Agriculturist Committee and the Promotion and Education Committee, and I spent two terms on the American Farm Bureau Promotion and Education Committee, including as vice chair. I’m also a graduate of the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Leadership Institute. Those roles taught me that advocacy is less about being the loudest voice and more about showing up and telling your story well.

Currently, I serve as vice president of the Insight FS Board of Directors. If Farm Bureau taught me to tell the story, the cooperative board has taught me the business behind it, along with connections in the field and across the industry I’d never have made otherwise.

At home, I’m not only a caretaker for the large animals; the small ones tug at my heartstrings, too. There’s usually a cat or two needing extra care, from bottle babies to the abandoned, and always a good dog alongside. Right now, that’s Averie, a young Border Collie who takes her job seriously, especially the part about keeping an eye on me. Josh Billings once said a dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than itself. Anyone with a farm dog knows exactly what he meant.

My hope is that this column reads like a conversation with a neighbor, the kind you have while leaning on a tailgate after chores. Some months, it will be the industry; others, the cows, the cats or whatever the weather decided to do that week. Either way, I’ll be honest with you, and I hope you’ll do the same.

Thanks for having me. Let’s get started.

Andrea Brossard is a third-generation dairy farmer who farms alongside her brother and parents at Brossard Dairy Farm LLC near Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. She also owns Brossard & Co., an agricultural communications consulting firm, where she helps agribusinesses and farm organizations tell their story through strategy, writing and marketing.