Advances

(Advances gives a glimpse of the many significant research projects at the university. Tell us about your discoveries by e-mailing: wisweek@news.wisc.edu.)

Genetic crops: Small farms, small profits
Profitability plays a major role in Wisconsin farmers’ decisions to plant or quit planting genetically modified crops, a university study shows.

Researchers with the Program on Agricultural Technology Studies found that cash grain operations and large farms were most likely to plant genetically modified crops, and that smaller farms were more likely to drop those crops between 1999 and 2000.

Smaller Wisconsin producers seem to be taking a pragmatic approach – they’re dropping modified crops because these varieties aren’t making money for them, according to PATS associate director Fred Buttel, a rural sociologist at the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.

Buttel and doctoral candidate Lucy Chen surveyed Wisconsin producers on their use of Bt corn (which contains a protein that’s toxic to cornborers), HT (herbicide-tolerant) corn and HT soybeans. They collected data from the same producers over three years, surveying farmers who adopted, continued to use, or de-adopted GM crops, along with farmers who never planted GM varieties.

Use of all three modified crop varieties has tended to be most common among cash grain producers and producers with large acreages of cropland, Buttel says. The data also showed a trend toward producers with small cropland acreages becoming less likely to employ modified crops from 1999 to 2000.

The Wisconsin researchers’ statistics differ somewhat from USDA data, which are based on crop acreage. For the full report, contact Nancy Carlisle, 265-2908, nlcarlis@facstaff.wisc.edu

Family farms retain major role in dairy industry
To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the death of the family dairy farm have been greatly exaggerated.

Medium-sized, family dairy operations will remain central to Wisconsin dairy farming for the foreseeable future, according to Brad Barham and Douglas Jackson-Smith, co-directors of the Program on Agricultural Technology Studies.

During the past 40 years, the number of dairy farms in Wisconsin has decreased from more than 100,000 to about 22,000 while the average herd size has increased from 20 cows to 65 cows per farm. The average herd in California – often the model of “industrial” dairying – is about 500 cows.

Says Jackson-Smith: “Our research on recent dairy expansions and the entry and exit of operators in Wisconsin indicates that over the past 10 years we have not been going through such a radical transformation.”

A healthy dairy industry is essential to Wisconsin agriculture and a vital part of the state’s rural economy. Milk sales still make up the majority of gross farm income, and dairy farmers continue to manage most of the state’s croplands. But a cost-price squeeze has forced farmers to grow in order to survive.

“The trend towards larger dairy herds and farms in Wisconsin is indisputable,” says Barham. “However, compared with the rapid transformation taking place in other livestock sectors, Wisconsin’s dairy industry has been changing slowly, with average herd size growing at about 3 percent per year over the past 40 years.

Contrary to public accounts, the accelerated decline in the number of Wisconsin dairy farms over the past 15 years is not the result of an increase in the number of farmers going out of business. “That number has actually been relatively constant,” says Jackson-Smith. “The real explanation is that the number of new dairy farm entrants has declined dramatically.”