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Are things looking up for farming’s future?

As I’ve mentioned here previously, my parents were raised on farms near the Dane County village of Marshall. I might have become a farmer myself had it not been for my allergy problems. Several of my uncles were farmers, and I look back fondly on my time spent working with my Uncle Louie, who devoted his life to operating a dairy where he and my mother and their siblings were raised.

That’s why I paid particular interest to recent reports with seemingly good news about farming in the Midwest, Wisconsin and Rock County. Farmland prices are rising rapidly in Iowa, bolstered by rising farm income. Corn and soybean prices are likewise up in Wisconsin, as were 2011 yields. Wisconsin’s dairy industry is enjoying a resurgence, and that’s emphasized here in Rock County by the opening of the massive Rock Prairie Dairy east of Janesville. Local teens are among those who have gotten Wisconsin FFA Foundation grants to start small farming operations.

While our unemployment rate remains high, might all this bode well for more young people staying on the farm or starting farming rather than fleeing for job opportunities in cities, like they did for so many recent decades?

Last Thursday’s Gazette included a story about the Dairy Security Act. The proposal from U.S. Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., would allow farmers to voluntarily decide, individually, how much risk they want to assume in milk pricing. Federal support would kick in when profit margins were squeezed.

Do you like this proposal?

We’ll put perspective on all this news in our editorial Tuesday.

Greg Peck can be reached at (608) 755-8278 or gpeck@gazettextra.com. Or follow him on Twitter or Facebook