Chippewa Valley Farmers Share Struggles With Fuel Prices, Tariffs

A number of Chippewa Valley residents gathered at a local farm in Eau Claire on Monday morning to highlight the struggles farmers across the state are facing ahead of the November election.

The event, organized by Chippewa Valley Indivisible, specifically noted the cost of diesel fuel topping $6 per gallon for the first time ever as farmers enter the harvest season, the time of the year when they're using the most fuel on average. George Polzin, a 4th generation farmer in the region, summed up how much of an impact those additional costs are causing for the average farm.

"The average dairy farm in Wisconsin, these are the University of Wisconsin numbers I got them just this morning," he said. "The additional cost is between $45,000 and $60,000 a year on the average farm in Wisconsin. That's just got to be eaten, and the price of milk didn't go up. $45,000, there's not too many people that work out in the business world that could take a $45,000 hit in pay."

In addition to the short-term cost increases caused by tariffs implemented over the last two years, Polzin also highlighted the long-term struggles the agricultural industry will face as it works to rebuild export relationships that have been broken as a result of those trade wars.

"A lot of people in the dairy industry, and in the marketing ends of things, that have spent their entire career developing these industry markets and world markets," he said. "And we live in a global market, I don't care what anybody says, we can not isolate ourselves. And to rebuild and fix what has been broken will take some time. It will. One administration change isn't going to change the whole thing overnight. These things take time."

Following the rally, Polzin said this has been the most challenging time to own a family farm that he can remember during his decades in the agricultural industry. He also shared his hope that those family farms will be able to carve out niche markets for themselves to continue surviving into the future.