Farming is one of the most dangerous occupations in America. In 2018, the National Education Center for Agricultural Safety reported 23.4 accidental deaths per 100,000 farm-workers. National Farm Safety and Health Week takes place every year during the third week of September to acknowledge the dangers when farming, especially now, while farmers are harvesting.
While scrolling through social media recently, I saw someone ask, “Why hasn’t Governor Evers distributed funds from the Heroes Act?” Others jumped all over this comment, claiming the Governor failed because the Heroes Act wasn’t being implemented when it could be.
Six months into a global pandemic, we’ve become familiar with language we’ve never expected to use before COVID-19. “Quarantine” was a word most likely associated with popular sci-fi movies, and “safer at home” was a phrase we probably only heard when we were expecting a big snowstorm.
Note: Information about the inspiring life and work of Frances Perkins for this column comes from the Frances Perkins Center.
Annually, our country honors the contributions of American workers on Labor Day, but perhaps it wasn’t until this year, while living through a pandemic, when many really appreciated the essential role many workers have in our day-to-day lives.
Even though my days as a farm journalist are getting farther and farther behind me in the rearview mirror, the desire to know what’s going on in the world is one that I still haven’t been able to shake. One day, I was reading Wisconsin Ag Connection as I do before chores every morning when I came across a piece titled “USDA Announces Production Controls on Cherries”.
This past weekend, hundreds of thousands of Americans came together at the stairs of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C to commemorate the anniversary of the March on Washington. Activists stood on the same steps, delivering remarks reminiscent to the same call to action shared 57 years ago from Civil Rights leaders.
Once again the Wisconsin Legislature has responded to a request for a Special Session by gaveling in and out, leaving the legislature "in recess" while taking no action. It has now been 138 days since the legislature has passed a bill, and since the Assembly Chamber is currently being remodeled, even if they decided to come back into session it is not clear where they would meet in any case.
Over the last four months, I was honored to participate in the Governor’s Task Force on Student Debt, established by Governor Tony Evers to address the student debt crisis impacting more than 700,000 Wisconsinites. The latest statistic from the Board of Governors shows the level of student debt owed has reached a mind-boggling $1.7 trillion; Wisconsin, alone, has more than $24 billion in student loan debt, according to the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
When it comes to farming, one thing is certain – it connects us all. Many of us in western Wisconsin can trace our roots to farming. But even if we’ve personally lost a physical connection to the family farm, all Wisconsin residents have an obvious connection to Wisconsin’s agricultural heritage.
Covering the Menomonie School Board has from the start been emotionally trying. I'm the guy who is almost always at the school board meeting, first doing video recordings and recently doing live streams. Through the past 2 years give or take I've seen a lot of dysfunctional behavior on the board, and a number of incidents that have left me shaking my head. The board regularly exhibits passive-aggressive behavior that at times borders on toxic.
