MONROE - Wisconsin's dairy industry is healthy and growing.
"That's one positive spot" among all the bad economic news, Laurie Fischer, executive director of the Wisconsin Dairy Business Association (WDBA), said Tuesday.
Wisconsin's dairy industry now generates about $21 billion in revenue each year. New technology and new facilities are helping the industry meet the growing demand for dairy products.
The WDBA and Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association (WCMA) presented a dairy tour Tuesday at W&W Dairy in Monroe and at Spring Grove Dairy farm near Brodhead to give people an idea of the industry's modernization.
W&W Dairy is a new Hispanic cheese plant operated by Dave Webster, Kevin Wyss and James Curran in Monroe's Business and Industry Park. Spring Grove Dairy is a modern dairy farm, owned and operated by Dan and Mary Monson, now in its ninth year.
"By 2001, the dairy industry was in a crisis," John Umhoefer, executive director of the WCMA, said. "But a lot of people stepped up and took a risk."
Three new cheese factories have opened in the state this year, Umhoefer said.
W&W Dairy's new facility opened in May. It employs 10 people.
The operation makes 13,000 pounds a day of one or more of its three main styles of Hispanic cheeses, Queso Fresco, Cotija and Quesodilla. All are popular in Latino cooking.
The mild white cheeses crumble easily, are slightly salty and contain no bacteria cultures common in other cheeses.
The fully-computerized cheese process takes less than three hours from milk to packaging. Computerization also does 99 percent of the washing of the silos and equipment.
Webster said ground was broken in October and the 12,000-square-foot prefabricated facility was online May 5. Most of the equipment was purchased at area auctions. The operation was built without grant money.
There are only six other facilities making similar cheeses in the United States. Webster is part owner of one in Darlington.
Spring Grove Dairy milks 1,800 cows in a double 25 parallel parlor, and runs the fresh milk through pipelines and milking meters underground.
Owner Dan Monson took the tour group through his dairy herd barns which provide each cow with a rubber mattresses covered in sawdust. Cows take mere steps to the feed behind them or to the water troughs at the end of the aisle, all on a rubberized mat.
Side drapes operate automatically by a thermostat, and huge fans keep the flies away and the cows cool.
The cows wear computer transponders which help identify them when the veterinarian is coming or when artificially inseminating.
A major by-product of the operation is the manure. Monson's operation pumps the fertilizer to ponds, and has 25- to 30-year contracts with neighbors who use the fertilizer on crop land.
The Department of Natural Resources regulates the fertilizer application and requires every well within two miles of the farm be tested, including the system below the manure ponds.
"Nitrates below the ponds are lower than the wells," Monson said. And nitrate levels in area wells have actually improved over the last nine years, he said.
Wisconsin is seeing a rebirth in dairy farms greater than California's farms because of its supply of water, cheaper land, higher milk prices and an infrastructure of cooperatives, veterinarians, supplies and milk sales to processers, Shawn Pfaff, a consultant with Capitol Consultants Inc., said.
"That's one positive spot" among all the bad economic news, Laurie Fischer, executive director of the Wisconsin Dairy Business Association (WDBA), said Tuesday.
Wisconsin's dairy industry now generates about $21 billion in revenue each year. New technology and new facilities are helping the industry meet the growing demand for dairy products.
The WDBA and Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association (WCMA) presented a dairy tour Tuesday at W&W Dairy in Monroe and at Spring Grove Dairy farm near Brodhead to give people an idea of the industry's modernization.
W&W Dairy is a new Hispanic cheese plant operated by Dave Webster, Kevin Wyss and James Curran in Monroe's Business and Industry Park. Spring Grove Dairy is a modern dairy farm, owned and operated by Dan and Mary Monson, now in its ninth year.
"By 2001, the dairy industry was in a crisis," John Umhoefer, executive director of the WCMA, said. "But a lot of people stepped up and took a risk."
Three new cheese factories have opened in the state this year, Umhoefer said.
W&W Dairy's new facility opened in May. It employs 10 people.
The operation makes 13,000 pounds a day of one or more of its three main styles of Hispanic cheeses, Queso Fresco, Cotija and Quesodilla. All are popular in Latino cooking.
The mild white cheeses crumble easily, are slightly salty and contain no bacteria cultures common in other cheeses.
The fully-computerized cheese process takes less than three hours from milk to packaging. Computerization also does 99 percent of the washing of the silos and equipment.
Webster said ground was broken in October and the 12,000-square-foot prefabricated facility was online May 5. Most of the equipment was purchased at area auctions. The operation was built without grant money.
There are only six other facilities making similar cheeses in the United States. Webster is part owner of one in Darlington.
Spring Grove Dairy milks 1,800 cows in a double 25 parallel parlor, and runs the fresh milk through pipelines and milking meters underground.
Owner Dan Monson took the tour group through his dairy herd barns which provide each cow with a rubber mattresses covered in sawdust. Cows take mere steps to the feed behind them or to the water troughs at the end of the aisle, all on a rubberized mat.
Side drapes operate automatically by a thermostat, and huge fans keep the flies away and the cows cool.
The cows wear computer transponders which help identify them when the veterinarian is coming or when artificially inseminating.
A major by-product of the operation is the manure. Monson's operation pumps the fertilizer to ponds, and has 25- to 30-year contracts with neighbors who use the fertilizer on crop land.
The Department of Natural Resources regulates the fertilizer application and requires every well within two miles of the farm be tested, including the system below the manure ponds.
"Nitrates below the ponds are lower than the wells," Monson said. And nitrate levels in area wells have actually improved over the last nine years, he said.
Wisconsin is seeing a rebirth in dairy farms greater than California's farms because of its supply of water, cheaper land, higher milk prices and an infrastructure of cooperatives, veterinarians, supplies and milk sales to processers, Shawn Pfaff, a consultant with Capitol Consultants Inc., said.