MONROE — On Sunday, Wylymar Farms owners Emily and Brandi Harris performed a routine task on their small organic farm in rural Monroe; they let roughly 45 Jersey cows into the barn for evening milking.

However, there was a new guest on their property. U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin, who stopped by to observe farm operations as part of her recent “In Your Corner Tour,” that included a week of traveling statewide to talk about issues within Wisconsin. 

Sen. Baldwin began the tour in Racine and continued on to Platteville after visiting Monroe. By Tuesday, she had visited a number of cities to talk about topics like farming, rural broadband, opioid addiction, healthcare and other issues, like clean water and even the Packers bill she announced this year.

“All sorts of different topics that are the real topics on people’s minds, not necessarily the things you see tweeted about or talked about on cable news,” Baldwin said. “I do those sorts of things in my official capacity as a senator, but because the elections are around the corner, we’re doing this as a campaign team to engage people who want to be a part of addressing these challenges.”

Sen. Baldwin toured the farm, which Emily and Brandi operate on roughly 200 acres. The visit was a way for the senator to see farm operations, but to also speak about everyday hurdles.

Emily began renting the property along County J in 2010 before buying it in 2012. Both graduates of Monroe High School, the Harris couple has been attempting to run a profitable farm for the last eight years. 

But now, as Emily informed Baldwin during her visit, they may have to end their run as organic milk producers because their contract through Rolling Hills Dairy Producers Cooperative with local cheese company, Emmi Roth, will end May 1. They are doubtful Emmi Roth will renew because of an overproduction within the market.

“It’s so hard because we had finally gotten to this point,” Brandi, who also works as an administrative assistant at Blackhawk Technical College, said of their time spent making the farm successful. 

For organic producers, she said it takes a year for the milk to be certified organic and three years for the ground to produce certified crops. Brandi and Emily grow roughly 70 percent of their farmland for feed. 

Emily said the pair is working to find alternatives. 

“There’s going to be some decisions to make,” Emily said. “I said the first person who cares about farming has got my vote.”

Wylymar Farms has roughly 45 milking cows and about 100 cattle overall with young stock and dry cows. They have a dog named Spencer and cats of all colors can be found wandering among the buildings. Emily said she believes part of the reason they have been successful has been their willingness to scrap and save with equipment. Because she served as a mechanic in the Navy, she knows how to tinker around with machines, like a Farmall tractor her grandfather purchased new in 1964 she had just recently repaired before the senator arrived. He still lives just down the road, she said, operating a beef farm on about 400 acres.

“I am very impressed,” Baldwin said. “Emily is putting everything she’s learned, from probably the knee of her grandfather onward, to work, focused on sustainability and a commitment to organic, which is a very big deal in Wisconsin.”

Baldwin said that while dairy farmers are an important part of life in Wisconsin, and that the state has a high production of organic milk compared to the rest of the country, milk producers have been struggling in a market where prices have remained low. She said the issues farmers face are only “compounded” by changes to immigration laws, which affect a large portion of farm labor, and the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. 

Baldwin also noted optimism for the $867 billion farm bill passed by the Senate in a bipartisan 86-11 vote in late June. The House barely passed their own version, which has polarizing differences from the Senate bill in areas like the food stamp program, farm subsidy caps and conservation initiatives. Baldwin said she is confident that despite the need to reconcile both bills into one, the Senate version will prevail because of its strong support from both Democrats and Republicans.

Baldwin said retaliatory tariffs against cheese by Mexico will greatly affect the state because the majority of milk production goes toward the product. And while she welcomes the recently announced $12 billion in aid to alleviate some financial stress by farmers, she said it is scary “that maybe the administration thinks it’s going to be a long trade war.”

“That would compound the crisis that folks are facing,” Baldwin said. “I would start by saying that Wisconsin farmers want markets, functioning markets, not aid. But when we see 75 to 80 dairy farms going out of business per month on pace to outpace last year, which was 500, or 6 percent of our dairy farms, mostly small- and medium-sized farms; yeah, we need relief right now.”