The Farmer-Labor Podcast: Recent Episodes
Wisconsin Farmers Union
The Farmer-Labor podcast explores power in the farm economy: how farmers build it, how workers build it, and why they need to continue to work together. The farm-labor alliance in the United States dates back to the 1870s, but its flaws help explain why unions and farmers are both clawing back in the 21st century. In this 8-part series, we'll make the case for farmers to embrace solidarity across the economy, drawing on history and leading voices from Farmers Union, Wisconsin, and beyond.
In this episode, we interview Mary Dougherty, a Bayfield resident near Lake Superior. Mary talks about how organizing in rural communities takes many deep conversations and finding common ground to bring people together. We discuss how Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) affect the community and the environment. She explains how these facilities externalize costs to the community and internalize profits for corporate monopolies. Mary also discusses the potential threats to local water resources, especially Lake Superior, and the efforts made by various groups, including local businesses, tribes, and educational institutions, to protect their home, natural resources, and livelihoods.
Mary Dougherty is an author, artist, and environmental activist based in Bayfield, Wisconsin. Her deep love and appreciation for Lake Superior inspired her to begin a project that captured her community’s relationship with water. Mary works as a community organizer at the Socially Responsible Agriculture Project. She has also been a county board supervisor in her community and a founder of the Nonprofit organization Farms, Not Factories.
In this episode, we discuss the impact of immigration on rural communities and the systemic issues that have led workers to leave their homes. We hear from Rodrigo Cala, an immigrant, farmer, and former farmworker, as he shares his experiences moving to a new country and the challenges faced by immigrant laborers. We also speak with Christine Neumann-Ortiz, the Executive director of Voces de la Frontera. She sheds light on the systematic factors driving worker migration and issues affecting farmworkers and immigrants in Wisconsin.
Rodrigo Cala is a farmer advocate and farmer, a member of the Shared Ground and Agua Gorda farm cooperatives, a farm consultant for the Latino Economic Development Center, and a Mexican immigrant. He and his brother moved to Minnesota in the early 90s and started their farm as a way to get fresh produce that they wanted to have from back home in Mexico.
Christine Neumann-Ortiz is the founding Executive Director of Voces de la Frontera and Voces de la Frontera Action. Ms. Neumann-Ortiz is recognized as a national leader in the immigrant rights movement. Ms. Neumann-Ortiz serves on the board of the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM).FIRM is a national coalition that includes 47 grassroots organizations in 35 states fighting for immigrant rights at local, state, and federal levels.
In this episode, we talk with Kristy Allen, a beekeeper in Western Wisconsin. She sheds light on the impact of agricultural consolidation on bees, family farms, and rural communities. Kristy shares her firsthand experiences with beekeeping, including the challenges posed by land use, pesticides, and the need for diversity in forage. The conversation details the interconnectedness of bees' wellbeing and the way we treat our land to grow food.
Kristy Allen lives in Grantsburg, Wisconsin, and is a full-time beekeeper, educator, and activist. She is President of her local Farmers Union chapter in Polk-Burnett and helped create the St. Croix Valley Food Alliance, which aims to strengthen and promote a thriving, resilient, and equitable local food economy in the St. Croix River Valley. Kristy has also been an advocate addressing an Iowa-based hog operation seeking to move 26,000 hogs to the St. Croix area.
In this episode, Ed Gorell, a lifelong farmer and member of Wisconsin Farmers Union's board, shares his insights into the transformation of farming in Wisconsin, particularly in the wake of trade agreements like NAFTA. He discusses how family farms and small agricultural operations have been increasingly overshadowed by large-scale industrial farming. Ed's personal journey, from growing up on a farm to venturing into the poultry industry, provides a firsthand account of the challenges and changes faced by rural America.
Ed and his wife Kristi have operated their farm in Eau Claire County since 1983. They started with a 320-head veal barn and a 50,000 bird broiler facility which they have converted to transition steers onto feedlots. 2018 Ed & Kristi retired from full time farming- Ed is now a part time milk hauler. Ed has received Farmers Union awards for membership and chapter building, chaired several WFU committees, and formerly served as the Eau Claire County Farmers Union President and Vice President.
Welcome to Season 2 of the Farmer-Labor Podcast! In this episode, host Zoe Sullivan will be speaking with Brittany Olson. Brittany is a fifth-generation dairy farmer from Barron County, Wisconsin. They discuss the challenges farmers face, including mental health struggles faced by farm youth, the impact of financial pressures and razor-thin profit margins on farmers' wellbeing, and more.
For this episode, we’ve brought back Dennis Olson, a senior policy staffer at the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, to discuss projects and policies that UFCW and others are building through a farmer-labor alliance to advance shared interests. Dennis discusses the complexity of building a farmer- and worker-owned supply chain, why a revived cattle herd and fair rules for the market are an essential labor and climate policy, and the PRO Act, which would restore the human right to organize.
This podcast features a conversation between Angela Lang, Executive Director of Black Leaders Organizing Communities (BLOC) and Julie Bomar, Executive Director of the Wisconsin Farmers Union (WFU). They’ll discuss the issues that are common to Black residents of Milwaukee and rural residents and farmers in “out-state” Wisconsin. Their conversation shows the need to do the hard work of breaking down barriers, confronting racism, and working together on shared issues to build a stronger Wisconsin.
This episode we’ll meet Nick Webber, the organizer for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 953. Nick’s journey into Wisconsin politics and organizing, which began when he was just a high schooler, shows how unions, campaigns, students, teachers, and families all push a person into organizing, and how work sometimes becomes much more than that. Nick’s story brings us through Act 10, the Obama years, and to the Wisconsin of today.
This episode explores the farm activism of the 80s through one of its core leaders, former Wisconsin Farmers Union Executive Director, Tom Quinn. Tom’s story reveals the tension between the New Deal generation and those that came after, and how relationships with labor came together, though in limited ways.
In the following two episodes, we’ll hear from leaders in farm activism and students of its history. Farmers have long been organizing into movements, with varying degrees of success and solidarity. Their insights and memories inform our work for the future. For this episode we talked with two historians of farm activism, one amateur and one professional, about farmer-led political organizations of the early 20th century, National Farmers Union and the Nonpartisan League. Their insights and memories inform our work for the future.
This episode, we’ll look at the structures that make people more powerful together than they are as individuals. We'll cover the basics of unions and coops through the personal stories of labor leaders in the state, and WFU camp director Cathy Statz.
In this chapter, we listen to union leadership and farm policy advocates about power in the workplace, a way to rethink farm prices, and keeping workers informed during coronavirus confusion. It's about fair wages and fair prices, and how they're connected.
In Chapter 1, we discuss how in recent decades corporate power has put downward pressure on farmers and workers, and why to confront the challenges of today, we need to strengthen old alliances and build new ones across the supply chain and labor force.