Straight Talk with Farmers: Candidate Education Tour with WI Gubernatorial Candidate David Crowley

On Saturday, October 10, Milwaukee County Executive and Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate David Crowley visited the Paris Family Farm near Belleville, Wisconsin. Bert and Trish have been on this farm since 1992, and now their daughter Meagan and her husband Patrick are planning to take over.

At Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, we support regenerative agriculture through research, education, and policy. We believe that one of the most effective ways to advance policy that benefits farmers is to create opportunities for farmers to speak directly to policy makers. To that end, MFAI Policy Director Chuck Anderas has been facilitating a Candidate Education Farm Tour during Wisconsin's gubernatorial election cycle. After hosting five candidates on five different farms during the primary, this is the first candidate education tour during the general election. SEE SUMMARIES OF THE PREVIOUS TOURS HERE.

David Crowley, the Democratic nominee for governor of Wisconsin, joined Anderas at Paris Family Farm near Belleville on October 10. (MFAI has reached out to Tom Tiffany’s campaign through multiple channels, but hasn’t received a reply.) Our hosts Bert and Trish Paris have been on this farm since 1992. They milk 80 cows in a certified-organic grazing operation on 137 acres. Their milk is shipped to Westby Coop and primarily goes into cottage cheese. Now, their daughter Meagan and her husband Patrick have come home to the farm, with plans to take over.

https://youtu.be/69srnewxQtM

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After a warm welcome at the milkhouse, Bert and Meagan took Crowley out to the pasture, and as is typical of dairy cows, they were curious and came up to meet the candidate themselves. The key learnings from the day were the wide-ranging ways in which the Paris family benefits from grazing.

One of the ways grazing benefits farmers is through increased economic opportunity. As the cows gathered around, Bert and Meagan shared about how grazing allows them to make money, regardless of the milk price. That’s because they can control their cost of production. Grazing cows is simply the cheapest way to feed ruminant livestock. Cows do the work as they graze, harvesting the crop for themselves in the field and spreading manure in the field as well.

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“Costs are skyrocketing, and I'm grateful that on this farm, that tractor does not need to run every single day. We could go a week, because [the cows] are doing the harvesting instead of me starting the tractor and bringing it to them.” - Meagan Paris

Having such low cost of production allows the Paris family to be able to weather volatile milk prices. With grazing, they know that even when the price is low, they’re still making money. Bert said that “before we went to grazing, we were making 50 cents for every 100 pounds of milk we shipped. Once we started grazing, we were making $5 for every 100 pounds.” 

The message for Crowley was clear: if the next gubernatorial administration and state legislature wants to “save the family dairy farm” one approach that makes a lot of sense is to provide on-ramps for more farmers to start grazing. The Wisconsin Grazing Coalition,  a broad collaboration we lead with farmers and organizations across the state, has been hard at work to determine policy recommendations for the next state budget so that agricultural policy solutions are coming from the ground up. Stay tuned for more information.

Grazing not only helps the Paris family’s bottom line, but it also helps their quality of life. This is a common theme that comes up whenever you talk to graziers: life is simply better on grass. Moving cows to a fresh paddock is an enjoyable task, especially when compared to mucking out barns. Since the cows do so much of the work for them, it allows farmers more time with their family. You often hear of farmers nearing retirement age who don’t have any family to pass the farm down to because none of the kids want to take over. One of the big blessings of the Paris family is that their daughter Meagan now farms with them and will take over the farm. That’s possible not just because the farm provides a financial future for Meagan’s family, but it also provides a lifestyle that Meagan wants to live.

This also echoes the answers to a question we asked on several other stops during the 2026 Candidate Education Farm Tour: “What gives you hope for the future of farming and rural Wisconsin?” Invariably the answer was “the next generation.” It was an important message that the Paris family also shared with David Crowley. There is hope for rural areas and for family farms like the Paris Family Farm to continue to thrive. 

The Paris family also educated Crowley on the environmental benefits of grazing. They discussed how when they get a massive rain event, the pastures are able to infiltrate more water and keep it from running off and causing damage to infrastructure downstream.

“I see all these rainfalls and all the damage that's being done, and all I can think is if we could improve the land so it infiltrates, so we get more grass on these fields instead of corn and beans… we have to promote it and push grazing for several reasons. For towns, so they don't have the flooding, they don't have the roads washing out. Plus, it's profitable and good for the soil, not to mention carbon sequestration. Bringing moisture into the atmosphere. It's all going to help with climate change.” - Bert Paris

The Paris family shared many of the same themes that our MFAI Research Associate Clare Dietz explored in her report Measuring Societal Benefits of Perennials. The benefits go beyond what the Paris family experiences on their farm and extend to everyone downstream from them. 

Another theme that emerged was the shared interests of urban and rural communities. Both urban and rural communities in Wisconsin need clean water and clean air, we’re all worried about things like property taxes, public schools, the impact of data centers on our communities, and access to healthcare.

According to Crowley, “our rural, suburban, and urban communities, we all need one another.” The farm tour brought to light how decisions made on farms affect downstream communities, particularly around water quality and weather resilience.

“I want to make sure that I'm listening directly with our farmers, with our rural communities. There isn't a one-size-fits-all solution for Wisconsin, and I want to make sure that you have a seat at the table to lend your voice to the solution that works for you.” - David Crowley

Crowley also touched on other issues that are important to rural communities, like clean energy development and data centers. “Look, I'm just as frustrated as any other person when it comes down to these data centers, and it feels like they're steamrolling over our local communities without actually listening to those that live in these communities," said Crowley.

This connected with other messages from farmers during the Candidate Education Tour that centered local control and farmer voices as part of energy planning. Crowley continued, “when I'm the next governor, we're going to aggressively protect our water, protect our farmland, and we're going to protect our environment as a whole. But more importantly, we're going to make sure that local communities, that they have a seat at the table, that their voice can be heard. We're going to make sure that if a local community doesn't want a data center, they won't be forced to have a data center, and there's no if, ands, or buts about that.”

There is a lot of tension in rural communities about how to make land use decisions taking into account demands for agriculture, clean energy, data centers, transmission lines, and other kinds of development. As far as data centers are concerned, Crowley maintained a position that local communities should decide for themselves whether or not they want them. As farm advocates, it's our job to hold him to that if he is elected.

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The event ended with one of the unique pleasures of working closely with regenerative farmers: eating delicious food. Several years ago, a master cheesemaker made single wheel of Gouda from Paris Family Farm milk, and the last thing we did together before the Crowley campaign went onto its next stop was to enjoy that one-of-a-kind cheese, made golden from the nutrients of the pastures.

Browse more photos from the day in the Flickr album.

Michael Fields Agricultural Institute (MFAI) is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. This content is intended solely for public education and engagement. MFAI does not endorse or oppose any political candidate or party, and participation in this Candidate Education series does not imply an endorsement.