GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – We’re about a week into June Dairy Month, which celebrates one of Wisconsin’s most iconic industries – which is producing, processing, and consuming dairy.
When thinking of Wisconsin, most people immediately think of things like cows and cheese. There’s good reason for that.
“In Wisconsin, our dairy industry generates about $45 billion in economic impact a year. If you translate that to jobs, it’s about 154,000 jobs yearly,” said Tina Peterson with Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin. “People migrated here because of our rich soils and because this is the best place to have dairy cattle…which produces the highest quality milk and then that makes us award winning products, specifically cheese.”
If you think that’s an exaggeration, just look at the numbers.
In 2021, Wisconsin was ranked first in total cheese production with a whopping 3.47 billion pounds of over 600 different kinds of cheese. This accounts for 25% of total United States cheese production. Wisconsin also ranks first in the nation for the production of dry whey for human consumption, and in 2020, Wisconsin produced more than 280 million pounds of it.
“We are America’s Dairyland so we are obviously really busy during National Dairy Month,” Peterson said.
Over the past few years, the COVID-19 pandemic has taken a sizeable toll on the dairy industry, much like many others. But Peterson says the industry fought to ‘adapt and overcome.’
“Learning new ways to adapt, new ways to get those quality products to consumers to enjoy. I know one of the challenges is always packaging and finding people to source products,” Peterson said. “Farmers are working 365 days a year improving their cow care and land care, and producing that high quality nutritious product. Finding new ways to get that out to consumers is probably one of the challenges that we’ll continually face.”
Dairy is engrained in Wisconsin culture, and in many families across the state.
“There’s a huge rich history of dairy pride in Wisconsin. In fact, we can trace that back for many, many years because Wisconsin is America’s Dairyland,” Peterson told WTAQ News. “Over 95-percent of our dairy farms are family owned, and this month, those farmers open up their farms and allow consumers to join them and learn about all their hard work and dedication.”
You can learn more about Wisconsin dairy and find a farm to visit at WisconsinDairy.org.
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