Our farm gets a shout-out
On July 16, Fox News profiled the Hoard’s Dairyman Farm in a prolific ode to farmers everywhere.
Fox and Friends’s Steve Doocy tours the Hoard’s Dairyman farm. Managing Editor of Hoard’s Dairyman magazine, Abby Bauer, took him on the tour.
In a recent Fox News segment, reporter Steve Doocy visited the Hoard’s Dairyman Farm in Fort Atkinson, Wis., to learn more about America’s Dairyland and show appreciation for modern-day farming.
During the tour, he interviewed Hoard’s Dairyman editor Abby Bauer, W.D. Hoard and Sons Co. president and owner Brian Knox, and Hoard’s Dairyman Farm manager Jason Yurs.
The farm was established in 1899 by W.D. Hoard, who had started the Jefferson County Union and then Hoard’s Dairyman magazine years earlier.
“Hoard was the father of the entire American dairy industry,” Knox said. And that industry is shrinking — fast.
“Today, there are just around 26,000 dairy farms across the U.S.,” said Bauer. “Thirty years ago, there were about 125,000.”
Most of those 26,000 farms have been in the same family for generations, Bauer continued. But as costs of necessities from machinery to fertilizer rise with no sign of coming down, staying afloat is increasingly difficult.
“A tractor that cost $400 when I was growing up now costs $170,000,” Doocy said.
This was Hoard’s mission then, and it is Hoard’s Dairyman’s mission still: to be a voice for dairy farmers, to champion them in their profession, and to make possible the continued progression of the industry.
“We’re trying to help the modern-day farmer learn about new technology that’s available, new research that’s being done, and anything that can help them be more profitable,” Bauer said.
Doocy paid a visit to the robotic milking parlor and the freestall barn, among other notable farm localities.
While standing in front of a row of stunning Guernseys, Doocy said, “It’s so easy to grab a gallon of milk out of the cold case at the grocery store, but it’s a long journey to get it there.”