County to share agriculture educators

By Kevin O’Brien

Marathon County’s UW Extension office will have two ag educators – one for dairy and another for crops and soils – who will split their time with one or two other counties under a regional restructuring plan discussed last week by county officials.

Jeremy Solin, director of UW Extension for Marathon, Clark, Portage and Wood counties, spoke to the Extension, Education and Economic Development Committee (EEED) at its Feb. 1 meeting about a proposal he’s developing for the four-county area.

“Our area, the area that I serve, is the last one in the state that has county-based agriculture educators,” he said. “The rest of the state has moved into a model of regional educators.”

The switch from county-based ag education to a regional model was driven by state budget cuts, he said, with the number of positions being reduced as people retire. Richard Halopka, the crops and soils educator in Clark County, is retiring this month, and the position will become a regional one.

“As we look to replace that position, we won’t be able to do that at a county level, but at a multicounty level,” Solin said. “What makes sense to us at this point is to combine either two or three counties into a region.”

For Marathon County, Solin said this will mean the addition of a crops and soils educator alongside the existing dairy agent, Heather Schlesser, who works out of the UW Extension office in Wausau. He said the new educator position will focus on soil health and crop protection, “with a heavy emphasis on protecting water quality and conservation practices.”

If Extension were to adopt a three-county structure, Solin said Marathon County would have access to the two ag educators at a slightly lower cost than what it’s paying now. Solin said he plans to come back to the EEED in March to present a formal restructuring proposal.

Supervisor Dave Baker asked how the number of county farmers who work with the dairy agent might change if the position was shared with other counties. Solin said he didn’t have the current numbers immediately available, but he doesn’t expect a significant decline in service.

“I don’t think there would be a massive change on the dairy side, just given how we currently do programming,” he said.

Committee chairman Rick Seefeldt said he could see potential benefit in the plan, considering the decline in the number of dairy farmers and the increase in those growing crops.

In a related matter, the UW Extension horticulture educator, Jannell Wehr, spoke about the work she does for county residents, including military veterans, schoolchildren and participants in the ATTIC criminal diversion program.

Wehr said the horticulture position has four main goals: protecting pollinator habitat, mitigating the impacts of climate change, reducing pollution from pesticides and promoting mental and physical health through gardening. In addition to working with various groups and answering general horticulture questions from citizens, Wehr said she also runs Sowing Success, a 12week program for training master gardeners.

“It sounds like you’re keeping yourself pretty busy,” Seefeldt said to Wehr.

Childcare work group formed

The county’s role in providing high-quality, affordable childcare was once again on the agenda, but the committee did not take any action on a resolution it’s been working on for several months.

Instead, Baker said he and other supervisors have formed a working group with local childcare representatives, business leaders and Social Services director Christa Jensen to discuss ways the county can help area employers provide daycare for their employees. He noted that state

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lawmakers are currently working on several bills to address the issue, and the work group is waiting to see what is passed before presenting a resolution for the county board to consider.

With all of the legislative activity going on in Madison, supervisor Tom Rosenberg said the county should not feel rushed into taking any action.

“I’d hate to see us leap in a not-veryconstructive way and not hit the target we’re trying to hit,” he said.