Posted: 07.01.2010

The June milk price is expected to go up about 20 cents a hundredweight - to $15.10 a hunredweight - or about $1.29 per gallon.  But is the increase too little too late?

Paul Dietmann, supervisor of the Wisconsin Farm Assistance hotline says that despite the fact that call volume is down - the tone of the calls they're receiving has turned very dark.

In an interview with Pam Jahnke, Dietmann said that the three staff members he has handling the phone calls are now hearing desperate people seeking any solutions - including suicide.  "Yes, people call talking about suicide.  There's issues of domestic abuse on the farm - animal abuse because the farmer doesn't have resources to feed animals or call a vet - all kinds of very disturbing conversations."

Dietmann also told Jahnke that the pain in rural Wisconsin is now appearing in court proceedings too.  Dietmann said as of June 1st, there were 11 chapter 12 foreclosure filings across the state.  That's really the first time that Wisconsin has really shown the financial pain that many farms, and their lenders, have been living with for months.  Diettman said the geographic concentration of the foreclosure notices were equally spread between eastern and western Wisconsin - and that it involved all size of operations.  A pattern that mimics the calls the Farm Assistance hotline has been experiencing.

Unfortunately, Dietmann doesn't think this is the end of the bad news either.

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