By Julian Emerson for The Daily Yonder.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Wisconsin News Connection Service for the Public News Service/Daily Yonder Collaboration
Each workday, as he travels from his home in northeast Lafayette County to Madison for his job driving a truck and then back again, Mike Berg feels the winding, deteriorating roads of the region he calls home, one bump and sharp curve at a time.
Berg has lived on his farm west of Blanchardville all of his 64 years, and in recent years he has noticed that more roads in the county's eastern half are increasingly in need of repair. He worries those subpar roadways not only make for more dangerous driving but are limiting economic development in his part of the county.
That fear came to life recently, when organizers of the annual county dairy breakfast called off the event because so many roads and bridges were in disrepair that it made simply getting to the event difficult for many residents. In addition to numerous poor stretches of roads, seven bridges in the county need fixing.
"That's just a sign of how bad our roads are," Berg said of the canceled dairy breakfast. "It's getting hard to even put on events, much less attract businesses to come here."
In addition to his truck driving job, Berg raises beef cattle on his 540-acre farm. Large trucks and farm equipment have difficulty navigating some of the poor county roads, he said, sometimes causing motorists to go out of their way to avoid trouble spots and to take alternate routes to do fieldwork or get products to market.
"There are plenty of rough roads out there around the state, and our county certainly has its fair share of them," Berg said during a recent evening while driving the winding, hilly roads that make up his home county. "We have our work cut out for us to get some of these roads up to par."
Lafayette County is far from alone among Wisconsin county highway departments struggling to keep up with needed road repairs. Highway commissioners in counties across Wisconsin report that keeping up with fixes to roads is becoming more challenging as revenue for those improvements is far outpaced by the rising price of that work.
Substandard bridges are especially problematic in western Wisconsin. The state Department of Transportation rates 980 bridges across the state as structurally deficient, meaning one or more bridge elements is significantly deteriorated. Of those, 75 percent are in the state's western part.
The gap between allowable road and bridge repair funding and the price tag of improvements has become especially acute in recent years, highway commissioners said, and is exacerbated by price spikes attributed in part to supply chain issues prompted by the coronavirus pandemic. Local governments in Wisconsin are limited as to how much revenue they can raise by a state revenue cap.
To generate additional road repair funds, some counties have adopted a vehicle registration tax, commonly referred to as a "wheel tax," with money raised used for road repairs and snowplowing. Many counties have borrowed money to keep pace with road maintenance, as those dollars are exempt from the revenue cap. However, that practice means more money is spent paying off debt, leaving less for services and programs.
"No matter what we do, it doesn't feel like we can keep up," Chippewa County Highway Commissioner Brian Kelly said.
Help On The Way
The infrastructure bill proposed by President Joe Biden's administration and approved by Congress in November will provide a much-needed boost to upgrade roads and bridges. As part of the legislation, Wisconsin is projected to receive $5.5 billion during the next five years to update not only roads and bridges but for mass transit improvements, lead pipe removal, stormwater controls and PFAS abatement.
Those dollars are welcome news to county highway commissioners, who said any additional infrastructure funding will help stretch existing dollars that don't go far enough. The first round of funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) for Wisconsin road and bridge projects was announced earlier this summer , and applications for the second round were recently received and are scheduled to be announced in July.
St. Croix County recently received BIL funds for bridge repairs, and the town of Somerset in that county is also the recipient of dollars to upgrade a substandard bridge.
"Certainly BIL is going to help improve our bridges and roads in need of repair across the state," St. Croix County Highway Commissioner Robbi Krejci said. "We are sorely in need of a capital increase for those projects, and any additional money we get for them is greatly appreciated."
Chippewa County received nearly $1 million in the first round of BIL money to reconstruct a section of Highway C. County officials submitted three projects for the second round of that funding and also is part of a $33 million reworking of Highway T in conjunction with Eau Claire County and the city of Eau Claire.
Roads and bridges in Chippewa County will receive additional help from $8 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding in upcoming years. Such federal and state infrastructure money is critical to catching up on past-due road repairs, Kelly said, noting the current funding level allows for repairing 10 miles annually, about half of what is needed.
Federal infrastructure dollars will help fund numerous road and bridge projects across northern Wisconsin, including in Ashland County, where 10 miles of Highway 13 south of Mellon will be resurfaced. Another section of that highway through Ashland is scheduled for repaving in 2025.
Because they are home to much federal forestland, some northern counties qualify for Federal Lands Access Program funding, additional federal dollars that pay for road and bridge repairs. That money is critical to maintaining county and state highways in a region with little tax base, Ashland County Highway Commissioner Matt Erickson said.
"Without the federal grant funding, we would simply not be able to fix a lot of our roads. We simply wouldn't have the money for that," Erickson said.
Challenges Remain
While BIL and other federal and state highway spending will provide much-needed dollars for road and bridge maintenance, work remains to find a long term solution to improving infrastructure funding across Wisconsin, transportation experts said. The fact that requests for BIL dollars far outnumber projects granted those dollars is a sign of the extreme need for such funding, they said.
In the first round of BIL funding in Wisconsin, 40 projects of 306 applicants were chosen to receive funding.
"A lot of people think we have all of this infrastructure money coming, that we will have all of our roads and bridges rebuilt. But that's not exactly how it works," Trempealeau County Highway Commissioner Al Rinka said. "This is a competitive application process, and there is no guarantee you are going to receive this money."
Krejci and other highway commissioners said they realize many of the projects they submit for BIL funding may not be approved. However, they said they're grateful for the assistance those dollars will provide.
"Those (BIL grants) are competitive, and they're certainly not a magic bullet," Krejci said. "But any additional revenue, any increase in transportation funding is very helpful."
St. Croix County has among the fastest-growing populations in Wisconsin as the Twin Cities spreads eastward. That population boom is stretching the county's infrastructure, Krejci said, causing roads and bridges to wear out faster. Transportation experts typically expect roads to last for 30 years before they need replacing. But increased vehicular traffic is shortening the life of more highly traveled roads in St. Croix County, Krejci said.
St. Croix County, along with Milwaukee County, were the first in Wisconsin to adopt a wheel tax, when they did so in 2008. But even that added revenue hasn't been enough to maintain roads properly, Krejci said.
"That's really the name of the game, how long can I stretch the useful life of that road," he said. "Right now, some roads we just need to make passable until we can afford to do a quality fix."
Searching for Answers
Maintaining roads and bridges has become even more difficult in recent months, as price spikes for materials and challenges finding enough available labor make each mile of road repairs increasingly expensive. Highway commissioners across the state said the price of asphalt and other construction-related costs have grown over time and skyrocketed in recent months, with many paying 35% or more this year compared to just one year ago.
Krejci's department must repair at least 15 miles of roads annually to maintain current conditions, but this year higher repair prices mean that figure likely will be 10 to 12 miles, he said, noting that number has dipped to as low as eight or nine miles in recent years because of a lack of funding. Rinka said he faces the same predicament.
"When costs rise so much and you don't receive additional revenue, it means you can't pave as many miles," Rinka said.
La Crosse County must upgrade nine miles of roadways each year to keep up current road conditions, but a lack of money and rising costs in recent years means that isn't happening, county Highway Commissioner Joe Langeberg said. His county received nearly $400,000 in the first round of BIL funding to highway repairs, and he plans to apply for additional road project dollars.
"The need for replacing bridges, or reconditioning roads, has been consistent" and funding has not kept pace, he said.
While BIL money will help boost needed road and bridge improvements for the next several years, more must be done to address infrastructure funding statewide on an ongoing basis, transportation experts said. The Republican-led state Legislature has discussed adopting a gas tax and other possible means of raising additional revenue to fix roads and bridges in recent years. But so far lawmakers have not adopted measures that would more fully fund those costs.
That situation has highway commissioners like Erickson concerned about how to pay for that upkeep down the road. Like many counties, Ashland County has borrowed money to help pay for road upgrades. A referendum vote last year that would have allowed the county to exceed the state spending cap to pay more for roads and other services failed, and property tax growth in the county isn't nearly enough to keep pace with expenses.
"For sure I worry about that, how are we going to pay for our roads going forward?" Erickson said. "As you look into the future, we will have a huge shortfall in that area. And right now, we don't have any answers."
Julian Emerson wrote this article for The Daily Yonder.
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By Naoki Nitta for Civil Eats.
Broadcast version by Suzanne Potter for California News Service reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration
It's no wonder that hospital food gets a bad rap, says Santana Diaz, executive chef at the University of California Davis Medical Center, a sprawling, 142-acre campus located in Sacramento, California. As a seeming compromise between nutrition and institutional efficiency, food has long been dished up as an afterthought to patient care. “That was never the focus of hospitals,” he adds.
But for Diaz, good food is key to good health. Since taking the helm of the facility’s nutrition and dining services in 2018, he has worked to revamp the cuisine, including sourcing almost half of ingredients from farms and ranches within a 250-mile radius of the Sacramento Valley. Food grown in local fields, orchards, and pastures with healthy soil management practices simply make for healthier, more nutritious, and more flavorful meals, he says—the perfect ingredients for changing the “stigma” associated with hospital fare.
Diaz is not alone in making this shift, but he may be ahead of the game. In 2022, the University of California (U.C.) system—a network of 10 campuses and five medical centers—committed to supporting regenerative farming as part of U.C. President Michael Drake’s vision to mitigate the effects of climate change and drive a more equitable food system. And as an advisor to an initiative lead by the nonprofit organization Roots of Change, Diaz is helping to steer the larger institution toward local agriculture—through the system-wide procurement of regeneratively ranched beef.
The term, a general reference to pasture management that prioritizes soil health and perennial plants by grazing livestock through rotated paddocks, encompasses a set of practices that advocates say results in healthier animals and pastures. Research also shows that beef from cattle raised strictly on grass is more nutritious than conventional beef, although it’s not yet clear how regenerative practices may impact those findings.
Cumulatively, the U.C. dining system serves more than 600,000 meals a day during the academic year. By ensuring reliable demand for regeneratively raised meat, proponents of the system’s new procurement pledge see the sizable volume giving the state’s independent ranchers and rural economy a huge boost, and bolstering the local and regional meat supply chain.
It’s a tall order, but Diaz knows the sway that comes with institutional demand. The former executive chef at the Sacramento Kings’ Golden 1 Center and the San Francisco 49ers’ Levi’s Stadium is also a founding member of Beef2Institution, a non-profit program helping K-12 schools, hospitals, and sports venues in California source beef from local, family-owned ranches.
Institutions are the perfect outlet, says Diaz, for ground, braising, and stewing meat and the other lower-value, secondary cuts that make up nearly two-thirds of every beef carcass. So featuring hamburgers, boneless short ribs, and carne asada as part of a local farm-to-fork menu offers nearby ranchers a prime bread-and-butter opportunity, he says—all the while exposing a captive audience to the value of beef raised on regenerative pasture.
“Obviously, we’re not going to change patient behavior . . . in [one] hospital stay,” Diaz notes. But because diet plays a major role in raising the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and other chronic conditions, there’s huge merit, he adds, in educating them about preventative and nutritional approaches to health management.
And with his kitchen alone churning out 6,500 meals a day—along with patients, the medical center feeds an army of clinicians, staff, and medical and nursing students—the appetite of the entire U.C. system will likely have a resounding impact on the larger beef market in the state. “That’s how institutions can flex their buying power,” Diaz says.
A Premium Product
Despite research showing that eating less beef has significant health and environmental benefits, including shrinking an individual’s carbon footprint by as much as 75 percent, America’s steak and burger consumption is on the rise.
Currently, the vast majority of U.S. beef comes from cows raised on pasture for about the first year of their lives, then moved to concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs)—large-scale industrial facilities that grain-finish cattle in confinement for six to eight months before slaughter. Along with concentrated levels of environmental pollution, critics deride beef feedlots as places where hundreds if not thousands of cattle are crowded together. These conditions typically require antibiotics to prevent herds from getting sick; subsequently, this “subtherapeutic” use has also been linked to antibiotic resistance.
Nevertheless, CAFOs are also the basis of a “hyper-efficient” commodity system, says Renee Cheung, managing partner at Bonterra Partners, an impact investment advisory firm for regenerative agriculture and co-author of a market analysis of grass-fed beef. These operations pump out a consistent, year-round supply of beef for the meatpacking industry, a sector dominated by a handful of multinational giants that control more than 80 percent of the country’s beef market.
Grazing cattle on pasture for the entirety of their lives, on the other hand, is far less productive. As such, strictly grass-fed or grass-finished operations tend to be modest in scale, says Cheung, with the majority of ranches in the U.S. herding around 50 heads. The smaller volumes and seasonality of pastures create more variability in slaughter weight and harvest windows, running counter to the conventional year-round commodity model.
As a result, non-CAFO operations don’t benefit from the economy of scale built into the heavily consolidated processing and marketing infrastructure, Cheung says. With limited access to centralized meatpacking facilities, these producers are often saddled with high overhead for transport, cold storage, and market delivery—all of which add to premium prices at the meat counter.
The cost, however, also reflects a more superior product. Compared to conventionally raised beef, studies show that strictly pasture-fed beef contain higher nutrients with less fat, often with lower levels of antibiotics, hormones, and risk of food contamination. And grass-fed cuts simply taste better, according to Chef Dan Barber, sustainable and ethical farming advocate and author of The Third Plate, who extols its rich, complex, and “undeniably beefy” flavor.
Not all pasture-based ranchers have adopted paddock-based regenerative practices, but the number appears to be growing. That’s in part because the holistic principles of regenerative ranching go hand in hand with land stewardship and animal welfare, says Michael Dimock, executive director of Roots of Change. By “mimicking nature,” the grazing patterns of ruminants benefit from natural forage and room to roam, all the while “maximizing soil health and biodiversity” of plants, insects, and other animals.
Regardless, recent research shows that 100 percent grass-fed cattle have a larger carbon footprint than those finished on grain because they fatten at a slower rate, yet also weigh as much as 20 percent less at maturity. And while regeneratively managed pastures have been shown to sequester carbon, the science behind the potential for “carbon-neutral beef” has been overblown. Still, Dimock adds that well-managed, rotational grazing enhances pasture productivity, helps restore spent cropland, and prevents wildfires by keeping invasive grasses and dry brush in check.
It’s also a highly efficient use of marginal land, notes Dimock—a classification of the 70 percent of the world’s arable regions unsuited for crop production due to poor soil, aridity, or steepness. As he sees it, regenerative ranching is also accessible and practical for smaller operations because it’s scalable, and lowers the financial risks associated with compliance-centered practices like organic farming.
The Power of Procurement
Making regenerative beef a more attainable business model requires developing a resilient supply chain, says Dimock, one that caters primarily to smaller producers. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the vulnerabilities of a heavily consolidated industry, including bottlenecks in meat processing due to labor shortages and transportation breakdowns. Along with the USDA’s recent $1 billion investment in expanding the nation’s meat and poultry processing capacity, he sees California’s $600 million Community Economic Resilience Fund (CERF) giving a major boost to the state’s meat supply infrastructure.
The targeted funding includes shoring up the network of smaller, regional harvest, processing, and storage facilities, he adds, and will help rural communities develop stronger economic hubs that decentralize the current top-heavy model. But those new and expanded facilities won’t succeed if there isn’t a consistent market for the kind of meat they process.
“If we want to give small-scale ranchers a fair shot,” Dimock says, “we have to break up [the current corporate stronghold].”
Going up against the commodity system, however, comes with additional challenges. While grass-fed beef accounts for roughly $4 billion, or 4 percent of the overall U.S. market, an estimated 80 percent of the supply consists of imports, largely from Australia, Uruguay and Brazil—countries where raising livestock on pasture is far more economical. Passed through a USDA-inspected plant, these products can be labeled “domestic,” leaving true domestic producers at an economic disadvantage.
In fact, the general lack of standards and regulations for the grass-fed sector has created a Wild West landscape of labels, says Bonterra’s Cheung. For its part, the USDA has recently announced stepping up its labeling guidelines, which distinguish true grass-fed beef from confusing claims such as “pasture-raised,” “50 percent grass-fed,” and “grass-fed and grain-finished.” These are highly misleading terms, she notes, given that most cattle are pastured for the first year of their lives. And “there has been a lot of outright cheating in the industry,” she adds—for instance, grass-fed labels can still apply to confined cattle raised on grass pellets.
The fundamental practices of regenerative ranching align with California’s efforts to promote farming “in a manner that restores and maintains natural systems,” says California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) Secretary Karen Ross. The approach also complements the state’s climate smart initiatives and efforts to advance social equity through the support of small-scale farms and ranches.
Still, Ross acknowledges that the term’s inherent flexibility can make it a fuzzy concept. That’s especially true in California, where regional variations in microclimates, precipitation levels, and soil structure reflect a wide practice spectrum—some ranches in the state’s mountainous reaches, for example, may winter their herds on dried silage when fields are bare, while others may have the means to transport them to greener pastures.
“If you talk to 12 people about regenerative [practices], you’ll get 12 different definitions,” Ross says.
Currently, several certifications such as the American Grassfed Association (AGA), Regenerative Organic Certified, and Land to Market provide a range of overlapping criteria that ensure the regenerative provenance of meat. By outlining transparent measures, these voluntary labels are intended to legitimize and safeguard the premium nature of regeneratively produced beef.
Last month, the CDFA began work on officially defining regenerative ranching and agriculture. Rather than developing standards for state certification, and the goal is “to make sure that when we use the term, we have a shared understanding of what the practices are,” says Ross. The “inclusive” set of parameters will help inform state policy around regenerative food production, she adds—including public procurement initiatives.
Public institutions are “a ready-made way” to spur and ensure market demand for healthy food from sustainable sources, adds Ross, who has been involved in discussions about the UC initiative. “We’re investing in better outcomes for farmers, the community, and the environment,” she says. “That’s the power of procurement.”
Building the Supply Pipeline
Balancing supply and demand is nonetheless a delicate endeavor, says Tom Richards, co-owner of Richards Grassfed Beef in Yuba County, California. The fifth-generation rancher has been a key voice in both the UC initiative and Beef2Institution.
Most of California’s pasture-grazing operations focus on a premium, direct-to-consumer market. Between online sales, farmers markets, restaurants, and specialty retailers, year-to-year demand tends to be stable—and manageable.
The supply of better beef “isn’t something you can just dial up,” says Richards. Increasing herds is a risky investment—“it takes three years to raise one of these animals,” he notes—so clear market forecasts are imperative. “The biggest thing that we need from the industry is for somebody like a Santana [Diaz] or UC to say, ‘we’re committed to [helping you] map out a three- to five-year plan to grow your supply,’” he says.
“Right now, the market’s operating on a push,” Richards adds. “But what the industry needs is the pull”—with heavy strings attached.
For smaller-scale operations in particular, committed relationships all along the supply chain are essential to staying afloat. Yet that business model runs counter to industry approach, says Clifford Pollard, the founder of Cream Co. Meats. The Oakland, California-based meat processor “bridges the gap” between regenerative ranches and broadline product distribution on the West Coast, and has played a central role in promoting Beef2Institution’s efforts.
Conventional meat processors “trade in commodities,” Pollard says, sourcing raw material at the lowest price possible. Cream Co., on the other hand, cultivates its supply pipeline “over many years of sustained [purchasing] commitments” to individual operations, he says.
Ultimately, with demand driving supply, the large-scale procurement will undoubtedly influence the equation. Nevertheless, even incremental steps by institutions can pave the way for meaningful change, Pollard notes. “There’s often a hesitation that it has to be all or nothing, but shifting even a small portion of your spend towards [regeneratively minded sourcing] is impactful,” he says, and U.C.’s commitment really gives regenerative producers “a seat at the table.”
“We don’t need the whole table,” Pollard adds. “Just a seat.”
Naoki Nitta wrote this article for Civil Eats.
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