DBA honors Brancel, Niles

Ben Brancel, a two-time secretary of agriculture in Wisconsin, was honored by the state's Dairy Business Association at its recent conference in Madison. Brancel was singled out for the DBA Leadership Award for his role in protecting and promoting the dairy industry.

Most recently, Brancel took the lead in defending Wisconsin's dairy industry by requesting federal lawmakers consider an economic study on a proposed policy change. "We are happy to have you back at the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection," said Bill McCoshen, a lobbyist for DBA, as he presented the honor to Brancel.

McCoshen and Brancel served in Governor Tommy Thompson's cabinet together and Brancel was the only secretary to be replaced when Governor Scott McCallum took over after Thompson left for a cabinet post in Washington.

Brancel is the fifth generation on his family's farm in Marquette County. It was a dairy farm then and Brancel and his wife continued to milk cows until the pressures of his work in the Legislature made the sale of the dairy herd necessary. Since then the Brancels have raised purebred Angus cattle on their farm. Now, with the addition of a daughter-in-law raised with Herefords, says Brancel, their herd also includes some of that breed.

Brancel served on the powerful Joint Finance Committee and then served as Speaker of the Assembly before taking over at DATCP during the Thompson administration.

Brancel, who was surprised to get the DBA award, said he enjoyed working for Tommy Thompson, but this time around there is more interaction among the various cabinet secretaries. When there is a concern that might involve DATCP and the Department of Natural Resources, there is now more dialogue between the agencies to find a resolution, he said.

The agriculture secretary brought his concerns about a Rock County health survey, related to a proposed large dairy farm, to the attention of the secretary at the Department of Health, because he was concerned about how the agency handed over money for the creation of the document and about how it would be used after it was drafted. That secretary took an interest in the subject, he said.

"My concern was that the document might be written with a pre-conceived notion and then handed back to the Department of Health for enforcement," he told the DBA members.

The Dairy 2020 program, conceived and created by Thompson during his tenure as governor, was a response to a loss of dairy farmers and dairy processors in Wisconsin, Brancel said. "The governor pounded his fist on the table and said we're not going to let the dairy industry leave the state," Brancel recalled. Thompson envisioned the program as one that would help the grass roots development of the dairy industry.

After its creation at DATCP, it was moved to the Department of Commerce, to give it a much needed business focus, Brancel said. He credited the program for helping the DBA and others create the dairy industry the state has today by coordinating various functions.

But the program hasn't been viable for about a year, he said, and with the re-creation of the Commerce Department as a development corporation, Dairy 2020 will once again be housed at DATCP. "The state needs more milk - either more cows or more milk per cow or both," he said, "since there is 800 million pounds of milk being shipped into Wisconsin for our dairy plants to reach efficiency."

"As a former dairy farmer, Secretary Brancel knows the struggles involved in farming," said Laurie Fischer. "We are very fortunate to have a DATCP Secretary that is willing to take the lead to continue to move our state's largest industry forward."

The DBA also honored Dr. Don Niles, DVM, the co-owner and manager of Dairy Dreams, LLC in Kewaunee County - a 2,800 cow dairy with a rolling herd average of 28,000 pounds of milk production per cow. The dairy has a methane digester that provides enough electricity to power over 700 homes.

"Don really deserves recognition as DBA's Advocate of the Year," said DBA president Jerry Meissner. "He has consistently engaged his community and elected officials in a dialogue on farm sustainability and modern food production, whether it was one-on-one interaction as he delivers over a thousand cookies to neighbors or when he hosted over 6,000 guests for the Kewaunee County Dairy Breakfast."