Brown County Breakfast on the Farm may be canceled

GREEN BAY - A big breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausage, sweet rolls and yogurt — and a farm that hosts such a smorgasbord and other outdoor activities — might be off the local spring menu this year.

Organizers huddled this week to discuss the possibility of having to cancel the annual Brown County Breakfast on the Farm because of a lack of interest from the large farms in the county to volunteer their facility for the one-day event.

“The farms that we’ve talked to, they’re doing renovations, or they have the wrong crop rotation to host it this year, or the management is doing some adjusting and changing. So, we’ve run into some challenges,” said Nicole Nohl, the agriculture and dairy education coordinator for Brown County Dairy Promotions, which sponsors the breakfast.

Nohl said her group as well as well as the planning committee for the event set a deadline of April 1 for a farm to step forward to host this year’s breakfast.

If they don’t get any taker, organizers will cook up an alternative outdoor event to highlight agriculture in the region.

The county's Breakfast on the Farm is traditionally on the first Sunday of June to commemorate National Dairy Month.

The county has held Breakfast on the Farm every year since 2001, at 15 different sites. Wayside Dairy LLC, owned and operated by the Natzke family in Greenleaf, has hosted the event two times (2004 and ’13).

A farm doesn’t receive any money to host Breakfast on the Farm. In exchange for allowing a crowd of what has typically been more than 5,000 to visit for a few hours to enjoy a meal and interactive activities, the hosts get to show off their farm operations, equipment and animals.

Proceeds are used for year-round education of Brown County students and the community about agriculture in Wisconsin.

Besides the facility conflicts at potential host sites this year, Nohl speculated that two other big agriculture events in Northeastern Wisconsin this spring and summer might have dulled the enticement of Breakfast on the Farm for local farmers. Brown County is hosting the Alice in Dairyland finals for Wisconsin’s next agricultural ambassador in May, and Kewaunee County will host Wisconsin Farm Technology Days in July.

If the breakfast is off this year, Nohl said organizers still want to hold the replacement event in June at a site to be determined. She said the event likely would include other components of Breakfast on the Farm on a smaller scale with a petting zoo, educational activities and samples of dairy products, including milk, cheese and ice cream.

Nohl is hopeful the breakfast would continue in 2018.

Inquiries about hosting the breakfast can be made at www.browncountydairypromotions.com.