Field Demos Have A Change Up This Year At WFTD Plus 79th Alice Is On The Job

Field demonstrations have become a staple of successful WI Farm Technology Days events.  This year looks to be no exception.  Bob Bosold visits with one of the volunteers who has repeatedly been involved with this element of the show.   Ron Zygarlicke has served on the field demo committee for more than a decade.  This year, he's adding a twist by including Italian ryegrass in the mix. There's already rain moving into western Wisconsin this morning.  Stu Muck says that the cold front moving in will bring measurable rain from LaCrosse to Green Bay throughout the day.  The rest of the state can expect it later tonight and into Thursday. Anastasia Poull is officially on the job as the 79th Wisconsin Alice in Dairyland.  She's got a sweet task this month promoting July at National Ice Cream month.  Pam Jahnke is happy to participate!  Poull explains her background and passion for agriculture, and why explaining the state's role in ice cream production is a treat! Affordable housing is a conversation plaguing many Wisconsin communities.  Finding affordable housing in rural communities is like finding a needle in a haystack - and nobody wants to talk about building more needles for that haystack!  Kiley Allan gets the background from Tashayanna Mixson, Emerging Development Fellow (Emerging Rural Development Fellowship).  The gap in available rural housing forces residents out of their hometowns and shackles local businesses from recruiting and retaining employees.  Sponsored by grants from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago, the rural development fellowship trains the next generation of developers to tackle rural housing shortages with custom, community-tailored projects rather than massive, urban-style apartment complexes. To achieve affordable homeownership, she advocates for the Community Land Trust model—a system gaining traction in Wisconsin that operates similarly to a condo model and helps secure long-term, attainable housing.  Highlighting the scale of the crisis, Wisconsin's Office of Rural Prosperity projects that the state will require between 140,000 and 227,000 additional housing units by the year 2030.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.