Governor Evers pays June Dairy Month visit to Stoddard farm

A dairy farm south of La Crosse has seen lots of political guests in recent years, including senators and governors. 

The Hamburg Hills Farm near Stoddard kept up the tradition yesterday, welcoming Governor Tony Evers and State Senator Brad Pfaff for a tour. 

Evers says modern farms need help through technology such as broadband.

“Accounting and all of the business ends of things absolutely have to have broadband,” says Evers. “In addition, whatever you put in the field is in some fashion, whether it’s fertilizer or other, that is all part of broadband.”

Tim Servais and his family showed the governor their large dairy barn during Wednesday’s visit.

Tim’s son Zach Servais is part of the third generation of his family to operate the farm, and Zach tells reporters that the pandemic did hurt access to farm supplies.

But it had some benefits, too, in keeping farm employees busy.

“When everything shut down” because of COVID-19, “nobody had anything better to do, so everybody came to work, nobody asked off,” said Zach.   

Evers credits farms with helping the state’s economy as an essential industry through the pandemic.