The little farmer that could

We watched the tiniest farmer we know win a blue ribbon Sunday morning at the Shawano County Fair.

If she grows up to be a farmer, our spunky little friend Amelia will be the sixth generation in her family to do so. Four of those generations were on hand as Amelia showed her calves. It was as entertaining to watch them cheer her on as it was to see that adorable three-year old working the crowd.

We all had a sense of deja vu watching Amelia’s second cousin Addison guide her along. A decade ago, we watched Addison show her calf, guided by her cousin, Amelia’s mom, Kaila.

You blink, man, and calves grow up to be be big, ole Jersey cows and their tiny keepers grow up to be strong, capable women.

At least that’s what happens if you blink in a certain corner of Wisconsin, where cornfields stretch to the horizon and family farms thrive thanks generations of their forward-thinking owners.

Amelia’s grandma Nicolle was the first in her family to show calves at the county fair. Back then, her mom and dad weren’t entirely sold on the idea. But, Nicolle’s passion for farming only grew from for 4-H experience. She worked on her family’s farm throughout high school, earned a degree from UW River Falls’ College of Agriculture and came back to farm with her dad Roy and mom Mary Ellen on the family farm. Today, she and her husband Ron, along with their kids Kaila and Colin, run Milk N More Farm and Harvesting, the business into which the Fischer Family Farm grew.

Roy and Mary Ellen still live on the farm property, which has grown to include more than 1,400 acres and an extensive harvesting business.

Farming can be a fickle business. From their peak of 6.8 million farms in 1935, the number of U.S. farms has dropped significantly. The Census of Agriculture listed 1.89 million U.S. farms in 2023, a decrease of nearly 5 million farms. Happily, agricultural output has nearly tripled during that same time period, thanks to innovations in animal and crop genetics, equipment and farm organization.

And, in the Colosseum at the Shawano County Fair, tiny farmers wearing white jeans and giant smiles guided their calves around the center ring and showed us all another way the agricultural industry is thriving here.

Two days after her blue ribbon showing at the Shawano County Fair, Amelia headed off to her first day of preschool. She posed for pictures holding a chalkboard sign that noted a few of her favorite things.

Under “what I want to be when I grow up”, Amelia proudly said “farmer.”