Agriculture Stays Competitive

By Secretary Craig Thompson, Department of Transportation

Farming has made such great contributions to the culture and history of our state, we sometimes forget that Wisconsin is still an agricultural powerhouse. In fact, agriculture and related industries continue to be one of the cornerstones of Wisconsin’s economy.

Agriculture contributes $104.8 billion annually, to our state’s economy. Wisconsin is home to 64,100 farms, on 14.2 million acres. Annually, Wisconsin agriculture provides 435,700 jobs or 11.8 percent of the state’s employment.

Wisconsin exported $4.22 billion of agricultural and food products to 142 countries, in 2022, accounting for more than 9 percent of Wisconsin’s export value.

Agriculture, like nearly all our major industries, relies heavily on freight. So, when we consider what we as a state can do to make Wisconsin more economically competitive, maintaining and upgrading our transportation infrastructure is of paramount importance.

The majority of agricultural freight in Wisconsin, is moving over our roadways in trucks. Even products that may spend part of their journey on a ship or in a freight car, often begin or end their trip, on our roads and highways.

It is vital, then, that we maintain our roads and bridges in good repair. However, four years ago, many of our rural roads and bridges were in bad shape, after years of underinvestment. We understand that when pavement is deteriorating and bridges are weight restricted, it’s not just a time-consuming inconvenience, it puts our state’s farmers and agriculture industry at a competitive disadvantage.

To begin to turn that situation around, resources have been devoted to improving local roads and bridges, so $1.65 billion will be directed to WisDOT programs, specifically for local road and bridge projects, through federal fiscal year 2026.

This represents more than doubling the funding to local road and bridge structures. Additionally, General Transportation Aids supply another $500 million annually, to help address transportation needs.

The increased investment is yielding benefits to residents throughout the state. Since 2019, we have improved more than 5,800 miles of roads and nearly 1,600 bridges throughout the state. That, in turn, helps to ensure that agricultural goods can reach their destinations quickly and efficiently.

Although we’ve made tremendous progress in a short period of time, it is going to take a sustained commitment to get the thousands of miles of roads that support agriculture, into the condition we need.

Here in Wisconsin, we chose to put increased formula funding under Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), where it is most needed – in high-priority state and local highway, and bridge projects. The WisDOT’s current schedule will apply federal BIL funding to 513 local road and bridge projects, for $615.6 million during federal fiscal year 2022 through 2026.

This represents a 61 percent increase in the number of local program projects and an 84 percent increase in federal spending for the local program.

There are BIL-funded local program projects in every Wisconsin county. An additional $150 million in local bridge projects are expected to be added through the end of federal fiscal year 2026. This will enable us to accelerate our efforts to improve the condition of local roads and bridges.

Another transportation resource that’s vital to agriculture, is our state’s harbors. Each year, Wisconsin ports handle more than 40 million tons of cargo, valued at more than $8 billion, including agricultural commodities destined for international markets.