Poulson Can’t Help Drooling Over a Good Piece of Ag Land

By Joan Sanstadt, News Editor
Wednesday, November 7, 2007 4:06 PM CST

When Dan Poulson stepped down from the Natural Resources Board in September he’d come to an important realization: “I can learn to love the Northwoods, the waterfalls, the wildlife n but when I see a piece of good farmland or a prize animal n I drool.”

Being asked to serve on the DNR was something Dan had not anticipated.

“I was just leaving a meeting with Governor Tommy Thompson on use value assessment of farmland when the governor, casually, said ‘I’d like to have you serve on the Department of Natural Resources board’,” Dan recalls.

Already president of the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation (WFBF) Dan replaced Mary Jane Nelson, a farmer from Holmen who had also been WFBF Women’s Chair.

His first meeting as the new board member took place in Hayward and even today n after having served 12 years on that body n he recalls how overwhelmed he felt. “I didn’t know what to expect, what the board protocol would be,” he says.

Yet Dan was no stranger to working with boards, he’d already served on the board of Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation (WFBF) for many years and as its president since 1991.

Assigned to the board’s Air, Waste and Water Committee, where he would serve during his entire stint on the board, Dan soon “began to understand the vastness of the DNR and what it takes to run such a large department.”

“I also came to appreciate the quality of the people within the DNR,” Dan says. “We may not always agree, but they have a genuine concern about how we treat the state’s resources. As a board member, the staff was always willing to go over issues with me and answer my questions.”

The state statutes within which DNR operates tie in with the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), although not in quite the same manner as the tie between the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the state’s Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP).

Back in the 1960s when the Kellett Commission helped reorganize state government one of the major recommendations was to consolidate the former Conservation Commission and Department of Resource Development into the DNR.

One of the things that consolidation didn’t change was the influence of the Conservation Congress which makes recommendations on game and hunting issues.

“The Conservation Congress still operates today and its Spring Hearings test a lot of local spirit by acting as a kind of poll,” Dan explains.

“Those Spring Hearings serve a purpose because they allow people to have a say. Members of the Conservation Congress take those hearings seriously and report the findings to the DNR board, providing direct feedback from sportsmen,” he adds.

He’d like to see closer ties between the DNR and the agricultural community. “When George Meyer was DNR Secretary he created an ag liaison position and pressed the department’s Chief Legal Counsel Jim Kurtz to add that function to his job description.

“Jim’s dad, Art, had served as deputy secretary at the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection,” Dan recalls.

“My parting words to the new DNR Secretary Matt Frank were to recommend he fill that DNR liaison position with the ag community,” Poulson tells Agri-View.

“Jim was a great asset because he had a strong feeling for agriculture and could help board members better understand agricultural issues. At the same time he was an attorney n and a fine example of the careers kids with ag backgrounds can have,” Poulson adds.

“Having someone designated as the liaison with agriculture makes it easier to talk about the issues,” Dan believes. “If people are not in the know, they feel they are left in the dark,” he emphasizes. “Then that lack of conversation breeds contempt. People will make up answers to questions that aren’t even in an area where there are questions.”

Not only is there no official ag liaison person at the DNR, Dan’s departure from the board means there is no one on that important policy-making board with a direct ag producer background.

DNR board member David Clausen from Amery owns farmland and is a practicing veterinarian. “Right now he has the closest tie to agriculture of anyone on the board. When I look at the natural resources of the state n and know that such a high percentage are held by independent agricultural producers, there is a need to understand the balance of economical resources and natural resources working together,” Dan says.

During Dan’s time on the board, challenges ranged from issues with feral cats to chronic wasting disease in the state’s deer herd; from concerns about natural gas pipelines to navigable waters n and beyond.

For the former livestock farmer, “CWD was a big issue. I am an advocate for animal health and we live in a state with a No. 1 veterinary medicine school and state-of-the-art animal diagnostic lab n so I wouldn’t change how we pursued this disease from the start,” Dan says.

“But there comes a time when we have to rethink the whole process. It’s sort of like polling for president when spot checks or exit polls are done. We don’t have to check every head because spot checks can do well and not be as disruptive. Maybe there will never be complete eradication, maybe we’ll have to settle for control.

“But my argument is this state has about 2.5 million dairy cows and another 2.5 million beef cattle and the deer herd is 1.8 million or thereabouts. They all seem to be susceptible to some of the same diseases. All these herds n both wild and domestic n have to be healthy,” Dan contends. “We have to do all we can to keep disease in check.

”One of the CWD control strategies, worked out by the DNR and the legislature, limits baiting in specific areas of the state. (For more information go to this web address: http://dnr.wi.gov/org/land/wildlife/regs/DeerBFRegulations.pdf).

“The whole baiting issue is of utmost concern to me,” Dan volunteers. “Farmers are feeding deer all the time with the crops we plant. Why we need to bait is beyond me. Yes,” he admits, “I’ve gotten heat from the people who sell the corn and bait, but I still feel it isn’t a good practice.

“Baiting causes deer to congregate, which contributes to animal health issues,” he continues. “Does a true sportsman and hunter need to bait?”

What’s more, Dan sees another danger in baiting. “It takes animals out of their natural routine. They begin to eat at night and sleep by day,” he points out.

Just before CWD showed up n in 1998, the control over deer farms was changing from the DNR to DATCP. “Transfer is always difficult and we have had to cultivate that partnership between the DNR and the DATCP. “It’s tough but we’re both in the same realm and we have to figure out how to make it work together,” Dan says.

Controlling the size of the deer herd is an ongoing and important issue. “At one time the deer herd was 75 percent does,” he says.

Among the strategies the DNR used to bring down the size was the Earn-a-Buck program. “But there are fewer hunters and after CWD appeared, we had to increase the number of tags for people, so we had CWD tags and ag tags and shooter permits,” he notes.

Dan says he’s “begun to really appreciate the ability of the department to count deer. They have a system that has to be accurate numerically and biologically. After the hunt there is pressure to know how many deer have been killed and in what areas and their numbers prove to be pretty accurate.”

He also recognizes that not everything that’s been done to bring down those doe numbers has always been welcomed by hunters.

Initially Dan wasn’t enthusiastic about the idea of a four-day youth hunt during October. “I didn’t think that was a good idea because it was harvesting time. Much to my chagrin it turned out to be a successful event. It allowed kids to do things with their parents and brought in numbers that surpassed our expectations. We have to teach kids to want to hunt, about hunting safety and about good conservation ethics,” he says.

One of the things Dan admitted he knew little about before his DNR board experience was the state’s fishing industry. “I had to learn how commercial fishing actually works. Permits and licenses are inherited n passed down from one generation to the next. The Great Lakes Fishery is an important part of the east cost of this state. When we think of yellow perch, we think of Friday night fish fries n but there are also coho salmon, alewives, smelt and many other varieties of fish in Lake Michigan,” he notes.

The fisheries are an important sector of the Great Lakes commerce and the economy of the state. We also have to recognize its value to the tourism and sporting industries, he adds.

Just as the CWD challenge with deer showed up during Dan’s service, so did the VHS (Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia virus) disease in fish. Just how much of a challenge that will ultimately turn out to be is unknown. “But we are a mobile society and that means boaters want to take their boats from one body of water to another. Biosecurity means washing their boats between those transfers. If we want to be able to continue to fish, we have to deal with that,” Dan says.

“VHS also concerns the DATCP because aquaculture has come under the DATCP since 1998. Yet aquaculture has to go along with the whole fisheries issue and that includes bait n if the whole industry is to be kept healthy,” he says.

Water pollution, whether from point or nonpoint sources, has long been a concern of the DNR.

“Long before the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972, we knew point source pollution n what comes out of a pipe n was an issue. It was much easier to address because we could pretty much see where it was coming from,” Dan says.

Dealing with nonpoint source pollution was much more difficult “because so much of it has to do with Mother Nature and how rainfall comes down,” Dan says.

Nonpoint solutions are as diverse as the state’s geology. An important way answers are being sought is through the Discovery Farms project.

“I have nothing but praise for what UW-Extension has now done with Discovery Farms and how it is addressing some of the difficult nonpoint situations,” Dan says.

“The Wisconsin Agricultural Stewardship Initiative (WASI), of which Discovery Farms is a part, came about because we went to the Netherlands back in 2000 and looked at their nonpoint efforts. What we learned there has spread through the entire UW ag college system,” he says. (That trip was put together by then DATCP Secretary Ben Brancel, then DNR Secretary George Meyer and the dean of the UW-College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.)

“We’ve overcome some of the original turf difficulties we had with WASI,” Dan acknowledges. “We now have the support of UW-River Falls, UW-Stevens Point, UW-Platteville and UW-CALS. What we’re finding is that the Discovery Farms program is really an on-farm reality show n and I mean it deals with everyday life. A lot of the credit goes to its director Dennis Frame and how he’s been able to lead.”

“Stewardship is an issue for me,” Dan says with his typical candor. “I understand the whole issue of preserving land and beautiful areas n waterfalls, national, state and county forests - need to be preserved.

“I have an understanding of the need for stewardship and it’s fortunate the populace has given the department the dollars to do it. But at the same time I’m concerned when farmland is taken out of production,” Dan continues.

What he’d most like to find is a way in which the stewardship program could also help achieve some farmland preservation goals.

A couple of years ago Dan served as co-chair of a Working Lands Initiative study group at DATCP. He described that experience as “very worthwhile” although he wishes there could have been some money in the budget for the purchase of development rights and/or easements. “It may take 10 years but we’ve got to help people to understand we have to do it,” he says.

“If ag land is worth protecting, then we’re going to have to find a way to provide some dollars. Ag land is as big a stewardship item as I can think of n and so are working lands, forests and the farm fields that feed people,” he says.

He’s hopeful that as counties continue their Smart Growth plans, a way will be found to protect the people who are farming in some of those small communities n one way might be through ag enterprise zones.

“Local officials are going to have to see that this is done n the sale for the almighty dollar is not all that is important. Once land is gone, it’s gone. Yet it is projected to be another million people in Wisconsin by 2030. Development will have to be done in a more dense manner n there doesn’t necessarily have to be five acres for every house,” he says.

As an example, Dan cites the project involving the North Branch Milwaukee River Wildlife and Farming Heritage Area. Almost 19,500 acres in size, 9,000 of those acres were agricultural land.

Agri-View spoke with Gloria McCutcheon, the southeast regional director for the DNR, about the endeavor. “The area was right where Sheboygan, Washington and Ozaukee counties come together. There are five tributary streams within the boundaries and it has the specific objective of preserving the strong agricultural farming tradition of the project area while maintaining wildlife habitat, restoring plant communities and wetlands and providing recreation opportunities,” she says.

When the feasibility work was underway it led to several citizen advisory committees and a lot of meetings, McCutcheon said.

“The first citizen advisory committee had 15 members n nine of them were farmers and six other members represented conservation organizations.

“Dan was the first person my staff and I met with before taking it to the DNR board. Dan wanted to be sure people understood what the project was all about. He went to many local meetings himself and talked about having the DNR as a neighbor,” she explains.

The Poulson farm abuts the southern unit of the Kettle Moraine. “Dan talked about his personal experiences and also about the benefits of his situation. He’s a very hands-on person,” McCutcheon adds.

In the end the DNR board approved the project in August of 2002 and Governor McCallum approved it in September.

“It’s the first DNR project combining wildlife and farming heritage attributes and it has been very successful so far,” she says.

Reflecting on his years on the DNR board, Dan says it meant taking a different look at issues. “I couldn’t serve on the DNR board and only look at agriculture n I had to look at the whole picture, at what was good for most people,” he says.

Aside from reinstating the ag liaison position at the DNR, Agri-View asked Dan what other changes he’d like to see made at the DNR.

Actually, he included several more.

First, Dan says he’d like to see more interaction and communication between the DNR board and staff with the agricultural industry and with real producers.

As an example, he cites how new DNR wardens used to come over to the Farm Bureau offices and talk about ag issues. “I used to meet with those wardens and suggest when they were driving down the road n working in their areas n stop and greet and get to know the people in the community,” he suggests.

He’d also like to see more citizen participation at DNR board meetings. To accomplish that, the structure of that participation process might have to become more relaxed, he acknowledged. (See box)

Another has to do with how the state looks at navigable waters and its interpretation of the Public Trust Doctrine. “I’m not sure the navigable waters issue has been answered. There are ditches with high levels of water at certain times of the year, as well as creeks and trout streams that run through farms. The question that gets in a lot of peoples’ minds is what is navigable. It has to do a lot with property rights and I’m not convinced our law really settles those arguments,” Dan says.

Drainage is another important issue for farmers yet, Dan says, “so few people understand water rights n including attorneys. Counties have done away with their old drainage boards and some of those records have been lost. They’d be especially important when there are concerns about the cleaning of ditches, or broken tile lines n all of these things are necessary to keep land farmable.

“In cities blacktop and concrete cover up many areas of what was to be controlled runoff. This leads to the rapid surge of water from cities going into rural areas. Nobody thinks about how that water moves n too many times it is forced upon the farmer who owns the land where a creek runs through. It’s part of living in rural communities that are also becoming urbanizing communities,” Dan continues.

Access to water is part of the law and the rule and as a board member Dan was all too familiar with some of the ramifications.

But he also recognizes “the enviro side n it’s an issue about how do we get into the whole water rights issue and its effects. It’s something that has to be dealt with and sometimes we may have to stand up and holler.”

The current proposal to go back to allowing the DNR board to choose the DNR secretary, instead of having the secretary be part of the governor’s cabinet is on the legislature’s front burner. Dan says he favors having the DNR board, not the governor, choose the DNR secretary.

Dan and his wife Jean live on the same farm where Dan has lived since 1946. That’s when his Dad, a dairyman in East Central Illinois, realized there wasn’t a market there for his milk and moved to Wisconsin. Only 12 years old at the time of the move, the 157-acre farm has been Dan’s home ever since. He sold the last livestock in 1996.

“I’ve lived next to state land since 1948,” Dan says. “It’s been a good neighbor to us. My land is in a trust n I have no desire to sell it,” he adds.

Dan has three sons; Jeanne has six children. “Between Jean and I, we have 20 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren,” he says.

Both Jean and Dan are involved with volunteer and church groups. One of those works is NAMI which stands for the National Alliance on Mental Illness; another is Volunteers in Mission (VIM), and there’s also Agri-Ability, a group that works with farmers who have disabilities.

For those of us who have wondered how a man with Howard as his first name became known as Dan n his wife provided the answer. “His middle name is actually Danforth, it’s an old family name,” she explains. “But from little on, he’s always been called Dan.”

Comments »

Comment on this story

Comments will be approved within 48 hours

Name:

Email: (optional)

Comments:

Image Verification: (Case sensitive)