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“Not only do I feel that Mr. Cress did not enforce the state sanitary code too strongly, but in a few instances he erred in favor of the farmer by not being tough enough.” Mr. Cress agreed.Some of the farmers contended Mr. Cress did not sanitize his boots before inspecting at the Brad Rihn farm. However, both Mr. Cress and his supervisor, Mr. Bautch, a native of Independence in Trempealeau County, verified Mr. Cress did use a bucket and brush to clean his boots prior to the Rihn inspection.State officials speculated that Mr. Cress may have appeared to the Bloomer farmers to be too tough an inspector because the inspector he replaced may have been too lenient.Thirteen Bloomer area residents attended the hearing held in the district agriculture department office in Altoona. Many considered some of the Grade A code requirements “silly and unnecessary.”One farmer told the hearing examiner, “we feel our equipment is clean enough for Grade A milk.”However, Le Roy Calkins, who was subpoenaed to appear, admitted that “all the debits on my inspection sheet were my own fault.”Inspector Cress’ supervisor, Mr. Bautch, said Mr. Cress has done a good job as inspector and he would have debited all the violations that Mr. Cress did when he accompanied Mr. Cress to his inspection of the Prodanovich farm north ofBloomer on May 2 this year.Moreover, Mr. Wildrick said the quality of milk in the area that Mr. Cress has inspected has improved in the four years he has inspected that area.The protesting farmers, some of whom said their milk bacteria counts were as low as 14,000, were told by Mr. Wildrick that they were downgraded to Grade B from Graue A because of farm or “housekeeping standards, not milk standards.”The U.S. health code, he added, requires the state to downgrade farmers with two consecutive debits on inspections.Some farmers complained they were not aware of certain sanitarycode provisions, but Mr. Hanson responded by saying it is their dairy plant fieldman’s responsibility to inform them of code provisions.And examiner Martinson at one point chastised some farmers for “trying to get little digs into the (official) record against the inspector (Cress) and this cannot continue.”Supervisor Bautch, who said he has made nearly 100,000 on-farm inspections in his tenure with the state ag department, testified that inspector Cress “has made no more and no less” degrades than the other 15 state inspectors under his jurisdiction. “I feel comfortable with his performance,” he said.The following 12 debits werelisted against one farmer on a May 2, 1978, inspection, with 10 of them repeat debits from a November 1977 inspection: Calves tied in feed alleys, insufficient lights in the barn, silo room door was open and feed carts were uncovered, gutters were not scraped (excessive buildup), insufficient lime on barn floor, bedding was too old, well seal breather screen was rusted, milk-stone buildup on milking equipment, no self-closing door on the milkhouse and protein buildup on the interior of the bulk tank.Inspector Cress, who grew up on a dairy farm near Clear Lake in Polk County, said he used the same criteria on all farms he inspected.Finally, Mr. Hanson reminded farmers that “a Grade A permit is a privilege, not a right.”
Newspaper Details
Country Today
Eau Claire, Wisconsin, US
Wed, Jul 05, 1978
Page 7
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
WI, USA 06 Apr 2025
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