Farming has always been an unpredictable venture and not for the faint of heart. Starting in early 2016, several factors converged to negatively affect the profit margins of most Wisconsin farm enterprises, and these tight margins continued through 2019. However, dairy prices were rebounding, and the forecast looked hopeful at the beginning of 2020.

Then COVID-19 hit, disrupting the demand for U.S. commodities in other countries and the U.S. supply chain, which forced many to dispose of rather than sell their commodities. This series of events has put some farmers in precarious financial positions.

Financial help

The Harvest of Hope provides financial help and hope to Wisconsin farm families to help address common farm financial problems: power cutoffs or impending power cutoffs, medical and veterinary bills, house and barn fires, feed for cattle, machinery repair, farm accidents, supplies for spring planting, weather events (floods, drought, frost, hail, building damage due to snowload), or putting food on the table or fuel in the tank.

In the past, the fund has provided gifts of up to $1,500 to help address these or similar situations. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Harvest of Hope has temporarily increased this amount to $2,000 per family.

Related: Complete coronavirus coverage

Since its beginnings in 1986, Harvest of Hope has distributed more than $1.14 million to Wisconsin farm families through a total of 1,705 grants. The Harvest of Hope Fund uses five guiding principles when making grant decisions to farm families: 

This fifth guiding principle requires the farm family to work with one of three advisers: either a University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension educator, a technical college farm business management instructor or a farm adviser with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection’s Farm Center. An adviser is asked to describe:

The fund was created by and is still supported by the Madison Christian Community, an ecumenical Christian community on the west side of Madison, Wis. No religious or church community affiliation is asked or required to receive a grant. The Harvest of Hope Fund information and application materials can be found on the Harvest of Hope Fund page. The application form and financial planning statement can be found on the page. Both an application form and a financial planning statement from an adviser must be submitted for the board to review and act on the request.

Questions can be directed to 608-836-1455; press 8. Your call will likely go to voicemail, which allows questions to be left any time of day. Please provide the reason for the call and your complete name, address and phone number, and someone will respond as quickly as possible.

Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison Extension, which is solely responsible for the information provided and is wholly owned by the source. Informa Business Media and all its subsidiaries are not responsible for any of the content contained in this information asset.