A fixture on the Fond du Lac County farm scene for the past nearly three decades is stepping down. Fond du lac County Crops and Soils extension agent Mike Rankin says he is retiring at the end of the month and will pack his saddle bags to work for a farm magazine based out of Fort Atkinson. Rankin will be working as the managing editor for Hay and Forage Grower magazine, owned by W.D. Hoard and Sons, the publisher of Hoard’s Dairyman. Rankin says it was a difficult decision because he still loves his extension job and will miss the many people he has worked with over the last 27 years. Rankin says what happens to his position remains to be seen with proposed state budget cuts. He says he hopes the position is filled because he says only one ag agent in a county this large cannot come close to serving the needs of farms and residents. “Our foundation is the Wisconsin Idea to take the boundaries of the university to the boundaries of the state. You walk into the office and that phone rings and you don’t know what the question will be,” Rankin told WFDL news. “It may be somebody with a skunk under their porch that wants to know how to get it out or somebody wanting to transfer a farm from one generation to another, or problems with their cows or their crops or whatever the case might be.”
