The gentleman in Wisconsin lives in an agricultural area but doesn't, apparently, participate in the economy. Instead, he demands that the local government require neighboring farmers to attempt to make a living following what he imagines to be the farming practices of their grandparents.
Assuming that mature dairy cows are somewhat similar in their consumption to mature brood cows, these animals will require 45 tons a day of forage and dry feed, producing 15,000 tons a year of waste which will require from 2,000 to 3,000 acres for application. This isn't an activity which can be conducted in an industrial park.
The local zoning board can no more require that dairy farmers till the soil and milk their cows in the manner of their grandparents (which led to the dust bowl, abject poverty and early death, by the way) than they can require that Boeing keep producing those wonderful DC-3's or Ford those really neat Model A's.
Turns out it's terrible for corn and soybeans ~ the soil is not nearly as thick as Iowa, the windblown loess is still over in the Dakotas and Nebraska, and with the rocks all over the place somebody had to pick them up to allow ploughing. There are huge piles at the corner of the fenced fields.
Very interesting. We did our honeymoon there in the Fall.
There are some serious glacial till regions ~ with even more rocks.
It's pretty obvious you can raise cows there, but it is not so obvious that you have enough soil in most places to do much else.
This is NOT a Northern Northern Illinois ~ more like a Western bed of Lake Michigan! Fur shur it's not Noblesville, Indiana.
If you say these guys need 3000 acres for 3000 cows, could be. Maybe not. It rains a lot, but it runs off.
In the several dozen articles I read about this nowhere did anyone say Larson bought even one more acre than he already had when his grandpa ran 200 head. He's actually expanding to over 4000 cows!
His neighbors have medium sized farms ~ and like the guy said this sort of farm stands out in Wisconsin.