Иммиграция и новые культуры: решения демографического кризиса и продовольственных проблем Висконсина

First, a population geographer makes the case that immigration could solve Wisconsin’s demographic decline. Then, we learn about a research farm that studies possible alternative crops for Wisconsin. And, we hear from the organizer of the Great Wisconsin Quilt Show. Featured in this Episode - How ‘heartland visas’ could help with Wisconsin’s demographic declineThe Midwest is facing a demographic decline that will affect Wisconsin’s workforce and economy. A UW-Whitewater geographer explains in a new book, “Migrant Midwest,” how we got here and proposes immigration as a solution. Originally aired on Feb. 26, 2026. - Higher grocery costs hit Wisconsin seniorsWe hear from Wisconsin seniors about the tough choices they’re often forced to make when trying to afford groceries on a fixed income. - Research farm aims to show potential for new Wisconsin cropsLast year, the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute created a research farm near East Troy to show the potential for alternative crops like mung beans, Kernza, buckwheat and millet. The institute’s research and educational directors talk about these new crops and their potential in Wisconsin. - The Great Wisconsin Quilt ShowNext month, the biggest quilt show in the state is coming to Madison. We hear from an organizer about what to expect from the event. Episode Credits - Rob Ferrett Host - Kate Archer Kent Host - Jonathan Burkham Guest - Esther Durairaj Guest - Nicole Tautges Guest - Deanna Springer Guest - Jeanne Anderson Guest - Mary Rapp Guest - Richelle Wilson Producer - Royce Podeszwa Producer - Joe Tarr Producer - Tyler Ditter Technical Director - Sarah Hopefl Technical Director - Brad Kolberg Technical Director - Tim Peterson Managing Producer Transcript Collapse Transcript Terms of Use Transcripts are provided for accessibility and convenience and may be created using a mix of automated tools and human review. While we strive for accuracy, transcripts may contain errors or omissions and are provided "as is" without warranties of any kind. The audio version is the official record of WPR programming. All transcripts are owned by WPR and protected by U.S. and international copyright law. They are provided for personal, non-commercial use only. You may not reproduce, modify, distribute, or use transcripts for public or commercial purposes without prior written permission from WPR. For permissions, contact [email protected]. Speaker 1 Growth is slowing nationwide and in Wisconsin, and that’s mostly because of a historic decline in immigrants coming here from other countries, according to the U. S. Census Bureau. In Wisconsin, the number of international migrants coming to the state fell by more than 62 percent in 2025. Speaker 2 Combined with an aging population and a declining birth rate, this could mean a lower overall population. The Wisconsin Department of Administration has projected that the state will lose nearly 200,000 residents over the next 25 years. So how could Wisconsin reverse the trend? A population geographer says immigration reform could be the answer. Speaker 1 Jonathan Burcombe is associate professor of human geography at UW Whitewater, where he researches the intersection of economic development and migration. His new book is called Migrant Midwest, The Case for Immigration and Economic Growth in the American Heartland. Jonathan, thanks for joining us Speaker 3 Oh, thank you so much for having me, Rob. Speaker 1 Well as I’m reading your book, we get this new Census Bureau data bureau data out showing that the whole country is experiencing a slowdown in population growth. What does that look like here in Wisconsin, uh in the heartland as you call it, and and what are the factors behind that? Speaker 3 Well, Wisconsin, really like a lot of the states in the Midwest and to a certain degree in the Northeast, has been really kind of struggling with fairly slow population growth um, you know, for at least a decade now. And in some states the population has already uh started to decline. Right? So these trends have been around for a while and and You know, this current trend of kind of uh national population stagnation, um, you know, it’s it’s largely driven by this uh, you know, this drop in immigration that we’ve seen. over the last year and including the deportations that we’ve seen. So on the one hand, right, we’ve seen declining immigration uh in the country as well as in the state But then there’s also these kind of more baked-in trends of fertility decline. The uh fertility rate, the average number of children a woman has really dropped uh in the last uh decade in particular. Speaker 1 You talk about something you call a demographic winter on the way for states like Wisconsin. Absent that immigration, what do the next couple few decades hold? Speaker 3 Yeah, so demographic winter is I kind of define it as the economic and social conditions of kind of population stagnation and and decline. All right. And so again, this is driven by, you know, these these factors, right? Kind of fertility. immigration as well as uh domestic migration. And in the case of Wisconsin, right, we are still a fairly low immigration state, so we don’t have uh a large number of international migrants living in the state uh as a share of our population, right? I mean it’s about 7% of the population, a little bit lower actually. And we also have uh have a history of domestic out-migration, in other words, people leaving the state of Wisconsin, mostly going down to the to the Sunbelt. That’s stabilized a bit in the last few years. But it’s, you know, we’ve we’ve seen a lot of domestic outmigration. And then in terms of, again, fertility, we haven’t seen uh uh you know much uh you know birth rates are quite low um and and so we don’t see kind of a source for population there. And this creates real challenges for a lot of communities that are Already in decline, right? And that comes along with all kinds of fiscal challenges for governments. Um, and something that I focus a lot on uh in my book is the labor market conditions um and uh you know the the difficulty in finding people to to fill positions across a range of industries. Speaker 1 And that’s a real key to your book. this idea that especially maybe in particular communities, rural parts of the state, but also big cities in the Midwest, you’ve got this population trend where you have Uh lots of older people out of the workforce, fewer people of that working age, fewer people moving into the working age. What are some of those main challenges when we hit that balance? Speaker 3 Yeah, so I mean uh interestingly and concerningly uh Wisconsin has seen um in the last year for the first time in its history, apart from COVID, um, absolute labor force decline. In other words, we have about fifty to sixty thousand fewer people in the workforce than we did uh a year ago. And you know, even prior to that decline, we have uh industries, manufacturing, agriculture, uh, healthcare, in which um, you know, the these industries are really struggling to to to find workers And so this is gonna really slow down, I would say, economic growth in the state and you know, present some real challenges. I mean, if you think about it, we have this baby boomer population that uh has been moving into retirement for some time and will continue to over the next five years or so. Um and it’s going to um create, you know, a real demand for healthcare jobs. And um and so we’re just struggling to provide uh enough workers to fill those jobs. You know, I see in particular home health aids is one of the fastest growing uh um you know employment sectors in in the state. And and so, you know, where are these workers going to come from? Speaker 1 We’re talking to Jonathan Burkham from UW Whitewater about his new book, Migrant Midwest. The case for immigration and economic growth in the American heartland. Let’s dig into that case now. You see uh immigration done right as Uh giving us the prospects of an economic boom and helping to reverse that demographic winter you’re worried about. Make that basic case. Speaker 3 Yeah, so uh again i these other things uh these other trends that are contributing to demographic uh winter are are a l a little bit stickier, in particular right fertility rates. So we’re not likely to see much of a growth. uh um you know driven by fertility rates. Fertility rates have been at historic lows um uh you know really for several decades below kind of uh replacement rate All right. And so with repla with fertility rates low, you know, we could rely somewhat on domestic migration. But again, you know, the trends have been that uh many Wisconsinites have been leaving and we aren’t seeing a lot of people flooding into the state And so this really leaves international uh uh migration as the primary driver of population growth in the state of Wisconsin and really uh the nation. as a whole. And so today’s uh immigrants actually are from a wide range of kind of education levels. and from a diversity of countries. And so they’re coming in and they’re filling all different types of positions in local economies. And if we’re going to cont if we want to continue to see the state’s economy grow and the national economy grow, right, we’re going to need this labor force to fill these different positions. Speaker 1 Part of how you want to do that uh is very different than how our immigration system works right now. It is of course a federal responsibility to manage immigration. You would like to see a policy sometimes called heartland visas that say, hey, states and localities that want and need immigrants to fill these needs, well, maybe we can work with them. To do that and you even point to Awascaza Senator Ron Johnson offering a proposal along those lines, what would that look like Speaker 3 Yeah, sure. Uh so Ron Johnson, yes, he is Senator Johnson, he proposed a uh state-based uh visa sponsor program in twenty seventeen. And um and it was modeled somewhat similarly to a system Canada has in place. And what it does is it allows states to opt into uh uh a pool of employment-based uh visas. And um and what’s really I think kind of exciting about this this proposal and just this overall idea for uh these state-based visas or even the Heartland visa is it allows states to kind of tailor uh those immigrants, those workers, right, to particular industries, right? So they could we could prioritize, say, in the state of Wisconsin, um, you know, uh d d in uh workers to work in the dairy industry, or we could prioritize um uh folks to come in and work in healthcare. We could prioritize uh manufacturing. I mean manufacturing, if you look at employer surveys, they’ve been uh you know claiming for for decades now that they just can’t find enough workers. To fill those jobs in the manufacturing sector, right? So we could tailor our specific allotment of visas, right, to uh favor people with the certain skills that are needed in those industries. Speaker 1 A common concern is, and this has come from the left and the right over the years, is hey, wait a minute. If we’re bringing in more laborers, while that reduces the value of labor, it’s going to bring wages down in general for everybody. You dig into the economics behind that, it gets complicated, ultimately you say no, that isn’t necessarily the case. Speaker 3 Yeah, it’s not necessarily the case. And so this phenomenon, right? is what we refer to as uh wage suppression, right? Where you have immigrants coming into a particular industry and then kind of uh you know driving down the wages in that industry And you just the the data just doesn’t support that. Um, you know, the study or there have been numerous studies that have looked into this phenomenon of wage suppression and found that By and large, immigrant workers come in as kind of like complementary workers that end up creating more jobs and often creating jobs that then the native-born labor faith labor force may move into. And um and so there’s this kind of uh synergy to uh immigrants working alongside non-immigrants to actually kind of grow the economy and and you see you know, economic growth and and employment growth uh from from that synergy. Speaker 1 As we wrap up, you point out There can be cultural concerns, right? If there’s large groups of people coming in from another country into a community, how could uh say a region, uh a rural Wisconsin region successfully balance those two needs? wanting those immigrant laborers, not wanting the locals to feel like, hey, wait, this is a different place than I grew up in. Speaker 3 Yeah. I mean I I’m all for kind of cultural integration efforts. I mean, I think a lot of uh small town and you know big city mayors are actually very aware of this. And, you know, they recognize these demographic challenges that their communities are facing, and they recognize that immigrants are going to be a really big part. of kind of sustaining and stabilizing those communities. And so, you know, mayors working with uh, you know, church local churches. schools in particular to find ways to integrate this population into and kind of create spaces where they can communicate and spend time with uh the native-born population. So a lot of these maybe concerns about the cultural challenges um can can dissipate from from that contact. And I’d like also like to add that you know, this state-based uh visa sponsor program does allow states to not opt into this uh set of visas, right? And so if a community is feeling uh or a state is feeling like collectively, right, that they have um you know that immigration has gotten to be a problem and they’d feel like there are maybe too many immigrants in that state Right. They could opt out of uh those particular sets of visas, right? And and so it it it kind of takes the power away from the federal government and to a certain degree hands it to um you know people in the state. Speaker 1 Jonathan, we’ll leave it there. Thanks again for joining us. Speaker 3 Oh, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. Speaker 1 That was Jonathan Burkham, Associate Professor of Human Geography at UW Whitewater. been talking about his new book, Migrant Midwest, and why he believes immigration is an important piece of the puzzle as Wisconsin is predicted to see a sharp population decline between now and 2050. Speaker 4 Coming up on Wisconsin today, visit a new research farm in southeastern Wisconsin that shows the potential for alternative. crops like mung beans and kernza hear about their viability. Speaker 5 It’s really important to give farmers flexible options that they can grow economically. Speaker 4 What’s growing and why at the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, that’s next. It’s Wisconsin today. I’m Kate Archer Kent. Speaker 1 And I’m Rob Ferret. A trip to the grocery store has gotten a lot more expensive in recent years. Speaker 4 Ground beef, tomatoes, and coffee have all seen big spikes. Speaker 1 Those higher prices can be especially hard on all older adults on fixed incomes. Speaker 4 Harvest Public Media contributor Nicole Grunmeyers spoke with seniors about the tough choices they’re often forced to make. Speaker 6 Once a month, the people who live at this low-income retirement community in Storm Lake, Iowa gather to create their own food pantry. The donations come from the Food Bank of Iowa. Speaker 5 How many of the peppers? Speaker 6 Today, fresh pineapples, potatoes, and bell peppers pile up on tables. The residents can go through and take the items they need. Linda Rufus, who is 67, relies on this pop-up pantry. Speaker 7 Food prices are extremely high and I have to really weigh out what’s more important or how I can get the most out of a meal. Speaker 6 Rufus says she’s stretching every dollar and trying to find cheaper filling food items. While she loves beef, she’s now buying ground turkey Her neighbor Tony Keller is also shopping at the Pop-Up Pantry today. The 65-year-old spent years outside the workforce as a caregiver, which reduced her retirement benefits. Speaker 8 I get a whopping $304 a month because I had a sick child, so most of my time was spent with her. Speaker 6 That social security payment isn’t nearly enough to cover Keller’s living expenses, including food She relies on SNAP Federal Food Assistance and programs like this Pop-Up Pantry. She recently completed treatment for breast cancer and tries to prioritize eating fresh fruits and vegetables Speaker 8 After having cancer, you’re eating a little differently, which costs more money to do. Speaker 6 High food prices are pushing older adults to make difficult budget decisions affecting their health. Nationwide, food prices were 3% higher this June compared to the same time last year, according to federal data. Jessica Johnson is a senior strategist at the National Council on Aging. Speaker 9 So much of the conversation around SNAP and food insecurity really has been around children and families and older adults really are often a forgotten population. Speaker 6 More than 7 million Americans aged 16 up experienced food insecurity in 2023, according to the National Council on Aging. That’s approximately one in eleven older Americans. Gina Plata Nino is the Director of Policy and Advocacy at the Food Research and Action Center. She says Social Security benefits don’t protect older adults from hunger. Speaker 10 Your rent didn’t decrease because you turned 60. Your utilities didn’t decrease because you turned 60. Neither did fuel and neither the food. Speaker 6 Nearly half of older adults who carry credit card debt are using their cards to buy food, according to the AARP. In the Kansas City region, Metro Lutheran Ministry operates three food pantries. Community assistance manager Kimberly Bernard says they’re seeing consistently high demand from older residents. Speaker 11 We see a lot of people that are in that population of seniors that they really rely heavily on the food pantries because it’s a challenge for them to be able to budget the amount that they receive monthly. Speaker 6 Back in Iowa, Linda Rufus says she and her fellow residents at the Storm Lake Senior Housing are grateful for the pop-up pantry. Speaker 7 Because if it were not for the food banks, you know, supplying us with food, you know, we would be in a lot worse condition than we are. Speaker 6 But for now, experts say seniors on fixed incomes will likely continue to feel the squeeze of high food costs. For the Midwest Newsroom and Harvest Public Media, I’m Nicole Grunmeyer Speaker 4 Harvest Public Media is a collaboration of public media newsrooms in the Midwest and Great Plains, including WPR. The Midwest Newsroom is a collaboration including NPR and public radio stations across several Midwestern states. The Midwest Newsroom is a member of the Trust Project. Speaker 1 This is WPR News. Speaker 4 A wide range of the same. of crops are grown in Wisconsin, including corn, soybeans, potatoes, wheat, and cranberries, but could farmers and the state’s soil benefit from additional crop diversity? Speaker 1 The Michael Fields Agricultural Institute in southeastern Wisconsin was created to promote sustainable, organic agricultural practices here in the state. Last year it purchased a research farm near East Troy to experiment with crops that could improve soil quality and develop new markets for farmers. This is the first year with Plants in the Ground. Speaker 4 To learn which crops they’re experimenting with and what the potential markets could be, we turn to Esther Durairaj. the educational director of the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute. She is program director of the Wisconsin Women in Conservation Program. Esther, welcome Thanks for having me, Kate. And Nicole Touches is the research director of the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute. She oversees the Institute’s new research farm near East Troy. Nicole, welcome to you. Thank you. It’s great to be here. Nicole, when you look out at this research farm, how would someone be able to tell you you know, this is really a research farm and not maybe a typical farm you would come across in Wisconsin. Speaker 5 Absolutely. All research plots are pretty readily recognizable because it looks like you’re growing flags. So there will be lots of straight lines of flags. Um we have very small plots where there are a lot of flags, and then we have larger plots which are um more on the order of like 30 by 50 or 30 by 100 foot long strips, but We are applying and investigating different crop management techniques in these plots. Esther, why is it important to have a research farm? Speaker 12 So the research is important because we translate a lot of the things that we learn to the community, and for that we need to be sure of what we are doing especially with the crop production techniques, the soil management techniques, we try and uh do it in a kind of replicate that Nicole mentioned, we do it in a replicated manner over time, over three years, collect data and then At that point, we are able to make a good recommendation to the producers, and so research is very important before we try and move the information to the producers. Speaker 4 And Esther, you know, corn and soybeans and alfalfa and, you know, other forage, these are such important crops to Wisconsin. Why is the institute trying to get Wisconsin farmers to grow different crops? Speaker 12 Oh, the uh having new crops uh is very important because uh farmers have uh a lot of crops to choose from. number one and then we also see of late how this weather variations happen in Wisconsin. So it’s important for them to have some drought resistant crops, something that will w grow well in a flood situation and stuff like that. And also it’s uh we are as an organization focus so much on soil health. And so it’s important in order to have a soil microbiome that’s flourishing, that we have different kinds of crops that enable that microbiome, feed those microbiome, and also are able to produce uh different protein content and gluten free crops and stuff like that. So this is a choice for the farmers to choose. There’s also this time uh factor like the crab sets of shorter duration, longer duration, so that it fits right into the rotation and stuff like that. So it’s very important to have crabs to choose from. Speaker 4 Are when you talk with farmers, are they receptive to these new crops? W what is the feedback like? Speaker 12 Yeah, there’s a lot of interest. Um I wouldn’t say that they jump onto production. There are a few crops that people are more at a point where they’re ready to adapt. There’s a few crops they’re interested and are coming to our farm to learn to see how it’s growing, what how it’s performing and stuff. But there are some crops that there is recep uh receptivity to grow on their crops, say like a buckwheat. Uh a lot of this buckwheat has been imported from Canada and so Um the local Midwest supply chain is very receptive to growing buckwheat locally. So that’s a crop that’s been flourishing here now. Speaker 4 Yes, Nicole, let’s talk about some of these crops. Um and if you could even start with Kernza, um, which I learned is a is a trademark name for a type of wheatgrass. Is that right? Speaker 5 Yes. Oh boy, the Kernsa Spiel. Yeah, I’ve been involved with Kernsa research since um real late 2016 when I was doing my postdoc fellowship at the University of Minnesota. And the reason that we are working on Kearnza is it comes from this dream of perennial agriculture, of converting some of our agricultural land uh in the United States, but also worldwide, into land that’s not tilled, that’s not worked up every year, that’s not so disturbed all the time. To convert these really high disturbance systems that are vulnerable to soil erosion, um, water quality risks. um fertilizer losses from land to convert uh some of those annual crops to perennials, which largely mitigate a lot of those environmental risks that we take with annual crops. And and we have to because humans bred annual crops, you know, for the last 10,000 years. And the reason that they did that is because they are much easier to select for, they’re much easier to breed and to realize rapid gains. However, that initial ease comes with all these other issues that we’re now, you know, seeing with intensive annual based grain systems. And so this perennial perennialization dream is certainly not unique to me. It’s been discussed for more than a century, but The Rodale Institute back in the 1980s and now the Land Institute since the 2000s have really taken up the mantle of perennial crop breeding And so they developed and released Kernza, which is you said it’s the trademark name for the grain from intermediate wheatgrass. Which is a perennial grass widespread throughout the western United States. It’s extremely winter hardy, so we don’t worry about perenniality with it at all. And it already has larger seed size than a lot of other perennial grasses, which is why it was chosen as a domestication target. And its seeds also taste good, which is hugely important for growing a perennial food crop. Speaker 4 We’re talking about the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute’s new research farm, what is grown there. Nicole Touches is the farm’s research director. Esther Durairaj is the institute’s educational director. So Esther, when you’re talking with farmers, connecting with them about Kernza or some other of these crops, um, you know, how do you make that connection to encourage them to try them to grow some of these different crops. Speaker 12 So uh the one thing that we ask them is to visit our farm when we have field days or other ways that they can always Call us and talk to us about your questions. And then there’s the multivariate benefits that we have noticed on our farm, like growing these crops in small parcels of land, um, growing crops in areas of low fertility sometimes and there’s places where this crop can grow for weed management where like parcels of land are not grown. So you grow this, there’s control of weeds while they get the grains, then they also use have like uh forage for the animals during the fall and early spring. So these are the benefits that we talk about based on the experiments that’s already been carried out and the data that has been collected over years. I think the current f uh farm in the crop in our farm is almost like four to five years old. So Nicole has been like con collecting data over time and then we kind of discuss about how it’s uh actually performed. And so we have uh research database uh information to pass out to producers. Speaker 4 Nicole, our next stop at the farm is the mm beans. Um how successful have mung beans been? Can you take us to this crop and and what you’re doing with it? Speaker 5 Sure, and actually I might need to pass it to Esther, who is more of a mung bean expert than I, but um Esther Developed a relationship in collaboration with Dr. R. T. Singh at the Iowa State University. And they are doing mung bean breeding. Uh, and there is potentially a large volume market for mung beans because as I understand it it they contain a protein that can be extracted that is a desirable protein for making um imitation egg, which is kind of uh yeah, it’s just super interesting. You know, they just happen to have this protein that can be extracted economically. And so there is a large facility that already exists in Minnesota or is planned to be built to convert this protein for this large scale imitation egg kind of supermarket food system. ecosystem, but I think uh in more in alignment with our work and our interests at the institute, mung beans are a fantastic food that they can just be eaten themselves. And so it would be a really wonderful food to bring to our local and regional cuisines to get that in. They have a lot of nutritional benefit and I’ll pass it to Esther quick to fill in. Speaker 4 Yes. Esther, what excites you about mung beans and could you know, this type of crop be direct to restaurants or grocery stores or in CSA boxes. Speaker 12 Exactly. This is a crop that’s high in protein, that you have about twenty-five percent protein uh by weight. But what excites me is the multivariate benefits that it has. It’s a legume crop, so it also fixes uh nitrogen in the soil. And so it’s beneficial to the soil, it’s beneficial to the human. Speaker 4 Wisconsin also really grapples with the nitrogen pollution. I’m wondering if this crop or another crop could help deal with that type of pollution, especially in groundwater. Speaker 12 Yeah, depending on the crop that you grow, you add a lot of nitrogen, right? Like corn needs a lot of nitrogen. While when you grow crops like legumes or cover crops, then they don’t need nitrogen. So uh when uh when a crop like uh green gram, that’s called the mung beans, which is also called green gram, is grown, um then your application of nitrogen so was so very reduced. Uh and so it’s uh then there’s like, you know, there’s no wash out of nitrogen into the water and streams. But definitely there’s also like what are the former st choose right they need to have a market for these. And there’s huge potential and I hear that there’s a lot of potential already that there’s like a big uh market uh for it in Texas and places like that. So Uh it’s very important to develop a market for it in in the Midwest as well. Speaker 4 I haven’t tasted mung bean, Nicole. Um I you know, can you talk a little bit about uh you know, how it looks, how it feels, how you might use it in cooking. Speaker 5 I think to me they looked like smaller Adamame beans. So a lot like a green soybean, or we were eating them. They were served to me sprouted and they were absolutely delicious. But they’re actually um Esther’s been cooking with them for a long time because they’re part of her traditional cuisine. Speaker 4 So Esther, how do you like to use them in your cooking? Speaker 12 Oh, so there’s a lot of ways in which we use that. Um we sprout and use that which is one uh it’s very crunchy and nice and it’s got a lot of protein. We also wet soak it, grind it and use it for making crepes along with rice. Um so that and then sometimes the flour, we use it for making goodies for kids because it’s h it’s a rich source of protein. Speaker 4 Esther and Nicole, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Thank you so much, Kate, for having us That is Esther Durai Raj and Nicole Tauches from the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute. That’s a nonprofit that develops sustainable agriculture practices and recently opened a new research farm in East Troy. We talked about new perennial grains, those crops that don’t have to be planted every year that could be economically beneficial for farmers. And help to protect the environment. Speaker 1 Coming up, the biggest quilt show in the state is coming to Madison. The Great Wisconsin Quilt Show is a hive for quilting enthusiasts. Hear about the long-running event and how quilting guilds build community. Speaker 13 It’s truly an an art form and it’s taking that creation, that that flat fabric and making it into a three-dimensional, beautiful quilt. Speaker 1 That’s next here on WPR News. Speaker 4 It’s Wisconsin today. I’m Kate Archer Kent. Speaker 1 And I’m Rob Ferret. Next month, the biggest quilt show in the state is coming to Madison. The Great Wisconsin Quilt Show is a space for quilting enthusiasts and their guilds to showcase their handiwork. Take classes and appreciate the quilting community. Speaker 4 The three-day event is a presentation by PBS Wisconsin with proceeds of the show going to support programming. It carries on the legacy of the late legendary public media figure, Nancy Zeman, whose show Sewing with Nancy ran for more than 30 years Speaker 1 Deanna Springer is co-founder of Dancy Zeman Productions and organizer for the Great Wisconsin Quilt Show. Deanna, thanks for joining us. Speaker 13 You’re so welcome. It’s great to be here. Speaker 1 Now, some people listening not only are familiar with the quilt show, they’re like they’re marking the days on their calendar till it happens. For people who haven’t experienced it, what do they see? What do they experience when they walk in the door of this year’s quilt show? Speaker 13 Well the Great Wisconsin Quilt Show happens every September, the weekend after Labor Day. So we’ll open on Thursday and the doors open at nine. And it’s a big cheer when the doors open and you walk in and you’re just uh immersed in everything quilts and quilting for the vendors. uh anything you need to buy to make a quilt and then you see the finished quilts in the central quilt exhibit and it’s uh special quilt exhibits are coming in from all over the country and then there’s a whole education part of it too with lectures and sit and sews and hands-on classes. So it’s a lot. Everything you can do. You can spend three days at the Great Wisconsin Quilt Show. Speaker 1 And people do. Oh we do. Speaker 13 Yeah, absolutely. People do. Three day tickets and There’s something to do and see every single day. Speaker 1 Now this is uh PBS Wisconsin does this along with Nancy Zeman Productions, which you’re with. That name, Nancy Zeman. I think sometimes in Wisconsin for people familiar with quilting, we might take her for granted. Oh yeah, of course, Nancy Zeman She she’s not just a big deal in Wisconsin, right? She is huge in the world of of quilting and sewing and and selling this idea that this is something that yes, you could do even if you didn’t think you could. Speaker 13 Yeah Nancy is well known nationally and internationally and of course she’s no longer with us. She passed away in twenty seventeen. Um but she approached uh PBS Wisconsin. Oh, probably in 2002, and said, let’s do this. We have a community, let’s bring them together once a year in Madison. And so we joined with PBS Wisconsin and uh we were already co-producing uh sewing with Nancy the television show which next year will be our forty five forty five years on on television so You can still watch Sewing with Nancy online at nancyzeman. com and at um PBS Wisconsin channels and PBS Nationwide Speaker 1 Anything special coming up for the forty-fifth anniversary next year? Speaker 13 Yes. We’re having a Sapphire anniversary challenge, so we can break the news here. It’s not yet announced. So the very first day of the Great Wisconsin Quilt show on September 10th at 9 a. m. People will walk into the Central Quilt Exhibit and learn about what next year’s quilt challenge is. So every year we have a challenge quilt. quilting project that you can participate in and it’s small and it’s doable and you have six to eight months to complete it. It’s a thirty inch by forty inch quilt And the challenge this year is let’s celebrate 45 years of sewing with Nancy, the sapphire anniversary. So all quilts must be blue and white to celebrate that sapphire anniversary Speaker 1 They used the word community a few moments ago. And that’s something that I always strikes me about quilting. I could picture it as this solitary activity Everybody’s at home tucked away alone, and that’s part of it. But everywhere you go, I think around Wisconsin, there’s quilting guilds and uh people formally or informally getting together to share their creative efforts here. How important is community to our quilting world in Wisconsin? Speaker 13 It’s so important. You know, you go into a quilt shop and there are people there working and shopping that have the same hobby the same interest that you do. So it’s really exciting to walk in and be immersed with all other quilters that enjoy everything you do and they just help each other. Let’s choose some fabrics and pick out some fabrics and then They go to guild meetings and whether it’s modern or traditional, there are different types of guilds. And then a big part of uh lately, the last decade or two, are um quilt retreats. So you pack up, you hit the road, and you meet your quilting friends at a stayover um retreat center and you just quilt day and night. You hardly sleep at all. Speaker 1 I mentioned that idea of people helping each other out. And and again that Nancy Zeman spirit of of making quilting accessible to people. Talk a little bit a little bit about how that happens at the quilt show itself, the kind of things that uh quilters at all levels might learn along the way there. Speaker 13 Right. The Great Wisconsin Quilt Show is for every quilter. of any level, beginners to, you know, award-winning quilters and people that have never quilted before. Um, we have a lot of people come that just admire the artwork of quilting. that they haven’t even thought about getting into the hobby, but um as soon as you walk in and you’re interested in say you want to learn about hand quilting or you want to learn about machine quilting Any type of quilting technique you want to learn, it’s there available, whether it’s the free stage presentations that are included with your admission ticket. It’s accessible, the prices are kept low so that people anyone that’s interested can come learn more about quilting. Speaker 1 Now I hear anecdotally again and again about younger generations showing a a renewed interest in quilting, whether that’s it was COVID, right? And you needed something to do. Or wow, we’re spending a lot of time on screens. We want something practical that we can do that that gets us away from that. What do you see in the co world for new generations? Speaker 13 all of us that are makers with our hands, whether it’s crochet or needlework, um, quilting of course is my hobby. Um, you just want to create, you take that flat fabric and you cut it up and you make it into a quilt. My sister Diana, that’s not a quilter, she’s a flower gardener, a painter. Why would anyone buy fabric, perfectly good fabric, cut it up into pieces and then sew it back together? Right? So it it’s truly an an art form and it’s taking that creation, that that flat fabric and making it into a three-dimensional beautiful quilt. Speaker 1 Now also at the show, uh there are competitive elements. There are competitions. What kind of categories are there? What kind of things do people get judged on when they enter their work? Speaker 13 We mentioned earlier the quilt challenge we do every year. The central quilt exhibit in the center of the show is made up of around 300 competition quilts that are ten different categories. So as soon as you walk in the front entrance to the central quilt exhibit, you will find bed-size quilts that are hand pieced in hand uh quilted. Speaker 1 So hand means I didn’t run it through my sewing machine. No sewing machine by hand. Speaker 13 No sewing machine involved. Those are impressive. Speaker 1 Quilt uh bed sized. Speaker 13 So bed size. Speaker 1 Wow. Speaker 13 Bed sized quilts completely made with hand, needle and thread Gorgeous quilts, gorgeous. And then as you work your way through, you’ll see bedsize machine quilted, machine appouquet, machine pieced. And then as you keep going into the categories, you get into wall size quilts many different techniques from machine embroidered thread painting um applique traditional piecing you’ll see art quilts You’ll see quilts made from repurposed items like denim or all the quilts must have a top layer and a back layer in a center batting layer and then it it qualifies as long as the entrant meets the other size requirements. Speaker 1 For someone listening who’s thought, I’ve thought about quilting, maybe they saw a relative do it in the past. They don’t know how to start, right? How do they get in that door? What are first steps for someone who wants to get into quilting? Speaker 13 First step, go to quilt show. com and take a look at the event guide. We have the twenty four page event guide and you can just uh r read through it. and see what uh interests you. Look at the free stage presentations that are, you know, available to you with your admission ticket and just start walking through the vendor mall, seeing the different demonstrations. I’m inspired every year to see what is new at the Great Wisconsin Quilt Show. So people uh like myself, teachers we’re always coming up with the next idea. So if you quilt and sew every day, you come up with your own things that work for you. And then we like to share those. with each other. Hey, you know what would make this process easier? This is the tip that I’ve discovered and you should try it too. Speaker 1 Deanna, thanks so much for giving us a preview. Thank you. Deanna Springer is a co-founder of Nancy Zeman Productions and organizer for the Great Wisconsin Quilt Show coming up next month. Now Wisconsin’s quilting guilds are going strong all across the state with dozens and dozens of groups from Appleton to Whitewater, where members meet up monthly or weekly to work on projects and discuss ideas. Here to take a closer look at what binds these guilds together, we turn to the Prairie Piecers from Deerfield. Mary Rapp and Jean Anderson, our sisters who quilt with the Prairie Piecers. Mary, thanks for joining us. Speaker 14 Yeah, I’m glad to be here. Speaker 1 Gene, thanks for being with us. Speaker 14 Yeah, it’s exciting. Speaker 1 Gene, let’s start with your origin story. What got you into quilting in the first place? Speaker 14 Well, my mother taught me how to sew and I started on clothing and doll clothes and aprons and just graduated. I did uh uh garment sewing for quite a while. I did alterations and quilting just sounded really intriguing and Mary had already started because she is my big sister And uh just went into it both feet. Speaker 1 And Mary, what is it you love about quilting and sewing that’s kept you with her through the years? Speaker 15 I think it’s the creativity and the challenge. I rarely do the same quilt twice uh unless I’m requested to do so. And I’m interested in trying new techniques and um seeing where they lead me. Speaker 1 And Jean, uh the two of you are, as you mentioned, our sisters, you attend the same quilting meeting uh every third Thursday, I think. What is it about sharing that quilting experience and getting together with the group uh to share your craft? What what is important about that for you? Speaker 14 Well, part of it is just being with my big sis. We used to sing in the same chorus and then she moved further away and switched choruses and uh I had tried her quilt guild and the ladies were all so welcoming and so friendly. And uh gets me up here once in a month. I stay overnight. Speaker 1 So you commute for the quilt guild Speaker 14 I do. I’m from Illinois. Speaker 1 All right. And Mary, how do you make sure you have this welcoming community feeling for for people, ev even if they’re not your sister? Speaker 15 Um well we don’t actually have anyone specifically assigned to be a welcome person. But um it just kind of is absorbed by everybody that’s already a member. Um if someone comes in that’s new, we make sure that there’s a seat at the table for them I, as you know, am listed as a contact for our guild. And just uh last night I received an email from another person who’s interested in attending a meeting. And when that happens I always make sure to reply with with full information about where and when and how and what our programs usually look like. tell them that we hope that they’ll be joining us soon. So it’s it’s kind of a group thing. Speaker 1 And Gene, when you’re together with the group, is there a lot of idea sharing and helping each other solve your your problems and conundrums about quilting? Speaker 14 Oh, all the time. We have a um sharing of what we’ve accomplished during the month uh whether it’s quilting or other kind of sewing or knitting or weaving or what have you. But yeah, I’ve had some interesting problems in my quilting and Somebody has an answer and they’re not shy about sharing it. Speaker 1 And then Mary, part of your monthly group exchange, uh you have a thing you call please make some. Tell us a little bit about that project. Speaker 15 We refer to it as in a little joke as PMS. But um we have a sign-up sheet at the beginning of the year and if you choose to participate You sign up for a month to bring in instructions and examples of a particular quote block. And then during that month’s meeting you pass out the written instructions and show the block and demonstrate if there’s any interesting things that you should be aware of or whatever. And then the people who are members of the guild choose or not to make some of that block. And if you do, for each block that you bring in the following month, your name is entered into a drawing and one person’s name is drawn and wins all of the blocks. The kicker is that you can only put your name in the drawing for the blocks that you brought if you have finished the last batch of blocks that you won. It’s it’s sort of an incentive to uh keep moving, if you will. Speaker 1 Jean, have you been inspired by that uh please make some concept? Speaker 14 Oh yes, I had the June block, and in July I won all those blocks. So now I have to uh get in gear and do something with them. Speaker 1 And finally, Mary, the great Wisconsin Quilt Show is happening soon. You have some experience there. What are you looking forward to this year? Speaker 15 Um this year just seeing and getting ideas from the quilts and then as usual buying more than I really need to in the vendor area As a matter of fact, last year uh I entered a quilt for the first time and that quilt um took third place in its category. And those winnings uh come with some money attached. And so immediately after I found out that I was a third place winner and figured out how much money I would eventually receive. I went and spent it all in the venture area. Speaker 1 Classic. They know they’re not going to lose money on that that exchange. Speaker 15 That’s right. Speaker 1 Well, thank you both so much for sharing your love of quilting. Thanks for joining us. Speaker 14 Oh, it was fun to be here. Thank you very much, Rob. Speaker 1 Mary Rapp is a culture and organizer for the Prairie Piecers Quilting Guild in Deerfield. Her sister Jean Anderson is also a quilter with the Prairie Piecers We’ve been talking about quilting guilds and building community through the craft of quilt making. We also heard from Deanna Springer, co-founder of Nancy Zeeman Productions and organizer for the Great Wisconsin Quilt Show. That show takes place in Madison’s Alliant Energy Center September 10th through 12th. Proceeds of the event support programming at WPR’s Public Media Colleagues at Wisconsin Public Media. We heard from author and artist Jesse Lee Kirchaval last week who picked up drawing later in life, now has a solo exhibition, and we asked the To hear about your artistic pursuits. Speaker 4 Simeon says in an email, I started drawing again after many years and enjoyed the journey of creating again. I work in pastels, love charcoal, and I’m learning to paint, adding color to my charcoal drawings on canvas. Speaker 1 Simeon goes on to say, I’ve recently started working on a series of the Milwaukee Wave players, the professional indoor soccer team, and I hope to start offering commissions for youth athletes. Soon. Speaker 4 Thanks for writing, Simeon. Tell us about your artistic discovery or rediscovery. Email us at wisconsintoday at WPR. org. Or you can call or text to get in touch. That is 888. 642-0232. Speaker 1 Wisconsin today. Producers include Rochelle Wilson, Joe Tarr, and Royce Pedeswa. Speaker 4 Our technical directors are Tyler Ditter and Sarah Hopeful. Speaker 1 Learn more about us at WPR. org/slash Wisconsin today. I’m Rob Ferret. Speaker 4 And I’m Kate Archer Kent. You’re listening to WPR News. Wisconsin Public Radio, © Copyright 2026, Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System and Wisconsin Educational Communications Board.