The contrast between the two candidates running for Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District tells a story about different paths to agricultural advocacy: one grew up showing registered Holsteins at county fairs, learning dairy economics when her family’s 150-year operation couldn’t compete. The other spent childhood summers on his uncles’ Minnesota farms before becoming a Navy SEAL, then requesting a spot on the House Agriculture Committee — the first from his district in a decade.
Both Rebecca Cooke and incumbent Derrick Van Orden bring agricultural connections to the race. Their backgrounds, policy priorities and visions for Wisconsin’s dairy future differ in ways that matter to the district’s more than 5,100 dairy operations.
Two Agricultural Stories
Rebecca Cooke is a sixth-generation Wisconsinite whose family farmed outside Eau Claire for 150 years. She showed registered Prairie Belle Holsteins in 4-H, served as her 4-H club president and witnessed firsthand the economic pressures that force family operations to exit dairy.
“When milk prices dropped and we couldn’t compete with the bigger dairies, we had to sell the cows,” Cooke says. “After 150 years of farming in this district, it felt like we lost part of who we were.”
Beyond farming, Cooke worked as a waitress, ran a Main Street business for seven years and served on the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation board, giving her perspective on rural economic development.
Derrick Van Orden is a retired Navy SEAL senior chief who owns a hobby farm in Hager City. His father abandoned the family when he was an infant, but his uncles farmed in Minnesota, where Van Orden spent summers.
“The happiest times we ever had as a kid was on the farm — riding in tractors, shooting corn-fed pigeons with my Crossman 760 pellet gun, bullhead fishing, learning how to slaughter animals,” Van Orden recalls.
When he arrived in Congress, Van Orden specifically requested the Agriculture Committee and now serves as vice chair of the Livestock, Dairy and Poultry subcommittee. He also successfully lobbied to get another Wisconsin member onto the committee.
The Agriculture Committee Seat
Both candidates want to serve on the House Agriculture Committee, but they frame its importance differently.
Van Orden emphasizes the committee’s demanding nature and his commitment to mastering its complexities.
“It’s a lot of real hard policy work, and you have to know a real wide breadth of stuff going on. And I do all my homework,” Van Orden says.
Cooke says she’ll request the committee seat immediately upon election, but she questions whether the current representation has delivered results.
“We’ve had that seat for four years, and look where we are,” Cooke says. “Farmers are still waiting on a five-year Farm Bill. They’re still eating the costs of tariff fights. And they’re still watching the processors and the input companies get bigger and bigger.”
Top Three Policy Priorities
Van Orden’s Platform:
1. Passing the Farm Bill — Van Orden points to the Farm Bill that passed the House, with President Donald Trump committed to signing it. He’s now focused on Senate passage.
2. Biofuels Leadership — As a member and leader of the biofuels caucus, Van Orden frames biofuels as a national security issue. “We have to be able to produce our own fuel in the United States.”
3. Tax Relief for Family Farms — Van Orden highlights eliminating the estate tax through the Working Families Tax Cut Act (now law), plus enhanced expensing/depreciation and the 199A small business deduction designed to help family farms pass to the next generation.
Cooke’s Platform:
1. End the Iran War and Lower Diesel Prices — Cooke focuses on immediate input cost relief. “On September 22, the national average went over $6.60 a gallon. Before the war started in late February, it was around $3.76. Every combine, tractor, grain truck and generator on a Wisconsin farm runs on diesel.”
2. Open Markets, Not Trade Wars — Cooke argues tariffs have cut Wisconsin farmers off from export markets they spent decades building. “Give Wisconsin farmers a fair shot and they’ll compete with anybody in the world.”
3. Enforce Antitrust Laws Against Big Ag — Cooke wants to use existing laws to address consolidation. “A handful of corporations control way too much of what farmers have to buy and who they’re allowed to sell to. That’s why the farmer’s cut of every food dollar keeps shrinking.”
What They Want to Change
Both candidates identify market volatility and consolidation as problems, but propose different solutions.
Van Orden wants to address “unscrupulous traders” causing wild commodity price swings while retail food costs stay stable. “You can’t swing beef by a single statement radically. That’s not okay.”
He also emphasizes energy policy, opposing solar panels on prime farmland (over 20,000 acres in Wisconsin already covered) and supporting energy dominance to keep fuel costs predictable. “A combine doesn’t work on pixie dust or unicorn farts. You need fuel for that thing.”
Cooke wants to fix supply chain economics where farmers receive less while consumers pay more.
“From the farm to the processor to the grocery store, the people doing the hardest work are taking home the least,” Cooke says. “Families are paying more at the checkout while farmers get less for their milk and beef. Somebody’s making money in the middle, and it isn’t them.”
She also proposes federal assistance for young people to purchase empty farmsteads and restart operations, “including training for folks who didn’t inherit land or know-how but are willing to earn it.”
Van Orden’s Legislative Record
Van Orden points to bipartisan accomplishments achieved during his current term:
- Prop 12 repeal — Preventing California from dictating production standards to other states, protecting Wisconsin cranberry growers and pork producers
- Right to repair — Working with EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to ensure farmers can repair equipment without dealer codes
- Dairy Farm Resilience Act — Providing $125 million in savings for Wisconsin producers through affordable crop insurance premiums
- Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act — Restoring whole milk in schools
“Here’s what a lot of Republicans don’t understand: between 92% and 94% of all tillable land in the United States is represented by Republicans,” Van Orden says. “So, if Republicans in Congress are holding up the show for our farmers, they’re not doing their job because the job title is representative.”
Cooke’s Approach
Cooke frames her candidacy around lived experience and local connections.
“I’m one of you,” Cooke says. “My family has farmed in this district for 150 years. I grew up showing registered Holsteins in 4-H and I was there when we had to sell our cows because the milk check wouldn’t cover the bills and we couldn’t keep up with the big dairies.”
She connects her Main Street business experience to farming economics: “I know what it’s like to make payroll on your savings and pure stubbornness. Farmers don’t need another politician posing for pictures at the county fair. They need somebody who’ll fight for a fair price, open markets and a Farm Bill written for family farms.”
Working Across the Aisle
Both candidates commit to bipartisan work, with different approaches.
Van Orden emphasizes his legislative record of working across party lines to pass specific bills. He stresses doing thorough policy homework to build coalitions and deliver results.
“I do my homework. I take my job incredibly seriously. And I put my farmers first all the time,” Van Orden says. He listens to farmers who “got manure in their boots every day” and translates their needs into policy.
Cooke emphasizes maintaining close relationships with agricultural organizations to stay informed.
“I’ll sit down every quarter with UW-Extension, WEDC’s Office of Rural Prosperity, the Wisconsin Farmers Union and the Farm Bureau, so I hear about problems before they turn into disasters and bring real numbers from real farms to Washington,” Cooke says. “When I go across the aisle, I’ll bring what farmers in my district told me, not talking points.”
She adds: “When my own party gets it wrong on farming, I’ll say so out loud. I work for West Central Wisconsin, not for party bosses.”
The 4-H Connection
Both candidates reference 4-H as formative.
Cooke: “I like to say the first office I ever held was president of my 4-H club. Those summers taught me how to work, how to lose and how to get up before the sun and do it all over again the next day.”
Van Orden emphasizes the importance of programs like 4-H and FFA in raising the next generation of farmers and ensuring young people understand where food comes from.
What’s at Stake
Wisconsin’s more than 5,100 dairy operations face interconnected challenges: labor shortages the H-2A visa system can’t solve for year-round operations, rising input costs that can’t be passed to consumers and consolidation pressuring family farms.
The race presents voters with a choice between two types of agricultural representation:
Van Orden offers a legislative record of specific accomplishments, committee leadership as vice chair of the Livestock, Dairy and Poultry subcommittee and a commitment to mastering complex agricultural policy through diligent study and bipartisan coalition-building.
Cooke offers direct experience with dairy farming economics, including the painful reality of a family operation that couldn’t survive market pressures, plus small business ownership experience and connections to Wisconsin’s economic development infrastructure.
The Central Question
This race ultimately asks: What kind of agricultural experience best serves dairy farmers in Congress?
Is it deep policy knowledge, committee seniority and a proven legislative record of bipartisan wins on issues like right to repair, whole milk in schools and estate tax elimination?
Or is it lived experience with dairy farming’s economic pressures, including watching a 150-year family operation sell its registered Holsteins because the system favored larger operations?
Wisconsin’s 3rd District dairy farmers will make that determination on Election Day.
