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Nearly 30 Wisconsin middle and high schools received $174,093 in grants from Compeer Financial to support agriculture education programs. Funds are used for equipment and resources that advance hands-on learning and support renovations, improvements and building projects for non-traditional classrooms, such as greenhouses, shops and livestock barns.
Next A.C.R.E. Grant
Through the Next A.C.R.E. grant, Compeer Financial aims to uplift agriculture programs in secondary schools, where they have been making an impact since 1832 when the Boston Asylum and Farm School was established. Over the past couple of decades, though, ag education has faced challenges that include lack of qualified instructors, unfilled positions, low enrollment and lack of funding. These and other factors have resulted in programs not keeping pace with technology advancements and even some programs being cut.
Grant recipients intend to use the funds across both traditional agricultural skills and emerging technologies to support a broad range of ag and career-focused education. In their applications, they emphasized hands-on, experiential learning that gives students opportunities to work with animals, grow, build, repair, test and fabricate. Several schools intend to use the funding to adopt advanced technology and simulation, including virtual welding, CNC plasma, precision-ag sensors and veterinary/livestock simulators.
To qualify for a Next A.C.R.E. grant, applicants must offer agriculture education classes at a middle or high school within Compeer Financial’s 144-county territory. Compeer Financial will again offer the grant in 2027.
2026 Recipients:
- Alma Center-Humbird-Merrillan School District: A year-round greenhouse with ventilation, climate-control, lighting, irrigation, growing tables, benches.
- Augusta High School: Greenhouse and school garden equipment, including a wheelbarrow, germination mats, seed-starting trays, raised beds, a label maker.
- Baraboo High School: Digital microscopes, veterinary diagnostic tools, a small-animal examination table, digital veterinary scale, sanitation equipment.
- Belmont Community School District: A metal cutting saw, miter saw, tool kit, orbital sanders, garden tower, egg incubator, portable band saw, battery packs.
- Benton High School: A standalone greenhouse with plumbing and electrical connections.
- Brillion High School: Plant science instructional materials, water and soil sensors, a fertilizer injector, greenhouse potting workbench.
- Burlington High School: Greenhouse heating and ventilation repairs, workspaces, shelving, hydroponic growing towers.
- Cadott Middle and High School: A commercial freezer, refrigerator, smoker.
- Cochrane-Fountain City School District: An aquaponics system.
- Colfax High School: A beehive, honey extractor, animal fencing, quail and rabbit pens, garden equipment.
- Cumberland High School: LED grow lights.
- DeForest Area High School: Greenhouse drip and overhead irrigation systems.
- Elkhorn Area High School: Animal enclosures and carriers, veterinary medical terminology kits, suture kits.
2026 Recipients Continued:
- Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau School District: A commercial meat grinder, sausage stuffer, food dehydrator, vacuum packager, stainless worktables, scales, smoker.
- Glenwood City Middle & High School: Biotechnology lab equipment, including a mini centrifuge, electrophoresis chambers, power supply, micropipets, pH sensors, scales.
- Hartford Union High School: Ebb-and-flow, deepwater and drip hydroponic systems; water-quality meters; a growing bench with lights.
- Horicon High School: Swine artificial insemination, litter processing and bovine cervix training simulators.
- Markesan Middle & High School: Greenhouse equipment, a watering system, hydroponic growing units.
- Montello School District: Replacement polycarbonate greenhouse panels.
- Oconomowoc High School: A calf care simulator.
- Plum City High School: A portable sawmill.
- Prairie du Chien High School: Improved animal fencing and shelters, meat processing equipment.
- Reedsburg Area High School: A bovine breeder simulator with cervix kit, animal ear identification kit.
- River Trail School of Agricultural Science: Greenhouse benches, shelves, rolling racks, watering wands, irrigation trays, floor matting.
- Royall School District: A canine vital signs trainer, feline veterinary trainer, plant growing methods lab kit.
- Waupun High School: A recirculating aquaculture system with filtration, circulation and temperature-control equipment.
- Wayne E. Bartels Middle School and Portage High School: A greenhouse with growing benches, mist and hanging-basket irrigation.
