Does daylight saving time help farmers? We asked one
Does daylight saving time help farmers? We asked one
Blaise Mesa, Milwaukee Journal SentinelWed, October 21, 2026 at 10:03 AM UTC
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Mark Crave knows better than most that farming is an around-the-clock job.
There are many days when Crave, managing partner at Crave Brothers Farmstead Cheese in Waterloo, rises before the sun and works until after dark.
It's a common misconception that daylight saving time was created to help farmers, but many farmers – including in Wisconsin – opposed the idea when it was first introduced, arguing it would actually disrupt their work. Crave, though, wasn't familiar with the myth.
“I never heard that and I’ve been a farmer my whole life,” Crave told the Journal Sentinel. “It’s an urban myth or, if you will, a rural myth.”
More: Loathing early sunsets in Wisconsin? Daylight saving time won't help
Even now, when modern technology allows farmers to work in the dark, daylight saving time can still be a nuisance, he said. The time change can mean cows go without food for an hour, or farmers clean up extra feed because the cows didn't eat it.
“That may not sound like much, but we feed hundreds of thousands of pounds of feed a day," he said. "That is our largest expense.”
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Crave said the spring time change, when clocks move forward an hour, is the more problematic switch for him because it condenses his schedule for the day. But ultimately, the weather and markets are far more pressing concerns for farmers, he said.
As the United States considers a switch that would do away with the time change, Crave said he supports a stop to the practice of adjusting clocks twice a year.
“That’s purely me as a farmer,” he said. “My kids are grown now. If they were standing at a bus stop in the dark, maybe I would have a different opinion.”
Why do we have daylight saving time?
Daylight saving time was imposed during World War I in an effort to conserve fuel. The first country to adopt daylight saving time nationwide was Germany in 1916. The United States first adopted daylight-saving time in 1918.
Conserving fuel was the reason for the switch, but the U.S. Chamber of Commerce supported adjusting clocks so people would still have daylight after they got off work, which meant more Americans could shop and go out.
As time went on, some cities would adopt daylight saving time while rural areas would not. That meant clocks in the same state could show different times. That created confusion and prompted the Uniform Time Act in 1966.
When does daylight saving time end in 2026?
Daylight saving time will end at 2 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 1, when clocks move back one hour.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Does daylight saving time help farmers? We asked one
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