Brothers Bob and Jim Conant didn’t know the first thing about hops when they started their now thriving hops farm in Tomah, WI. So they turned to their Monroe County Ag Educator from what is now the UW–Madison Division of Extension. Bill Halfman, an ag educator with 25 years experience, had access to unbiased research that “passed the rigors of scientific review,” and applied it to the unique problems of the Conants. “If we didn’t have some of that information,” Bob says, “we could just likely be wiped out.