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Change to student aid formula would hit Iowa farm families

Darcy and Eric Wemark and their family milk nearly 600 cows at their dairy operation in Ridgeway, near Decorah in northeast Iowa.

The family also has 450 heifers, a 2,500-head swine facility and farms about 1,500 acres of corn and soybeans on land it mostly rents.

The couple’s eldest son, Carson, is finishing his first year at Iowa Central Community College in Fort Dodge, where he’s studying agronomy. The 19-year-old plans to carry on in the family business, as does their eldest daughter, Addison. The high school senior plans to head to the University of Wisconsin-Platteville to study dairy science next fall.

Carson currently receives federal financial aid through a Pell Grant to help the family pay for the roughly $16,000 annual expense to send him to college, including tuition, fees, room and board, and other expenses.

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Nothing Slows Down on a Pig Farm

Video: Nothing Slows Down on a Pig Farm



50 yards of concrete went down at the Manure Seperation building today. Forms set, rebar tied, gravel packed, and the trucks running one after another until the pad is poured and the crew is finishing it flat.

And because nothing on a pig farm waits for you to finish one job, the semi shows up while the concrete's still wet. Tork and I unload another load of pigs into the barn, get them sorted into pens, and walk the barn once they're settled. Two big jobs, one day, and both of them had to happen.