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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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World Pork Expo: Evonik monitors the impact of trypsin inhibitors in nursery pigs

Video: World Pork Expo: Evonik monitors the impact of trypsin inhibitors in nursery pigs

Dr. Maria Mendoza, Global Consulting Expert with Evonik, recently spoke to The Pig Site’s Sarah Mikesell at the World Pork Expo in Des Moines, Iowa, USA about the use of trypsin inhibitors in soy products and how that effects the digestion of amino acids. The variability of quality of the soy products can affect the rations of the soy products in the complete diet of the pigs. Evonik has monitoring services that can assist producers with determining the variability in their suppliers’ soy products.