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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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What is Chicken Feed Made From?? | MD F&H

Video: What is Chicken Feed Made From?? | MD F&H

In Queen Anne in Queen Anne’s county, Farmer David Denny works hard to raise hundreds of chickens so that they may reach regular growth milestones on schedule. This is important because poultry integrators like Purdue require the chickens to be a certain size and weight in a set number of weeks. How can such a feit be accomplished so consistently in such a short period of time? It’s all due to the birds' carefully planned diet, which is tailor-made to meet their nutritional needs. The process begins long before any chickens even arrive on the farm all thanks to Farmer David and the grains he grows throughout the year. These grains are in turn used to create the exact feed which provides the necessary nutrients to the David Denny Farm’s poultry.