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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Rural WI Women Taking Care of (Green) Business

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Monday, April 28, 2008   

Madison, WI – Wisconsin women are using their green thumbs in the state's rural areas, and there's a new effort underway to help them "grow" sustainable, environmentally-friendly businesses. The "Rural Women's Project" offers advice, training, and mentors for rural women statewide, in such entrepreneurial pursuits as organic farming, energy-efficient bed-and-breakfast lodging, and wind power generation.

Lisa Kivirist, director of the Rural Women's Project for the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service, says women are finding a great deal of success with small, specialty businesses.

"The market is really looking for these types of businesses -- that are locally owned and sustainably run, that value the environment. And also, technology has really enabled women in rural situations to market themselves better."

Tracy Mofle of Rice Lake has received advice from the Project as she restarted her farm from scratch, with a focus on pasture-raised, organic pork and poultry. She is working with a group of farmers in northwestern Wisconsin, who also mostly are women, to help market their specialty farm products in the region.

"We are selling into restaurants in the Twin Cities, food cooperatives, local grocery stores, restaurants, local and regional markets. There really is a growing demand."

Mary Ann Ihm of West Bend has combined her farm with a bed-and-breakfast and conference center. She says sustainable practices, such as "green" building renovations and organic farming, are very important parts of her business. Ihm also says she is working to teach the next generation of organic farmers.

"Once we found the farm, we started training future farmers and gardeners. So now, we've trained over 50 of them, and we've got another crew here this year."

In the most recent agricultural census, women operated more than 7,000 farms in Wisconsin. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, that makes Wisconsin ninth in the nation in terms of its number of women farmers -- and that number is on the rise.



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