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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.

Farming in Iowa Isn’t Just Corn and Beans

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Thursday, November 1, 2012   

VAN HORNE, Iowa - Getting started in agriculture these days, with the price of land and equipment, is a challenging task - but it can be done if beginning and conventional farmers look at the operation differently.

Ann Franzenburg and her husband, Eric, offer that perspective. On their farm in eastern Iowa, they raise traditional row crops along with herbs, vegetables and flowers.

"If you don't have access to a lot of land, then this is a really good entry point for people who want to start farming. Just like any farm operation you don't want to have all of your eggs in the same basket."

She says selling locally to grocery stores, floral shops and through a growing number of farmers’ markets is key to making such an operation work. She says they grow many different items year-round.

"We might have anywhere from 40 to 80 acres of the herbs, and then for the vegetable production and flowers, for cut flowers I have probably an acre production outdoors and then we have greenhouse production."

Franzenburg left her job as a schoolteacher for a second career raising and selling flowers. She says diversifying their traditional corn and soybean operation made that move financially comfortable.


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