In a region where hard winter wheat has been king for more than a century, news of $20 a bushel for soft red spring wheat on the Minneapolis market really “turned everybody’s head around here.”

But that’s about all it should have done, said Rickey Roberts, Marion County agricultural extension agent.

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Nancy Klaassen has guided Nancy’s Fashions through myriad changes in business and marketing practices these past 20 years. Don Ratzlaff / Free Press.

While those changes conspire to make a healthy fiscal bottom line an ongoing challenge, Klaassen’s perspective after 20 years is as healthy as ever.

“I like being around the people,” she said.

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Land availability, farm facilities and overall profitability remain the top challenges of America’s young farmers and ranchers. However, they also believe they are better off today than five years ago, and they are more optimistic about the future of farming.

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