ASMARK Institute Executive Director Allen Summers (right) shows members of the group the difference between potash and urea at North Central Co-op in Rochester, IN, during the tour’s first day.
The crew at Co-Alliance, Wolcott, IN, was one of many impressive outfits that we visited on the tour. Above is an anhydrous ammonia filling station at Co-Alliance’s Kempton, IN, facility. Process Safety Management (PSM) regulations and the effect on Anhydrous Ammonia retailing was a major theme of discussion throughout the week.
Crop Production Services (CPS) – one of the nation’s largest Ag Retailers – played a major role in the tour with five of its facilities being featured. CPS has long had a reputation for enthusiastically embracing safety and best practices in the industry.
The above tour bus was our home-away-from-home for the week. Shout out to Marvelous ‘Marv (our trusty driver Marvin Crask)!
The CPS Riverport terminal in Owensboro, KY, situated along the mighty Ohio River, was a top highlight of the tour for this author.
The Equity (Effingham Equity), Effingham, IL, was a repeat stop from the 2013 tour, and the fertilizer building that was brand new back in 2013 is still housing the cooperative’s large stock of dry fertilizer for blending.
ResponsibleAg’s Bill Qualls (left) chats briefly with Superior Ag Resources Co-op (Chrisney, IN) manager David Scherer. The value of being able to visit ag retailers in their environment and pick their brains – for us ‘outsiders’ – cannot be understated.
A grower-customer picks up a load of 32-0-0 at Ceres Solutions in Templeton, IN. Although it was the heart of the spring busy season, rainy weather throughout IN and IL made this scene a rare one on the tour.
Not only did the group visit 47 ag retail operations throughout the five day, 1,400 mile journey, we also saw a brand new Helena Chemical Company distribution warehouse in Owensboro, KY.
North Central Co-op (Mentone, IN) dedicated its new dry fertilizer storage to former President and CEO Darrell L. Smith.
Downstream seed treatment services are a great value-added service for many of the retailers the tour visited. Tom Stein, manager, Ceres Solutions (Templeton, IN) remarked that “seed gives us a new revenue stream and another touchpoint with growers. And it helps with fertilizer sales and other things of that nature, too.”
Rain scared away many of the growers when we visited The Andersons, Inc., facility in Galveston, IN.
The tour also presents an opportunity to get up-close and personal with many of the crop protection products that we hear about everyday. Above is a pallet of Valent U.S.A.’s Valor XLT herbicide in storage.
Precision agriculture was talked about in its various forms and iterations throughout the week. The folks at Van Horn, Inc., in Cerro Gordo, IL, are doing some neat things with drones and 360 Yield Center products like the Y-Drop and 360 Soil Scan.
