Sep 21, 2010

AGRIS Co-operative to purchase Nutreco assets at Oungah, Ontario

AGRIS Co-operative is pleased to announce that in co-operation with its grain partner Great Lakes Grain, that they have entered into a an agreement which will see AGRIS purchase the assets of Nutreco Canada Inc. at Oungah, Ontario.

The agreement contemplates that the transaction will be completed by September 30, 2010 so that AGRIS Co-operative on behalf of Great Lakes Grain can be prepared to receive soybeans and corn at the site this fall. It is the intent of Great Lakes Grain to receive and then transfer the corn, beans and wheat to other facilities that it operates.

“While not a large site, this transfer elevator provides the co-operative competitive access to the area between Chatham and Wallaceburg for grain origination and crop input sales,” says AGRIS Co-operative general manager Jim Campbell.

 
AGRIS Co-operative Ltd. is a one hundred percent farmer-owned grain marketing and farm-input supply company and serves more than 1,200 farmer members in 14 locations in Essex, Kent, Elgin, Middlesex and Lambton Counties. It is a leader in precision farming technology, seed, agronomy and petroleum services. The co-operative is majority owner of Wheatley Elevators specializing in identity preserved grain markets and partner of Great Lakes Grain, a grain merchandising company. AGRIS Co-operative is a member-owner of GROWMARK, Inc. and markets products and services under the FS banner.

Great Lakes Grain is a grain marketing partnership between GROWMARK, Inc. and AGRIS Co-operative Ltd. Great Lakes Grain is one of the largest operators of Ontario country elevators. It represents close to 460,000 MT (18 million bushels) of storage capacity with total marketing in excess of 30 million bushels serving farmers at more than 30 AGRIS Co-operative and FS PARTNERS branded locations from Windsor through to Toronto and north to Georgian Bay.

Sep 9, 2010

GROWMARK reports estimated Year-End financial results





GROWMARK officials reported unaudited, estimated results for the fiscal year that ended August 31, 2010 at its Annual General Meeting in Chicago on Aug 27. Senior Vice President of Finance Jeff Solberg announced sales of $6 billion (US) for the 2009-2010 fiscal year. GROWMARK net income is estimated to be $81 million.

“Fiscal 2010 was another good year in a series of good years,” Solberg said. “The result of this strong performance is a very strong balance sheet with a sound equity base built on a substantial layer of retained earnings, which minimizes the stock investment required of members, which is supplemented by a prudent level of long-term debt.”

An estimated $55 million in patronage refunds will be returned to GROWMARK member co-operatives in the co-operative’s Plant Food, Crop Protection, Seed, Energy, and Facility Planning & Supply business units.

“Change has been the strategic theme for this decade,” Solberg said. “More change has occurred in this decade than in any other in our history, and that change has produced record levels of success and profitability for the GROWMARK System.”

For more detail on the estimated year end results for each of the GROWMARK System’s core businesses, visit: http://www.growmark.com/NewsRoom/2010GROWMARKEstimatedFinancials.pdf

GROWMARK hosts Ontario young leaders in Chicago at its 2010 Annual General Meeting

Nicole Atkins of Delhi was this year’s youth speaker at the GROWMARK Annual Meeting in Chicago last month. She was chosen by GROWMARK for this prestigious role after graduating from the Ontario Co-operative Association's Co-operative Young Leaders Program. Atkins spoke to several hundred people during the evening banquet about her thoughts on what agriculture technology will look like by the year 2020.

"Youth attending the three day trip to Chicago were chosen by their affiliated organizations because they have shown exemplary leadership skills and have a genuine enthusiasm for being the best they can be for the betterment of agriculture, their communities and society in general," says Claude Gauthier, GROWMARK Ontario Region Manager.

Five other youth traveled with Atkins from Junior Farmers’ Association of Ontario, 4-H Ontario and the Co-operative Young Leaders Program to participate in the annual meeting’s opening ceremonies. See photo below:

Ontario youth at GROWMARK Annual Meeting preparing for the Grand Entry of Colours Ceremony. ( L-R) 4-H Ontario Ambassador Nicole Charlton of Brantford, Junior Farmers Association of Ontario Shannon Kelly of Millbrook, Co-operative Young Leader representatives’ Gerrit Herrema of Uxbridge and Nicole Atkins of Delhi (youth speaker). 4-H Ambassador Jessie Groniger of Carlsbad Springs and JFAO representative Kurtis Smith of Strathroy.

GROWMARK Top 20% Award winners announced at FS Ontario Director Forum

Over 50 Ontario FS member co-operative directors gathered together at the Holiday Inn in Kitchener to attend the Annual FS Ontario Director Forum on Aug. 6 to celebrate this year’s GROWMARK Top 20% Improvement Award winners.

This year, GROWMARK business performance awards went to Sunderland Co-operative Ltd. who received two awards, La Co-operative Agricole d’Embrun Limitee, Lucknow District Co-operative Inc., Huron Bay Co-operative Inc., Thunder Bay Co-operative Farm Supplies and Wanstead Farmers Co-operative Co. Ltd., giving Ontario a total of seven Top 20% Improvement Awards. Ontario received awards in the following areas:

At the FS Director Forum, FS Ontario directors also took the opportunity to pay tribute to Mr. Bill Davisson, GROWMARK’s Chief Executive Officer. Davisson will be retiring from GROWMARK at the end of this calendar year after 40 years of service. To say thank you to Bill for all his contributions to the GROWMARK System, Ontario directors presented him with a parting gift.




Vineland Co-op named one of most improved in FS System

Vineland Growers Co-operative Ltd. was one of five FS member
co-operatives throughout Ontario and the United States recognized by GROWMARK, Inc. for business performance improvement during the GROWMARK Annual Meeting in Chicago on Aug. 27.

GROWMARK measures the improvement in the performance of member co-operatives based on return on invested capital. Over a
five-year time frame, each co-operative's return on invested capital improvement is measured in comparison to other co-operatives in the System. From this measurement, the Performance Improvement Award was developed.

Vineland Growers Co-operative also received GROWMARK’s Top Twenty Percent Award in 2005 and 2007. In 2001, it was honoured with the Ontario Co-operative Association’s Co-operative Innovator Award and last year, the co-operative was the proud recipient of the Chamber of Commerce Outstanding Business Achievement Award in the town of Lincoln (in the larger business category).

Vineland Growers Co-operative Ltd. was established in 1913, and was founded by four forward-thinking farmers who realized there were benefits to working together. Now the company represents over 300 members in tender fruit and grape production, most of which hail from the Niagara region. Today, Vineland Co-operative has 29 full time employees but grows to an employee base of three times that amount in the peak growing season. The co-operative’s manager is George Mitges and Phil Tregunno is the president.

Other recipients of the GROWMARK Annual Most Improvement Award were: in first place,  Ag View FS, Inc., Princeton, Ill., Lincoln Land FS, Inc., Jacksonville, Ill., Conserv FS, Inc., Woodstock, Ill., and Southern FS, Inc., Marion, Ill.
 On the left, Dan Kelley, GROWMARK Chairman and President of the Board and Bill Davisson, GROWMARK Chief Executive Officer, present  George Mitges, Vineland Growers Co-operative general manager with a GROWMARK Most Improvement Award.

2010 Ontario 4-H Ambassadors tour FS System

This year marks the fifth year for the 4-H Ontario Ambassador Program and GROWMARK and UPI Energy are again proud supporters. The objective of the program is to spread the word about 4-H through the ambassadors efforts and participation at various community events throughout Ontario. "It is a more hands on approach to supporting the program and it allows us as sponsors to make closer connections to these young leaders,” says Claude Gauthier, Ontario region manager for GROWMARK.

Earlier this spring, 4-H Ambassador Valerie Stone of Paris, attended the FS Ontario Director Summit where she talked to a large group of FS member co-operative directors about the value of supporting 4-H. The young ambassadors recently took part in a tour of the Ontario FS System where they visited several key sites that showcase the GROWMARK System’s core businesses.

The one-day tour consisted of a visit to UPI Energy’s bulk fuel plant in Guelph, an FS PARTNERS grain and agronomy facility in Ayr, North Wellington Co-operative’s unique retail store and lawn and garden centre, a demonstration field plot called Pursuit of Maximum Yield and a 24 hour remotely monitored cardlock system called Swipe & Go. The Ambassadors will also attend UPI Energy’s annual meeting and participate as flag bearers during the opening ceremonies.

Ambassadors are available to speak at special events at your co-operative, so please keep this in mind during the year when planning annual meetings or other prominent events. 

4-H Ontario Ambassadors gather for a group photo after touring North Wellington Co-operative Services in Harriston. From L-R: GROWMARK Interns Shuang Li and Erin Dubecki, Kelly Boyle, North Wellington Co-operative Services general manager, Amy Baillie, GROWMARK Ontario administrative assistant, Ontario 4-H Ambassadors Valerie Stone of Paris, Jessie Groniger of Carlsbad Springs, Nicole Charlton of Brantford and Eleri Morris of Elmvale, Janice Johnson, GROWMARK Ontario marketing & communication specialist, Andrew Moore, 4-H Ontario marketing & events co-ordinator. Missing from this photo is 2010 4-H Ambassador Anikka Bolender of Stoufville. 




4-H Ambassadors learn about the UPI Energy business from Bob Hodgson, UPI Energy manager, operations, southwestern Ontario. 

Sucessful results achieved through Great Lakes Grain first Crop Assessment Tour

A three day odyssey across southern and mid-western Ontario concluded on Aug. 27 where FS agronomy and grain staff went on a crop scouting blitz capturing new field data to analyse and share with producers.

The Great Lakes Grain Crop Assessment Tour was a team effort that involved 20 two-men teams made up of FS crop specialists, certified crop specialists, customer service managers from FS PARTNERS and AGRIS Co-operative as well as grain originators from Great Lakes Grain.
  
Don Kabbes, marketing development manager for Great Lakes Grain reports that at each stop there was a soybean and corn field in close proximity. Ten teams scouted soybeans while the other 10 teams scouted corn. “On the first night of the tour we trained for yield estimation protocols for corn and soybeans so that all teams observed and recorded data consistently throughout the tour stops,” added Kabbes.

A total of 17 stops resulted in 2,800 corn and 1,575 soybean yield checks. “This experience provided the opportunity for new and seasoned staff to learn together while raising the bar on cropping knowledge,” says Dale Cowan, senior agronomist for Southern Co-operative Services. Don McLean, agronomist for FS PARTNERS added that “this type of mentoring, sharing, teaching and observing crop conditions in our trading areas provided invaluable opportunities to sharpen our skills.”

The tour’s findings were reported daily through video footage on AGRIS Co-operative's and Great Lakes Grain's web sites giving producers a personal close-up view of the daily activities and findings as they happened.

As a follow up, FS crop specialists will continue to scout an additional five corn and soybean sites together with their growers as a whole field assessment. This will provide an additional 200 yield data points to enhance the tour’s current collection.

More follow up videos will be posted to the Great Lakes Grain, FS PARTNERS and AGRIS Co-operative websites over the next few weeks. “This tour provided us with a wonderful opportunity to learn to become better agronomists who in turn will help us to help our customers become better farmers,” says McLean.

The Crop Assessment tour was generously sponsored by Dekalb Seeds, Syngenta Crop Protection and GROWMARK, Inc.

The preliminary results from the Great Lakes Grain Crop Assessment Tour are estimations only and not final research data, but rather observations. To read about the data results collected from the tour, please visit http://www.greatlakesgrain.com/, or http://www.agris.coop/

(Photo above) Vicky Michinski, zone grain originator with Great Lakes Grain and Bill Dunbar, FS PARTNERS director of operations scout for European Cut Worm at Crop Assesment Tour.

Sep 8, 2010

FS PARTNERS and Rothsay Biodiesel announce strategic partnership

FS PARTNERS and Rothsay Biodiesel, one of Canada’s leading biodiesel producers, have announced a new partnership to deliver  blended biodiesel to Maple Leaf Foods fleets in Ontario.

With this alliance, FS PARTNERS further solidifies its reputation as an innovator in the Canadian energy market by developing a solution to deliver blended fuel using Rothsay biodiesel for Maple Leaf fleets. The final blended product will be shipped out of the Port of Hamilton, where both companies store their biodiesel products.

“With each new business venture, it becomes more apparent that biodiesel is the way of the future,” says Tom O’Neill, FS PARTNERS Energy Sales Manager. “Partnering with a company like Rothsay Biodiesel, that is also a leader in driving sustainability in agriculture and the environment, is a positive step forward for both organizations.”

“This is a very positive development for Rothsay Biodiesel and the Canadian biofuels industry,” says Todd Moser, Vice President Alternative Energy for Rothsay. “This partnership advances our biofuels fleet fuelling program by coupling our high quality, sustainable biodiesel with FS PARTNERS’ established petroleum and biofuels distribution and blending capabilities. It gives us the platform to continue expanding the benefits of using cleaner, environmentally friendly renewable commercial fuels in the Canadian market.”
Rothsay, a division of Maple Leaf Foods Inc., is a leader in the Canadian biodiesel industry and one of the largest producers of recycled value-added products including the production of animal feed ingredients, amino acid supplements, and alternative fuel by converting edible and inedible by-products. It operates five rendering facilities nationwide and a commercial-scale biodiesel facility in Montreal.

FS PARTNERS takes the board room to the field in Pursuit of Maximum Yields

Dressed in bright orange shirts and engulfed in 12 foot high corn stalks, the FS PARTNERS agronomy team in partnership with Syngenta held its Green Plan Solutions road show at a variety of optimum demonstration field plots throughout central and south western Ontario to promote the Pursuit of Maximum Yield Program to its progressive producers.

The show began on Aug. 11 in Ayr and then continued for the next week at four other locations that covered FS PARTNERS trade territories in and surrounding Drayton, Mitchell, Harmony, Delhi, Stayner, Alliston and Elmvale representing corn, wheat and soybeans.

"With an excellent turn out at each field plot and next-to-perfect weather, the event was a huge success," says Dan Clarke, FS PARTNERS sales manager.

More than 160 producers attended in total and participated in an outdoor rotation of information stations. Each station was equipped with expert advisors that spent about 20 minutes on specific topics such as the importance of good information gathering, proper soil fertility or farming by prescription, plant nutrition, managing energy prices and genetics, traits and refuge management.

Each station was equipped with a series of colourful story boards that were used as a presentation tool much like a PowerPoint presentation on a computer. “It was like bringing a high-tech boardroom presentation to the outdoors,” says Don McLean, FS PARTNERS agronomist. Guests were comfortably seated on bales of hay and offered a cooler of refreshments at each station.

Based on Dr. Below of the University of Illinois’s research, the FS PARTNERS team summed up each presentation with an analysis of his findings that showed how much yield is reduced when removing one of the recommended high-tech components of corn production.

(L-R) Don McLean, FS PARTNERS agronomist and Dan Clarke, FS PARTNERS Agromony sales manager provide an overview of the Whole Farm Proposal.
“It is all about being better with the pencil,” says Crop Specialist Tony Balkwill at the information-management station. Producer Brett Schuyler of Schuyler Farms Ltd. commented that he is convinced that soil sampling can be beneficial based on the results he received. “Right along my pig barn, soil sample results showed high levels of fertility that can be easily explained. So obviously the numbers are accurate,” he explains. 

In conclusion, Dan Clarke stated that there is not just one silver bullet to help a producer gain maximum yield, but it is more to do with a full approach of utilizing all aspects of farming technology and market planning. Participants finished the morning with a hearty barbecue lunch and social time with friends and colleagues.

The Pursuit of Maximum Yield Demonstration Plot Program is a multi-year project that will provide long-term results for producers to help them make the best decisions for their operations.


Using outdoor story boards Devin Homick, zone originator specialist of Great Lakes Grain (left) and Morley Friesen, FS PARTNERS area manager (right) describe what FS PARTNERS can offer in grain and fuel options.

FS managers presented with results of the 2010 Large Commercial Producer Study

Earlier this summer, FS Co-operative general managers and agronomy staff attended a meeting with Tom Funk of Agri Studies Inc. who presented the results of the Large Commercial Producer Study (LCPS) that took place in the winter of this year.

GROWMARK was one of 18 Canadian organizations that supported this project. The study was done in partnership with Agri Studies Inc (ASI) and Ipsos Forward Research (IFR) in co-operation with Top Crop Manager (TCM) and the Western Producer (TWP).

With over 500 respondents, the study targeted only those farmers whose main income was generated from farming crops including corn, soy, wheat, barley or canola, livestock and dairy, swine and poultry and included some comparison data on Hutterite colonies versus traditional farming practices.

The LCPS Study is a comprehensive survey of large farms in all parts of Canada. It focused on understanding the behaviours and attitudes of this important group and took a good look at the following key topics:
• Who are commercial producers?
• What do they want?
• How do they make buying decisions?
• How do they sell/market their products?
• How can they be reached?
• What are their management challenges?

Unlike market research that is focused on a specific product or issue, the LCPS took a higher level look at the underlying trends in the Canadian farm market. It not only revealed the data mentioned above but also shared some deeper analysis into what farmers are feeling in regards to their personal and business goals and what they value most.

“It was good to confirm that most of the main values and concerns coming from producers, based on this study, fit well with what the FS System is working to achieve for its customers, such as: increasing farmers’ profits, reducing their risk, becoming more competitive and making their lives easier,” says Frank Campbell, GROWMARK Ontario marketing director.

Campbell has organized an extensive workshop planned for Sept. 28 with the goal of developing key strategies for the FS System customized to specific markets.

Key findings from the study will be posted on GROWMARK eresource/marketing research after October 1st.
Tom Funk, Agri Studies Inc. provides GROWMARK and FS Co-operative managers with new facts about farmer trends.

Introducing new environmentally approved hydraulic fluid

UPI Energy is pleased to announce that Power Flo Environmentally Approved Hydraulic Fluid is now available through CASE ’N DRUM OIL LP.

Power Flo is a premium high pressure hydraulic fluid that is non-toxic, biodegradable, water soluble and "EcoLogo" approved. It is being successfully used in a wide variety of hydraulic systems operating in sensitive environments. Power Flo is fire resistant and will not burn or flame even when misted under high pressure.

Since Power Flo is a top-of-the-line, synthetic, water soluble hydraulic fluid, it provides a more responsible environmental option over mineral or vegetable based fluids. Power Flo dissolves entirely and its technical performance is equal to or better than premium mineral oil hydraulic fluids in service today.

Whether the concern is environmental stewardship or avoiding the crushing costs of polluting incidents, mobile hydraulic equipment operators and fleet managers are looking harder than ever for a working alternative to mineral oil hydraulic fluids, and Power Flo meets that need. Contact UPI Energy for more information on this product.