Central Valley Ag delivers Value to Member-Owners with $16 Million in Equity

Central Valley Ag (CVA) continues to give back to member-owners, demonstrating the cooperative spirit. Recently, CVA’s Board of Directors approved the distribution of year-earned and age-based equity and retirement payments to its member-owners totaling almost 16 million dollars.

A payment of 9.5 million dollars is being made to member-owners based on their business with the cooperative in 2007 and 2008. Additionally, approximately 6.5 million dollars of retirements and age-based equity is being distributed to members that were age 65 or older as of December 31, 2020.

“I am proud of CVA’s performance, and our ability to return equity to our patrons,” said Carl Dickinson, CEO of Central Valley Ag. “It is exciting that your cooperative is in a position to not only add value through the products and services we provide, but to also return cash to the membership.”

Many people don’t fully understand or appreciate the cooperative structure according to Brandi Miller, CEO of the Kansas Co-op Council. When a co-op is profitable, dollars are returned back to owners in two ways, the first is through cash patronage. This is a direct return back to producers based on the amount of business they have done with the co-op. “Those dollars stay local, to be reinvested back into the community,” said Miller.

In addition to cash patronage, the co-op has earnings that are earmarked for later distributions. In the short-term, these equity dollars are an investment by members in their co-op and can be used by the co-op to make capital improvements, which further grow the business or might make the co-op more efficient. “In turn, the additional efficiencies generate more profits that go back to the producer,” said Miller. “It allows producers to really benefit from supporting their own business, and the economies of scale allow producers access to resources that they may not have on their own.”

“We truly appreciate the business of our member-owners and are excited to share with them the success of the cooperative,” said Dickinson.

Central Valley Ag is a farmer-owned cooperative headquartered in York, NE. CVA has locations in Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska. CVA is an innovative leader providing products and services in grain, agronomy, feed, and energy.