CVA, Farmers Cooperative, South Dakota Wheat Growers form Consolidated Ag Solutions

Central Valley Ag (CVA) at York, NE and Farmers Cooperative (FC) at Ames, IA and South Dakota
 
 Wheat Growers (WG) at Aberdeen, SD have developed an innovative Cooperative to bring new opportunities to the three cooperatives and their member-owners; Consolidated Ag Solutions Cooperative, Inc. (CAS). CAS will be a Cooperative where collaboration comes together from each cooperative. This collaboration of ideas, experiences, discovery, and sharing of best practices will harness the efficiencies of these cooperatives. CVA, FC, and WG are forward-?thinking Cooperatives and believe combining resources will help all parties be more prepared to meet tomorrow’s challenges in agriculture. These three Cooperatives have the vision to adapt and expand abilities to compete in a global market, for the benefit of their membership.

This formation is not a merger of the three organizations. The forming of Consolidated Ag Solutions expands the concept started by farmers to join together to pool resources for the benefit of the members.

Adding value to member-owners is extremely important to Carl Dickinson, CEO of Central Valley Ag. “As a Cooperative, we continually focus on creating and adding value for our owners. The added value of Consolidated Ag Solutions will help position CVA for our owners long into the future.”

“FC believes that efficient process improvement will lead the cooperative structure into the future for our members and our employees,” says Jim Chism, CEO of Farmers Cooperative Company.

Wheat Growers CEO, Dale Locken, is excited about the opportunities CAS will bring. “Wheat Growers has a rich history of looking ahead to ensure that we are able to strategically meet the needs of our ever-changing members. We believe that by collaborating with FC and CVA we will have innovative solutions to common opportunities, providing greater benefits to our members.”

Central Valley Ag Cooperative (CVA) (www.cvacoop.com) is a member-owned farmer's cooperative located in Nebraska, Kansas, and Iowa. The Cooperative provides agronomy, energy, feed and grain products and services to over 15,000 producers in the area. More than 850 full-?time CVA employees strive to be the first choice for any of its producers' needs.

Farmers Cooperative Company (FC) is headquartered in Ames, Iowa and is one of the largest farmer-owned agriculture cooperatives in Iowa. FC serves over 5,300 members in a trade territory of over 3,000,000 acres. Members are served from 46 locations by 400 full-?time employees. The FC mission is to improve the economic well-?being of their members and customers by being a dependable, consistent and profitable provider of markets, products and services. For more information, please visit the website at www.fccoop.com.

South Dakota Wheat Growers (WG) (www.wheatgrowers.com) is a grain and agronomy cooperative in the heart of the James River Valley of South and North Dakota. Owned by the customers it serves, Wheat Growers exists to provide value for customer-owners from Interstate 90 to Interstate 94 and the Missouri River to Interstate 29. Today, over 5,000 active producer members are using WG products and services, with an additional 12,000 equity holders, their choice is enhanced by strong patronage returns and timely equity retirement payments.