News
FCS Advancing Market Access
Coops were originally formed to help individual farmers gain and expand their market access. Over the past few years market access has started to take on new forms within the agriculture industry and FCS has been investing time and resources to ensure our members can take advantage of these new opportunities.
Recent Examples of Success
Several years ago, Farmers Coop Society chose to partner with Land O’Lakes Truterra to access new sustainability related farmer payments, since they are an aligned farmer owned Coop model. Land O’Lakes, on behalf of FCS and the coop system has been investing significant time and resources to help lead the development of new market opportunities with companies from across the globe, taking advantage of changing consumer demands. This has led to getting real money back to the farm gate for existing sustainable practices and agronomic practice changes. Locally FCS has also used the opportunity to showcase what our farmers are doing by telling their stories, helping to advance the positive changes agriculture has been implementing.
Local Work and Expertise is Key
Land O’Lakes has been good partner in developing certain market opportunities, but their scope is limited compared to Farmers Coop Society’s local reach, by being a complete grain, agronomy, and feed company. It is exceptionally important that we work and focus locally to find both existing and new options on behalf of our customers. FCS has undergone multiple internal changes in roles of people including Jeff Koops, adding the Sustainability aspect to his existing Nutrient Management Specialist role, along with Josh Plueger, as our Conservation and Market Development Agronomist, as well as Colin Bolkema, as a Data Collection Specialist on our Site Specific Ag team.
Market access requires building out or developing links to any potential market, having the requisite farm level data, the ability to assemble data, and the access to move the required data to the upstream users. These roles are designed to share local expertise in these key areas to support current and future market access. These roles also work seamlessly between agronomy, grain, and feed within FCS. Over time, as more grain related markets become available, it will be increasingly important for FCS to continue investing time and local expertise into developing these opportunities on behalf of our farmers.
Future Market Opportunities
The expertise of our specialized staff, along with our history of commitment to important economic and agronomic tools such as variable rate technology, grid sampling, nitrogen efficiency tools, cover crops, record keeping and data collection assistance, along with an overall innovation mindset puts FCS is an ideal position to take advantage of current and future market access opportunities on your behalf.