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Members of United Farmers’ Cooperative, headquartered in Red Oak, formally begin its merger today with NEW.
United Farmer members voted this spring to merge operations with NEW, based in Fort Doge, and under the NEW name.
“United Farmers Cooperative thanks its members for participating in this important voting process, as well as our employees for their work in this process. Without faltering in service to our members, UFC employees also dedicated themselves to the research, preparation and member communication necessary for a successful unification. NEW Cooperative looks forward to welcoming our members and employees to NEW Cooperative and wishes to thank the UFC membership for their support and confidence placed in NEW Cooperative by voting in favor of this merger,” according to a statement from United Farmers’ after the vote.
Formed in 1973, NEW Cooperative, Inc. is a farmer-owned grain, agronomy, energy and feed cooperative headquartered in Fort Dodge. As a leading agriculture retailer, NEW (acronym for Northeast Webster) Cooperative is focused on being an innovative and efficient provider of today’s agriculture markets and services to 8,000 members throughout their 60 locations in Iowa.
United Farmers Cooperative, established in 2016, was a full-service, farmer-owned cooperative, serving agricultural producers and businesses across Southwest/South Central Iowa and Northwest Missouri. UFC’s 3,600 members had access to agronomy, energy, retail feed, commercial feed, lumber and hardware, automotive, and rural retail services and products at 28 locations including Creston and Union County.
“This opportunity provides for our combined 275 million bushels to be marketed on Iowa’s major rail lines, barge loading at the Port of Blencoe, over 30 ethanol plants and soy crush facilities, and through a combined internal consumption of over 60 million bushels of corn through our feed manufacturing efforts, bringing back to the member the best value for the grain you deliver,” said Dan Dix, General Manager of NEW Cooperative after the vote.
UFC’s General Manager, John Pruss, said the proposed unification is necessary to meet the production needs of Southern Iowa’s farmers and rural economy, especially for the future. “As UFC continues to review its long-term capital needs budget, we believe that an accelerated budget is necessary to best serve our members. To accomplish this, UFC needs to increase its profitability in a very competitive market by leveraging our position in the marketplace. This requires more tools than we currently have. In the grain market, one railroad is better than no railroad, seven railroads is better than one. When it comes to input market access, volumes and relationships are extremely valuable for purchasing products.”
“NEW Cooperative looks forward to leveraging the value of our two combined memberships and employee teams. NEW’s board of directors will expand to a total of 15, with the addition of two directors and one associate board member to be appointed by the UFC board.” More information can be found at and www.newcoop.com.