Ag Business Briefs
Fire damages East Grand Forks grain elevator
EAST GRAND FORKS, Minn. (AP) — An explosion and fire has damaged a grain processing elevator in East Grand Forks.
Firefighters fought the blaze at MGI Grain Processing in subzero temperatures on Jan. 3. East Grand Forks Assistant Fire Chief Jeff Anderson says employees in the mill at the time made it out safely and called 911.
Investigators are looking into what triggered the explosion and fire. WDAY-TV reports a preliminary damage estimate is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Wheat Growers purchases Kimball fertilizer plant
Wheat Growers has purchased a 40,000-ton dry fertilizer plant in Kimball, according to a news release.
The plant becomes the largest capacity dry fertilizer plant in the Wheat Growers cooperative. Wheat Growers now has six hub fertilizer plants.
The addition will allow for more efficiencies and create new opportunities for the southern region as Wheat Growers and North Central Farmers Elevator prepare to merge on Feb. 1, said CEO Chris Pearson in the release.
The plant significantly increases the cooperative’s storage capacity and expands product availability to producers along the Interstate 90 corridor. It also includes access to a 110-car unit loop track, plus high-speed, automated fertilizer load-out and storage capabilities.
The plant was previously owned by Gavilon Fertilizer, which will continue to own and operate the adjacent grain elevator.
— Staff reports
Agtegra chosen as name of merged co-op
Agtegra has been chosen as the name of the cooperative that will be formed when North Central Farmers Elevator and Wheat Growers merge Feb. 1.
The name was approved Jan. 3 by the members of the North Central and Wheat Growers boards of directors, according to a news release from Wheat Growers.
Members of both agriculture co-ops approved the merger last year after North Central members rejected it in 2015.
— Staff reports
AP Fact Check: Trump inflates the size of his tax cuts
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — President Donald Trump is misstating the size of his tax cuts.
Trump told a convention of the American Farm Bureau Federation in Tennessee on Monday the package he signed into law last month cuts taxes by $5.5 trillion, “with most of those benefits going to working families, small businesses and … the family farmer.”
An AP Fact Check finds that’s not even close.
The estimated value of the tax cuts over the next 10 years is actually $1.5 trillion for families and businesses — not $5.5 trillion.
That’s because of cuts in deductions and the use of other steps to generate offsetting tax revenue. Trump left out that half of the equation.