ESTEVAN — The Southern Plains Co-op invited the community to join them in celebrating the grand opening of their new Agro Centre on Oct. 20.
Guests were treated to barbeque lunch, cake and cookies, and also could tour the new facilities to learn about the centre's new offerings.
The agro centre moved to 101 Dukart Drive, along the Estevan Bypass on Highway 39, at the end of summer. They transferred everything they had at the Kensington location and expanded their offer to be able to supply chemicals and fertilizer. Besides, they have a big property, which allows having a lot of items that can be stored outdoors on hand.
"We offer a full package, agronomic services, right from soil testing to crop scouting. Fertilizer blending, recommendations. We have people who've worked in the livestock who have a good idea of what livestock needs are as far as feed. We have an excellent petroleum department as far as their oil and diesel and everything else they may need. We are trying to be everything for everybody," said Jason MacDonald, Southern Plains Co-op crop input manager,
He added that while moving a store was a bigger job than he could have imagined, now that they officially opened at the new location everything is working well.
"It's going good. We got a good location, we got good facilities. So we're moving forward and getting bigger," MacDonald said.
The centre at Kensington had oil, feed and an agro store. Jennifer Kolb, senior agro clerk, said in the new agro store they have everything they used to have on Kensington and will be expanding their offering upon seasonal needs. The new, bigger facility also allows for better storage for oil and other supplies.
But the two biggest changes were the addition of the chemical warehouse and the fertilizer blending facility.
The chemical warehouse allows the centre to properly store high volumes of bagged seed, farm chemicals, insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, etc.
"This has to be a special shed so that it's safe. So we've added this piece here," MacDonald explained.
The fertilizer blending facility is brand new and is top notch, MacDonald said, which is beneficial for the farming community.
"Our fertilizer blending facility is our crown jewel; it's state of the art," MacDonald said.
"Our system here will do 300 metric tonnes an hour. We can impregnate the fertilizer with different nitrogen stabilizers. We can add micronutrients … directly into the fertilizer so that when producers are seeding, all their micronutrients are getting all across wherever they're putting fertilizer and it's a nice uniform distribution of everything. And it's fast. It's lightning fast."
The Co-op Agro Centre has two agronomists, MacDonald and Megan Moore, on staff to provide consumers with information, consultation and advice, based on their unique needs.
"We've been trained to know what to look for. We have a wide expanse of knowledge … not necessarily from books or from our training, but working with producers all over Western Canada to see what works, what doesn't work, how different practices can be added to help them gain better yields that they're after," MacDonald noted.
"And we always have to take economic and agronomic and try to blend those together so that we're doing the right thing that's right for our producer. We don't want to waste their money. At the same time, we want to make sure that they're getting the best benefit that they can achieve."
"But the number one limiting factor to all farming operations is water. Most guys will tell you that if it doesn't rain, nothing will grow. And that's true. You can add all the fertilizer you want, use the best seed, do everything right possibly in your power. And at the end of the day, Mother Nature still controls the weather. Not much we can do about that. But I find that farmers don't plan for disaster. They plan for success. And over the last 28 years that I've been doing this, they are definitely getting more successful and they're definitely pretty good at their jobs," MacDonald concluded.
While some things are still not in anyone's power, the move and expansion allowed the Co-op Agro Centre to be able to cover most of the needs of local farming and ranching communities.
"We'd like to be everything to everybody. And as much as we spend money on stuff that's grain-oriented, the ranching community is huge for us in this area," MacDonald said. "We sell lots of posts. A lot of the ranchers are still using our agronomic services, still using our products, even if they're not producing grain … Livestock producers, well, all farmers are the salt of the earth, and we're trying to serve both of those industries so that our feet are well entrenched in the agriculture industry in southeastern Saskatchewan," MacDonald said.
