Brandt – Giving Back to the Community, 14 Years of NASCAR, & Input Sales in More Than 80 Countries
For more than 70 years, BRANDT has been helping growers become more profitable. The company’s straightforward approach to doing business worked in 1953 when Glen Brandt and his sister, Evelyn Brandt Thomas, founded the company, and it works today. Their belief in innovation, honesty and first-class customer service was a help to local farmers, many of whom were their neighbors, in their hometown of Pleasant Plains, Illinois. That same philosophy, first learned on the family farm, continues today in a thriving business that helps bring success to farmers around the world. For BRANDT, it all starts with family — first it was a brother and sister — and it’s still that way today as Glen’s son, Rick, leads the company and its 400+ employees in bringing the latest advances in technology and proprietary products to markets across the globe.
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Asmus Farm Supply – 300,000 Square Foot of Operations, +1 Million Gallons of Bulk Pesticide Storage Capacity, & Servicing Over 1.2 Million Acres
Asmus Farm Supply was founded in 1960, where Harvey Asmus introduced a new way to farm to the area. It certainly wasn’t adopted by the masses, but over time he persisted and Asmus Farm Supply grew into what it is today.
Today, they are still a family owned and operated business. Husband and Wife, Harlan and Amy Asmus, along with their family continue to grow the business without losing their touch of family in leading a business. Currently, Asmus Farm Supply has five company owned locations including three in Iowa and two in Minnesota with the main office in Rake, Iowa. They also have 14 commissioned sales locations throughout Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska.
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BALANCE4WARD – Real Secrets to Success in the Cattle Feeding Industry
Get more out of your cattle business! Stop making and losing the same $100 on a calf.
BALANCE4WARD is cattle feeding management company passionate about building a better beef supply chain, which creates opportunities for mid-market cattlemen who want to get more out of their business.
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Bid On Beef – How To Sell Your Beef at Auction for $250 Per Pound
Bid on Beef is the vision of Chris Earl, owner of Reverse Rocking R Ranch and CK6 Consulting in New Mexico. Working with beef cattle producers across the nation, CK6 Consulting has conducted $150 million in sales through price discovery in auctions, and now the team is taking that same concept directly to the consumer.
Bid On Beef is an online auction platform connecting American cattle ranchers to American families through premium American raised angus and wagyu beef. You choose the ranch. You choose the cut. And you choose the price with your bids.
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Howlett Farms – Started with 13 Acres, Now Handling +20 Bushels of Grain Annually
Howlett Farms is a 5th generation family owned agricultural business that started in 1880 with two dairy cows and 13 acres of land.
Today the Howlett family farms over 3,700 acres and have over 50 employees. Besides farming… Howlett Farms also operates seven grain handling facilities that handle over +20 million bushels of grain annually, manage two feed manufacturing locations, run a fleet of over 25 trucks, and oversee a crop insurance business.
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Quality Ag Services – Providing Quality Ag Service in Ag Retail Since 1995
Quality Ag Service was founded in 1995 to provide the best service available for custom applied chemical and fertilizer needs of growers in South Central Iowa. The business expanded into a full service retail operation with locations opening in Albia, IA in 1999; Melrose, IA in 2000; and Agency, IA in 2014.
Quality Ag Service offers everything from crop protection products, dry & liquid fertilizer, custom seed treatment, custom application, soil testing, grid mapping, and seed from companies such as Merschman Seeds, Brevant Seeds, Champion Seed, and Middlekoop’s Seed. In addition, to retail services Quality Ag Service has multiple feed store locations, a wholesale chemical distribution division, crop insurance, and grain marketing services.
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Foote Cattle Company – 5 Industry-Leading Feedyards, 285,000+ Head of Cattle & 30,000+ Farming Acres
Foote Cattle Company started in 1985 by Bob Foote, who has owned and operated the ever-growing operation till he recently passed away in 2022. Today, Scott, Brad, and Greg Foote continue their father’s legacy of raising quality beef.
Foote Cattle Company includes multiple feedyards, farms, a bank, and a wide range of other investments. Feedyards include Hoxie Feedyard, Imperial Beef, Lane County Feeders, Decatur Family Beef, and Pioneer Feedyard, which are all located in Western Kansas and Southern Nebraska. Additionally, the farm offers ranch calves, high moisture corn, hay and different types of feedstuffs like alfalfa hay, corn stalks, forage sorghum, straw, grass hay, corn silage, and milo silage, along with manure supply and distribution.
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Merschman Seeds – Midwest Family-Owned Independent Seed Company Since 1954
Merschman Seeds was founded in 1954 by Bill and Bernice Merschman and is an independent, family-owned seed company from West Point, Iowa selling soybeans, wheat, and alfalfa, as well as distributing Stine® Corn throughout Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, Indiana, Minnesota, and Kentucky.
Generations of farmers have trusted Merschman Seeds because they put the farmer’s yield and profitability at the forefont of their minds. This style of mindset and management drives positive change within the company. They do not answer to investors on Wall Street, allowing them the opportunity to do what is best for the farmer and not worry about how that affects their stock price.
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Silent Shade Planting Company – From Canada to the Mississippi Delta 2023 Top Producer of the Year
Silent Shade Planting Company began in 1979 when Willard and Laura Lee Jack migrated from Ontario, Canada, to Silent Shade Plantation in the northeast corner of Humphreys County in Mississippi. They started farming a diversified row crop operation of approximately 1,000 acres with one additional employee just outside of Tchula, Mississippi. By 2000, the farm had grown to approximately 3,000 acres of cotton, corn, soybeans, and rice, and in 2001, Willard Jack received the award for the Lancaster/Sunbelt Expo Southeastern Farmer of the Year.
In the next ten years, two of Willard and Laura Lee’s children, Stacie and Jeremy, returned to work on the farm. Jeremy Jack began to run the day-to-day farm operations. Stacie Koger managed the farm financials. With their return, the family decided to further expand the business by increasing their farming acreage. In 2013, Jeremy and Stacie were recognized as one of Progressive Farmer’s Best Young Farmer and Ranchers, and Jeremy Jack was recognized as Bayer Crop Science’s Young Sustainable Farmer.
What began as a husband and wife operation has flourished into a family business employing five family members: Willard Jack, Laura Lee Jack, Jeremy Jack, Stacie Koger, and Elizabeth Jack. Silent Shade also employs approximately 20 local residents from the Mississippi delta. They are very proud of their history and look forward to opportunities that may come their way in the future.
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Meristem – 0 to 500 Dealers and 100+ Million in Less Than 5 Years
Meristem Crop Performance is one of the fastest-growing crop input companies in America right now. Meristem sources, formulates, licenses, and delivers high-quality crop inputs to farmers at the highest possible value offering substantial savings. Overall, Meristem can save farmers up to 30% compared to traditional market prices.
Meristem is focused on building a highly efficient channel to bring crop inputs to market so farmers and independent agribusinesses can make the most of their infrastructure and intellectual property investments and better compete in the global agricultural market. Meristem’s team of experienced ag professionals also works to create real productivity gains for farm businesses through novel biological delivery systems and accelerated access to farm-ready innovations for the benefit of the American Farmer.
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