by Owen Weise, with additional reporting by G. Moritz, editor
Frontline Crop Solutions is not a new company to Garretson, having been located at the corner of 3rd St. and Main Ave. for the past four years. This year the Company had a combination large warehouse and office building erected at the corner of 5th St. and Highway 11. It is a very impressive building that will serve the company and its farmer customers with their needs for many years.
Frontline Crop Solutions is an agricultural retail business that sells farm chemicals, seed and fertilizer. The company has its headquarters in Marshall, Minn.
The company President is Scott Bly, who makes frequent visits to the installation in Garretson. Personnel who work at the Garretson location are General Manager Chad Magnuson, Curt Stoltenberg Certified Crop Advisor, Art Jones, Commodity Marketing and Crop Insurance Agent, other salesmen are Tate Bunkers and Tyler Sorenson and they also employ Kristen Martens as an intern at the present time.
“We are the local distributer of LG Seeds and Mustang Seeds, we have a complete line of generic crop chemistry which we promote to get our growers the best value product for the dollar spent,” said Curt Stoltenberg. “We handle AgXplore’s micronutrient line which we feel gives the farmer the best ROI in the industry.
“Construction of the new facility began last August, and was completed just before the pandemic hit,” said Stoltenberg. “In fact, we had some events planned that we had to backpaddle on because of it. It’s certainly changed how we operate. It locked us into our offices for a few months, and we did a lot more business by phone. Instead of crop tours and larger events, we’ve had to keep it to small groups of farmers who are friends or neighbors, small groups who are comfortable with each other. We’ve always done one to one service, but our focus has been on that more than anything else. Whatever people are comfortable with.”
Thankfully, shortages of supplies or transportation difficulties haven’t affected their regular business.
The building itself is spacious, with offices for all personnel, conference rooms and an upstairs education/events room that has a splendid view of Garretson in the background.
“I kind of wish my office was up here honestly,” said Stoltenberg. “It’s very nice.”
He said he also hopes for better times coming when they can utilize the new space to host events for their customers.
Storage space at the new facility is huge, with 15,200 square feet heated storage, and 12,800 square feet of cold storage, with easily accessible and large doors on each side.
Right now, Stoltenberg says his biggest worry for local farmers is fire.
“With as dry as it’s been, it’s a danger,” he said. “It’s hard to estimate what yields are going to look like this year. Some fields are going to be decent, I think. It depends on the health of the plant and the location, but it’s been very dry. The few showers we’ve had lately haven’t been nearly enough. My worry is that a small fire might turn into something very big, very quickly.”
Stoltenberg hopes that someday soon they’ll be able to host an open house and show off this new facility to the community at large. Meantime they plan to do their annual crop tours in smaller groups and just keep on carrying on with business as usual as best they can, helping local farms and agribusiness make things grow.
A quick profile on Art Jones, Commodity Marketing and Crop Insurance Agent
Art Jones has his own and important role in providing assistance to farmers in the marketing of their crops.
It is always said that farmers do a great job of producing crops but they don’t do a good job of marketing. Art assists and guides the farmers in the marketing of their crops.
Crop prices are established at the Chicago Board of Trade. The Board prices are established by considering many factors, some of which are weather, government policies, and export plans, and projected and actual crop yields. Trades made at the Board of Trade involve brokers who deal in very large quantities. The farmer producers have no direct access to the Board of Trade and must at some point work through a Commodity Marketing Agent such as Jones.
Farmers have several options when selling their crops. They can sell them direct from the combine to the elevator for whatever the elevator is paying on a given day, or he can contract to the elevator for sale at a later date. Most common is for the farmer to store his crop in his own bin and wait for a favorable day and price to deliver it to the elevator.
In any of these options, Jones can have a role to play. He has an electronic board in his office that shows the commodity price minute by minute and for future prices. The farmer can sell his crop on a certain day based on advice and guidance from Jones.
The farmer can buy future protection for any portion of his crop at a price which is profitable for him. I would assume that Jones would provide the information and guidance and the farmer would make the decision.
All the forgoing discussion is based on the assumption that the farmer has the crop in his bin or in the field. If you are someone who wants to trade commodities without owning any of them, you are a speculator. Advice to a speculator would to be sure that your banker knows what you are doing. Margin calls when you get on the wrong side of a contract can be very expensive.
