Landus Cooperative recently announced what it will do with two of its sites in Paton and Churdan.

Landus met with farmer members early June to discuss closing the two northern Greene County sites by July 1st. Perry Parker was one of the attendees of the first meeting and he shares his thoughts about Landus.

“I’m a Landus member yet, but I haven’t done business with them in over a year just because of the way things have gone with their facilities, their staffing and everything. I’ve gone elsewhere to do my business.”

CEO Matt Carstens tells Raccoon Valley Radio the sites were old, unsafe and deemed uninsurable by the insurance carrier. However, Carstens says following the June meeting, they were able to agree on making adjustments to the Paton site and were able to keep that facility fully operational, but will reassess on an annual basis based on a report from a third party engineering firm. 

The Churdan site has a bit of a different outcome. The concrete portion of the Churdan site has been closed since July 1st, but after a second meeting in July, Carstens says they will keep the steel grain bin open at this time and will reassess at the end of the year based on community support to keep it as a stand alone structure. Churdan City Council Member Antony Minnehan talks about the importance of keeping the Landus Churdan location open.

“Well it’s very important for us. We’re a town, like all the rest of the small towns in the county has struggled and have lost a lot of businesses. So they’re one of our main tax base, taxpayers here in town, so it’s very important to us. Hopefully, the farmers, the local farmers around here will support Landus’ decision to stay and hopefully we can hang onto them for a few more years.”    

Carstens explains that not only is employee safety his top priority and operating safe facilities, but he gives another reason why some sites are having to close.

“Having a location every 7-10 miles, whether it’s Landus or any cooperative, is not going to be the future with the ethanol plants that are now out there, feed mills, on down the line. There’s a lot of changes taking shape for that landscape. Landus has got to continue to do what we need to do to operate safely and meet the demands of the future and the financial balance between what’s good for the farmers, and what they need and the co-op that they own here.”      

Landus Cooperative came into existence following the merger of West Central Cooperative and Farmers Cooperative in 2016.