Ag Partners booming this spring

Mike Conover is the location leader of Sutherland and Calumet for Ag Partners. Ag Partners recently took over Midwest Farmers Coop to help provide a stronger cooperative for the customers of northwest Iowa. Photo by Sarah Gengler [Click to enlarge]

Tractors pulling plows, sprayers and planters cover the fields and roads these days as the weather holds warm enough for farmers to plant crops keeping Ag Partners of Sutherland and Calumet hopping.

"Now is a really busy time," said Mike Conover, location leader for Calumet and Sutherland. "We are out spreading fertilizer and delivering seed corn right now."

The busy schedule gives the company a chance to use a new sprayer purchased this March for the Calumet branch. The J.D. 4930 is being used to spread liquid fertilizer and herbicide on area farmland. Having that farmland as business is vital to being able to purchase new equipment or even to survive as a small company.

Ag Partners have offices in Calumet and provides services all over Northwest Iowa. Photo by Mike Leckband [Click to enlarge]

This past December Midwest Farmers Coop merged with Ag Partners giving it its new name but also helping it to thrive and become a better agency for local farmers.

"It forms a stronger cooperative for the customers," he said. "We are dependent on our local farmers for our future success. Without them we wouldn't exist."

Ag Partners employs 19 full time employees and seven part time employees between three different locations in the two towns. Sutherland Agronomy, Calumet Agronomy and Sutherland Uptown which is strictly a grain facility provide complete fertilizer service, various marketing options and a marketing service representative who is on site two days a week in Calumet.

Sutherland facilities sell Northrup King Seed, Croplan Seed and Dekalb/Asgrow Seed, along with bulk bean seed to farmers. The Calumet branch sells Pioneer Seed and both locations provide various treatments for soybeans.

"We offer hometown quality and personalized service," Conover said.

Other services offered between the three locations are that Ag Partner is a master service dealer for Ag Leader which deals in yield monitors, planter mapping and auto steer. They also do precision fertilizer, manure management plans and Insite Crop Data Management (CDM).

According to Conover, CDM is a detailed crop data analysis agronomy program for corn and soybean farmers and is designed to identify and correct the profit limiting variables in each field. The purpose of InSite CDM is to help growers consistently make more profitable management decisions through the use of their agronomic data.

Ag Partners also have locations in Sioux Center, Sheldon, Granville, Royal, Hartley, Emmetsburg, Albert City, Alta, Fonda and Ellsworth, Iowa.