Jan. 31—WARREN, Minn. — A grain facility project in Warren that's been a topic of conversation for years is finally moving ahead, said a member of farmer-owned cooperative and agribusiness CHS Inc.
It's an exciting investment in a great community, said Senior Director of Operations Ryan Anderson, who works in Warren.
"The Warren facility has a great following of growers, of patrons," he said. "The community highly supports the cooperative system."
The project will be an expansion and upgrade of the Warren grain receiving and shuttle loading facility, located on two major rail lines connecting growers to domestic markets, as well as Pacific Northwest and Mexico export markets, and has the capacity to store about two million bushels. The expansion will double storage, Anderson said. The main facility was built in 1979 or 1980, with its other steel bins built in the 1990s and 2000s.
The upgrade will add two 737,000-bushel steel bins, along with three smaller bins totaling 460,000 bushels, a press release announcing the project said, as well as a high-speed receiving pit. The expected wet grain and receiving capacity will increase from 10,000 bushels per hour to 50,000, and the drying capacity is expected to increase from 35,000 bushels a day to 200,000. The facility takes corn, soybeans and spring wheat.
"CHS is focused on strategically investing in key facilities and areas within our cooperative to meet our owners' future needs while strengthening the grain supply chain," said Rick Dusek, CHS executive vice president, in the release. "We see the agricultural areas in central and northern Minnesota as a vital growing region in the United States. Investing here ties into other infrastructure investments we've made recently to build out a strategic network of grain shuttle loaders that connects those growers and their grain to the global market. With more direct access to grain in the region, CHS can deliver more of our owners' grain to export markets and end users, creating more value for American farmers."
An expansion and upgrade of the Warren facility has been on the table before, Anderson said. The two million bushels of storage capacity and singular receiving pit isn't enough anymore, and the customer experience needs to improve, he said. However, it has taken some time for the project to come to fruition due to other necessities and what the company can complete each year.
"We do long-term planning sessions every year," Anderson said. "The company has a lot of projects that get looked at, and there's only so much capital to go around. You want projects like this to happen right away, and it's just a waiting list of projects and it ends up being a necessity thing, and things come up. But, it's definitely been on the radar for a number of years, and we're just super thankful that it finally got approved and that we're able to do this in a great community."