AGRIS Co-operative completes $2.5 million overhaul to its fertilizer facilities


THAMESVILLE, Ontario, April 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AGRIS Co-operative farmer-owners celebrate the official opening of their new fertilizer blending system in Thamesville today; a capital investment of more than $2.5 million.

The new facilities in Thamesville will increase the previous blending capability to 300 MT per hour, four times faster than before. This new investment completes an overall strategy to increase capacity throughout the co-operative’s full trade territory. Over the past several years, AGRIS has brought its overall blending capacity to nearly 1,000 MT per hour across its nine blending sites.  Each of these sites has the ability to add nitrogen stabilizer and micronutrient products in a liquid form to dry blends. This capability allows precise, cost-effective and convenient plant nutrition in a high-quality fertilizer blend.

“This is about investing in our future by improving our capacity to meet our farmer-owners ever increasing requirement for speed, accuracy and flexibility,” said John Nooyen, AGRIS Co-operative board president. “We have fundamentally changed our fertilizer blending capacity across our AGRIS locations and are now better able to meet the present and future needs of our owners and customers,” added Nooyen.

“It is clear that we needed to be able to service more acres per day to ensure our owners and customers could plant their crop during a challenging spring. As farmers continue to adapt their 4R Nutrient Stewardship practices, the need for flexibility and timeliness are amplified,” says Jim Campbell, AGRIS Co-operative general manager. “We are now using the latest technology to seamlessly transfer information from the field to the plant and back to the field using our Advanced Information Systems. We are working hard to leverage new technology to maximize yields and profitability at the farm-gate across our whole co-operative system,” added Campbell.

AGRIS Co-operative Ltd. is a 100 per-cent farmer-owned grain marketing and farm-input supply company that serves more than 1,000 farmer owners in 14 locations in Essex, Kent, Elgin, Middlesex and Lambton Counties. It is a leader in precision farming technology, seed, agronomy and petroleum services. The co-operative is a partner of Great Lakes Grain, a grain merchandising company. AGRIS Co-operative is a member-owner of GROWMARK, Inc. and markets products and services under the FS banner. 

Visit http://www.agris.coop and www.fssystem.com for more information

Contact:   

Jim Campbell                
General Manager            
AGRIS Co-operative Ltd.  
519-380-2371                
Email: jimc@agris.coop   

Jeff Meredith
Chatham-Kent Area Manager
AGRIS Co-operative Ltd.
519-692-3957
Email: jeffm@agris.coop