Garden City Coop Diversifies with New Holcomb, KS Terminal

Dec 12, 2024 at 11:09 PM CST
Drought, less irrigation, and more forage are cutting into corn production, he says. Add in two new gluten plants in central Kansas and more wheat is going north than to traditional mill markets. “We’ve generally always been a deficit corn area,” explains Boyd, “but there have been more pricing opportunities to truck and rail corn in from outside the area. With all the feedlots, dairy, and swine production in our area, there is a strong feed grain demand and more of that demand is being sourced outside our local area. These changes, says Boyd, meant the 3,400-member cooperative based in Garden City, KS, needed to diversify to gain more control of its destiny by controlling logistics. To gain that control, GCC started discussing the idea for a shuttle-loading facility with a loop track in 2021. The coop bought a 160-acre site in nearby Holcomb, KS, and began a plan to build a shuttle-loading facility that was flexible, fast, and highly automated.

Dec 12, 2024 at 11:09 PM CST

Drought, less irrigation, and more forage are cutting into corn production, he says. Add in two new gluten plants in central Kansas and more wheat is going north than to traditional mill markets.

“We’ve generally always been a deficit corn area,” explains Boyd, “but there have been more pricing opportunities to truck and rail corn in from outside the area. With all the feedlots, dairy, and swine production in our area, there is a strong feed grain demand and more of that demand is being sourced outside our local area.

These changes, says Boyd, meant the 3,400-member cooperative based in Garden City, KS, needed to diversify to gain more control of its destiny by controlling logistics.

To gain that control, GCC started discussing the idea for a shuttle-loading facility with a loop track in 2021.

The coop bought a 160-acre site in nearby Holcomb, KS, and began a plan to build a shuttle-loading facility that was flexible, fast, and highly automated.