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Proposed co-op merger would create major player

If the proposed merger of two of Iowa’s largest farmer co-ops is approved, the resulting cooperative would rank among the 20 largest agricultural co-ops in the country.

The proposed merger would bring together Farmers Cooperative Company (FC), which is based in Ames, and West-Central Cooperative, based in Ralston.

“Combined, based on most recent fiscal year-ends, we’ll be about a billion-and-a-half (dollars) in size,” says Milan Kucerak, president and CEO of West Central Co-op. “We’ll have something like 74 locations and little over 700 employees—so we’d be sizeable.”

Kucerak says the combined cooperative will be better positioned to weather market volatility, directly access global markets and offer more services to member-owners.

Unlike some cooperative mergers in the past, Kucerak says, both FC and West Central are financially strong.

“Typically, in a merger, the first question everybody has is ‘who is going broke?’,” he says. “In this case, neither one of us. It’s not a case where we have to look for a partner. It’s visionary.”

Members of each co-op will vote on the merger. Ballots will be mailed around November 20th, followed by a series of informational meetings in late November and early December.  The votes will be tallied at a special meeting slated for December 18th.

AUDIO: Milan Kucerak