In the past I have used an on-line newsletter to communicate my thoughts with patrons. I am now going to be using this blog platform to share updates regarding CFS and the industry, as well as give my views on how certain events and/or news items may affect your farming operation or this cooperative.

With that said, I would like to welcome you to our new website and your new cooperative – Central Farm Service! This is truly an exciting time for us as we bring two very strong and well-respected cooperatives together. There will be some changes for patrons on both sides. However, I assure you that we will do our best to communicate those changes and minimize any inconvenience to you.

To try to bring everyone up to speed on the merger, we have worked diligently to get ready for our first day of business as CFS. As you have probably heard me say before, nothing just falls into place easily; it is more a matter of kicking and shoving until you get it where it needs to be. All joking aside, things have gone really well, but it has taken a lot of hard work from a lot of good employees to make the transition. Our various divisions have realigned their staff, as well as policies and procedures to fit our new business structure and are ready to come to you as a unified company. In almost every case you will be working with the same people you worked with prior to the merger.

As I said above, we have tried to keep changes to customers at a minimum. Probably the biggest change for customers is having a new customer number. There was just no way for us to avoid assigning new customer numbers with all the overlap of numbers between the two companies. Another change we had to make was with our fuel cards. If you are a cardtrol customer you should have received your new card(s) in the mail. Your old cards will no longer work at any of our cardtrol locations, so please destroy them and start using the new cards that were provided to you.

There were several major steps in putting our two companies together, including securing all of our government licenses and permits, branding our rolling stock, bringing our accounting systems together, and software integration to mention a few. None of these tasks were easy, but again, a lot of employees put in a lot of time and got it done.

Things to know . . .

• As I expected, fertilizer prices are starting to increase due to logistical issues as we approach spring.
• Corn and soybean prices are weak.
• Energy prices are fairly flat with gasoline having gone up a little bit due to an increase in crude oil.
• The US economy remains fragile, although some stocks and earning reports are coming in fairly good.
• If you haven’t already made arrangements for financing this spring, make sure to talk to a CFS salesperson about AgQuest. With banks and retailers getting tighter with credit, AgQuest may be a good option to explore.