All projects have been completed and are helping usher in the cooperative’s 125th year.

Company officials added storage capacities and grain handling equipment to several locations, constructed a dry fertilizer plant in Hawarden, put up a brand new elevator location near George in Lyon County, and their most recent addition is a drone division for aerial application.

Hawarden Grain

CFE officials said their soybean unloading speeds at the Hawarden facility could be improved.

-Submitted photo
CFE officials wanted to improve the dumping capacity and speed at their Hartley location, along with their drying capacity. They replaced the previous 3,500-bushel-per-hour dryer with a new 7,000-bushel-per-hour dryer.

The grain handling operation used to feature three 60,000-bushel farm bins for a total of 180,000 bushels of vertical ring storage, which company officials said were “tired.” They also used to store roughly 450,000 bushels of soybeans on the ground.

“We put up a 750,000-bushel soybean bin to increase storage and keep it all inside (instead of storing soybeans on the ground). We can put air on it and leg it there and reclaim it,” said Kyle Waletich, regional operations manager on the company’s east side.

Information from the cooperative said this improvement brought in 15,000 bushels-per-hour fill conveyors and 10,000 bushels-per-hour reclaim capacity. It was built with the ability to add another receiving pit and leg in the future.

Hawarden Dry

Fertilizer Plant

-Submitted photo
In Hawarden, Cooperative Farmer's Elevator put up a 750,000-bushel soybean bin to increase storage. Two outdated dry fertilizer plants were also replaced with a new 12,500-ton Stueve-built dry fertilizer plant.

Two outdated dry fertilizer plants were replaced this past year with a new 12,500-ton Stueve-built dry fertilizer plant.

Construction began in the fall of 2022 with cement work, and building construction started last March. The facility went online in the early summer of 2023.

Company officials say it will help cut labor costs, among other things.

“There will be a lot fewer small batches mixed at this plant,” said Waletich. “Previously we were mixing batches in three small mixers, so now we have one large vertical mixer screw, and it’s all automated so we don’t have to have four payloaders out delivering ingredients — there’s only one payloader feeding the plant.”

Waletich said batches can be mixed in a more timely manner now, and trucks can be loaded in six minutes, as compared to 45 minutes previously. This helps trucks get on the road sooner.

-Submitted photo
CFE added two 1.3 million-bushel corn bins, for a total of 2.6 million bushels of storage, at their Ocheyedan location.

“Part of the consolidation of fertilizer plants is we have less out there, so the trucks are out on the road longer, so they have to get them through the plant faster,” said Waletich.

Hawarden’s new dry fertilizer plant will be able to store 12,200 tons — with five macro bins (bulk storage) and four micro bins (smaller bunker storage) for various fertilizer ingredients. It features 250 tons-per-hour of receiving capacity, 250 tons-per-hour reclaim, and a 250-ton tower with four-ton Heim quick mix impregnation.

“They are still adding some things at the Hawarden facility for some bulk liquid storage, and some add-ons that we continue to work on for the dry fertilizer plant there,” said Waletich.

Company information says current dry business at CFE’s Hawarden plants represent 27 percent of the dry fertilizer business within the company.

Company officials expect the new dry fertilizer plant will help draw in customers in their southwestern region, and improve delivery efficiency.

Ocheyedan Grain

CFE added two 1.3 million-bushel corn bins, for a total of 2.6 million bushels of storage at their Ocheyedan location.

This resulted in 45,000 bushel-per-hour fill conveyors and 10,000 bushel-per-hour reclaim capacity.

They also added a dry corn leg from the existing dryer, which Waletich said gives them the ability to receive wet grain at full capacity, while running the dryer.

“Often while you’re running the dryer you lose capacity … because you’re using one of those legs to feed the dryer,” he said. “By adding a dry leg we maintain our receiving speed in a year when we’re receiving wet corn.”

These improvements were added to improve their ability to receive and store grain at the feed mill. Previously, they had piled 1.8 million bushels and sold grain in the fall.

CFE has taken the west elevator (approximately 600,000 bushels) out of service. The new dry leg is now being used exclusively for receiving grain and increasing dump speed by another 12,000 bushels per hour. Now up to speed, it can move 58,000 bushels per hour.

“This project meant we didn’t have to put a ground pile up this past year, which was nice,” said Waletich, adding that they typically receive around 6 million bushels of corn each fall.

These improvements allowed for more capacity for the feed mill, which has the ability to grind up to 70,000 bushels per day, or 15 to 18 million bushels per year. Typically they grind up 3,000 finished tons of feed per day at maximum capacity.

Hartley Grain

CFE officials wanted to improve the dumping capacity and speed at their Hartley location, along with their drying capacity. They replaced the previous 3,500-bushel-per-hour dryer with a new 7,000-bushel-per-hour dryer.

They also added new wet and dry legs to allow the current leg to be used for receiving grain while the dryer is in use, so they don’t lose receiving capacity.

New George Location

“We put up a brand new site two miles south of George called the ‘Greenfield Site,’ with two 750,000-bushel bins, a 1 million-bushel bunker pile on concrete, a 340,000-bushel wet bin to feed the dryer, and a 7,000 bushel-per-hour dryer, along with a new shop and office,” said Waletich.

He said the location was a corn field before this site was placed there two years ago.

Waletich said this new location will help CFE be more efficient in serving producers in that area in receiving grain faster and more efficiently, and getting fertilizer to the fields more efficiently.

Drone Division

New to CFE this year is the drone application division. CFE purchased seven drones from a company with which they were affiliated in applicating last year.

“This year we purchased that company and have gone out on our own to do it ourselves,” said Waletich. “We were looking for more opportunity to serve our customers and the market is pushing that way as far as people being interested in that.”

He said there are times in the spring when fields are too wet and are difficult to access, and drones would give them a way to still get field spray applications done.

The drone application via CFE will be new this spring (2024).

“They’re pretty large — their span is about 10 feet, and they hold 18 gallons each. They’ll work in tandem, so there will be two drones per field. When one is refilling and changing batteries, the other one will be out,” said Waletich.

He said the drones could spray about 60 acres per hour.

“We were looking to relieve the pressure on some of the big wheeled machines as well as well as increasing the efficiency of them — they’re always rolling, too, so both sides will help each other out,” said Waletich.

The drones, called, “CFE Air,” can aide in crop health imagery (emergence, stand counts, disease pressure and pest detection); thermal imagery (tile line inspection, bin and animal monitoring); and spraying (post-emergent herbicides, fungicide, insecticide and pastures).

“We’re pretty excited about this new division,” said Waletich.