Stewardship, safety highlighted at CHS Grainland annual meeting

    On top of the usual reports, one thing truly stood out about CHS Grainland at its March 12 annual meeting: community stewardship.
    From the top down, the value of being responsible stewards of the community was apparent. Region 8 CHS board member David Beckman shared it as one of corporate’s central values and spoke to members about the CHS Foundation and CHS Community Giving. He also emphasized how pleased he is to see stewardship so evident on a local level as well.
    CHS Grainland general manager Evan Fust reported that last year the company donated $106,603 and 1,200 volunteer hours in its communities. Jason Hovey, general manager of the Agronomy Internal Partnership, reported that AIP donated $48,724 and has had several employees help out with career fairs around northeastern Colorado.
    Any cooperative knows that it’s the people who make it, and CHS is showing a commitment to give back to those people and the communities.
    In the spirit of caring for community members, the topic of safety was also central to the annual meeting. A short film, “Silo: Edge of the Real World,” was shown, and safety director Todd Workman gave a safety update, which included a CHS-wide “zero incidents goal.”
    Of course members attended last week’s annual meeting at Phillips County Event Center to hear about the business side of the cooperative, too — not just for the meal served by Outback Cookin’ & Catering or the door prizes given at the end of the meeting.
    As chairman of the board of directors, Chad Osborne summarized in his letter to members, “It was a challenging year for the ag economy with unstable markets and uncertainty in the global environment, but despite all of that, our team worked together to keep CHS Grainland on stable ground.”
    After Osborne’s report, Fust, Hovey and Beckman each went on to give detailed reports of their respective areas.

Fust gives management report
    Despite challenges, Fust said, “I would call it another financially strong year, given the ag economy.” Sales were down, but that just emphasizes the need for margin discipline. CHS Grainland, once again, reduced expenses last year. Though he obviously can’t control the markets or the weather, Fust pointed out that expenses can be controlled, and that’s something he intends to continue to prioritize.
    Each year seems to reiterate what an important asset the shuttle loader is to CHS Grainland. Though it wasn’t initially intended to load corn, the shuttle loader saw 15 trains of corn loaded in 2018, even surpassing the 12 trains of wheat. As of the end of FY2018, a total of 79 trains had been loaded since the shuttle loader’s inception. It allows local farmers to access markets that otherwise would be unavailable.
    One of CHS Grainland’s big accomplishments in 2018 was the completion of a grain bunker in Brule, Nebraska. It should have about a 1.1 million bushel capacity. With many aging facilities throughout the company, maintenance and repairs were, as usual, a big part of the year. CHS Grainland also upgraded its point of sale systems, offering improved credit card security, and is working on a new customer portal.
    A couple of one-time sales really helped last year’s bottom line. Total margins were down slightly from 2017 at $17,348,019. Total expenses were $14,974,937, which resulted in local savings of $2,373,083. Patronage, due in part to the aforementioned sales, totaled $855,861, putting total net savings at $3,228,944. That’s up from $2,624,128 in 2017.
    Though not reflected in FY2018, the loss of millions of bushels of corn in 2018 hail storms is something the company will feel in the 2019 financials.

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