OUR HISTORY


Frenchman Valley Farmers Cooperative, Inc. has a long history of serving area agricultural producers, providing crop and livestock inputs and services, grain marketing and storage, finance services, energy, and transportation. The cooperative serves a large area in southwest Nebraska, northwest Kansas, northeast Colorado, and eastern Wyoming.

FVC was started as a grain coop in 1912, under the name Farmers Union Equity. In 1915, the name was changed to Imperial Equity Exchange. The oil company was first organized in 1927 as Imperial Coop Oil.

In 1968, Imperial Equity and Imperial Coop Oil merged and became known as Frenchman Valley Farmers Cooperative, Inc. Since that time additional acquisitions have been made which have greatly expanded the territory and services offered by FVC.

In 1986, FVC purchased the McCook Equity Exchange facilities as well as the trucking assets of Far Port Cooperative, a transportation company. The Farmers Coop Exchange at Wauneta and Enders became part of FVC in 1990. In 1993, the Benkelman grain facility was added. In 1998, the grain handling facilities at Perry (west of McCook) were acquired. Then the Seaboard grain facilities in McCook were added. In November of 2002, the members of the Grant Coop Exchange voted to merge with FVC. This merger added the fertilizer, grain, and petroleum facilities in Grant and the fertilizer and grain facilities in Venango, Nebraska, to the assets of FVC.

FVC added its subsidiary Southwest Grain in 2004. SG serves as the exclusive grain buyer for Trenton Agri Products (TAP) ethanol plant. TAP began production on March 23, 2004, and SG is responsible for contracting the supply of corn to them. TAP will consume 30,000-32,000 bushels of corn per day.

During the summer of 2007, FVC added four additional elevator facilities into its portfolio. On June 29, 2007, we closed on the purchase of the Wright Lorenz facilities located at Palisade, Hamlet, Beverly, and Culbertson. The facilities added approximately four million bushels of federally licensed storage and nine full-time employees to Frenchman Valley Coop.

FVC merged with Farmers Elevator Company, A Cooperative (FEC) in March of 2008. FEC had locations in Burns, WY, Chappell, Dalton, Dix, Kimball, Lodgepole, Ovid, CO, Potter, Pine Bluffs, WY, and Sidney. Merging the business activities combined two cooperatives with numerous synergies allowing FVC to continually improve its ability to serve its farmer rancher members. The consolidated company has in excess of 35 million bushels of federally licensed grain storage facilities serving farmers from McCook, NE to Burns, WY.

Plains Grain was formed during the summer of 2010. Plains Grain is the exclusive grain buyer for the Mid America Agri Products/ Wheatland L.L.C. (MAAP/W) ethanol plant in Madrid, Nebraska. Plains Grain is responsible for contracting and delivering all of the corn necessary to ultimately produce 50 million gallons of ethanol per year. MAAP/W currently consumes between 38,000 and 43,000 bushels of corn daily.

In December 2012, FVC finalized the purchase of the petroleum and agronomy assets of the Wheatland Co-op Association. As part of the transaction, FVC will continue to serve the Agronomy and Petroleum customers in the WCA trade area.

On March 31, 2014, Frenchman Valley Coop purchased the Agfinity Station in Benkelman, NE adding another service station to our locations.  In June of 2014, we opened the T-Junction location at the junctions of Highways 6 and 61 in Imperial which offers Piccadilly Pizza and sandwiches as well as F'Real Ice Cream.

The most recent purchase came on March 17, 2015, when Frenchman Valley Coop purchased Steggs Aerial Application, Inc to enhance our agronomy services for our patrons in the FVC trade territory. 

FVC is continually looking for innovative ways to increase our customers profitibility and has done so by adding quality products and services including ACRE+ precision crop consulting and Harness Premium Diesel.

FVC currently employs approximately 260-310 employees with over 20 locations and is the one of the largest cooperatives in Nebraska. FVC is an important source of agricultural expertise, products, and services in one of the most productive areas in the world. Our people are proud to serve our many outstanding farmer-rancher members that have helped make this cooperative so successful.
 

 


Our Mission Statement...

"...that the Frenchman Valley Farmers Cooperative and subsidiaries exist for the sole purpose of improving the economic well-being of its farmer-rancher members by being a dependable and consistent source of agricultural inputs, markets and services."