HOWARD, S.D. — Pigs are good business for Howard Farmers Co-op Association, one of the businesses that benefits from a thriving livestock community in eastern South Dakota.
Mark Neises is assistant manager for the co-op. He manages its feed mill and has worked there for 37 years. Most of the co-op’s corn is run through the mill, Neises said — about 800,000 bushels annually. Howard grinds co-op members’ corn and brings in soybean meal and dried distiller’s grain to add to rations, prescribed by a nutritionist.
Pig owners like Windy Oak Farms of Iowa — which owns pigs and buys feed for them on 10 farms — are a strong part of the Howard co-op’s market. Some of that feed goes to farms like TSL Inc., run by Taylon and Samantha “Sam” LaMont at Carpenter, South Dakota, in Clark County .
Neises estimates that about 30% of his company’s feed volume goes to Windy Oak or related farms. Other loads will go to Inwood Pork, another company associated with Windy Oak owners.
The Howard co-op, operating with seven employees, added the mill in August 1998. The initial capacity was about 100 tons of feed per day. By 2009 they’d added a “surge hopper,” that allowed them to mix feed and unload feed at the same time. In about 2012 they added a larger roller mill.
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Today, the mill has doubled to a capacity that produces about 200 tons a day, Neises said.
Most of the co-op’s increase is due to hog expansion in the region, Neises said. (The area also has a significant Hutterite livestock presence. The colonies take care of their own feed.)
“It’s all basically ‘integrators’ or private producers around the area,” Neises said, referring to pig owners that have possession of the animals through slaughter, but may not physically raise them.
On a recent Friday in November, Aaron Jeffrey, a feed mill operator, was busy, operating a series of levers that deliver particular components that are used to generate a feed ration. A typical order was for 28 tons, including corn, or soybean meal, dried distiller’s grain, lime, salt, lysine, and micronutrients. Jeffrey added buckets of micronutrients to the mixer, which holds about 3 tons at a time.
Having the local feed market “definitely helps” the bottom line for the Howard co-op, Neises said.
“It should help with the basis,” he said — an advantage for member-corn producers whose market is stronger with a local market. Otherwise their returns would be based on distance to markets where other farmers elsewhere would get the value added by feeding livestock.
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