News

Merger with Land O’ Lakes about “size & volume”

Iowa-based United Suppliers, a customer-owned wholesaler of crop protection inputs, is in the process of merging with the Land O’ Lakes co-op based in Minnesota. Matt Carstons, vice president of crop nutrients and sustainability for United Suppliers, says the two share a lot on the crop input side.

“When we move deeper into that with Land O’ Lakes’ breadth of the feed business with Purina and their dairy business that they have as well, the view gets even better for us to be able to look at that channel up and down and participate at all levels of the food and feed channel including crop inputs with Land O’ Lakes.”

Carstons says the merger is not about the declining ag economy. He tells Brownfield Ag News it’s about agriculture no longer being just about the United States or North America, “There’s great progress and influence in China and Brazil and India. It’s ALL across the globe. We’re feeding the world. So, to compete on a global stage, especially when you deal in things of commodities, it’s about size and volume.”

Carstons says United Suppliers’ brings its growing Sustainability Platform to Land O’ Lakes, a program adopted by Wal-Mart and other major retailers including Kellogg.