By ANN HINCH
Associate Editor ATLANTA, Ind. — Last week it was a large muddy spot wedged between a county road and rows of corn and soybeans, but two years from now a new seven-story soybean processing tower will be ready to go on this site at the Atlanta headquarters of Beck’s Hybrids. Four years from now, CEO Sonny Beck said the tower will be handling about 3 million units of corn annually. Earlier this year Beck’s announced the tower is slated to increase processing to 6 million over six years. The tower, five new warehouses for seed and equipment storage, and office space started construction this month. This is despite a challenging year in both farming and sales. Beck’s sells seed in 11 states, and some corn shipped out was returned for customers’ inability to put down in prevent-plant acres thanks to the weather. Beck reported about 12 percent of the company’s total shipped corn and soybean seed could not be planted this year (mostly corn). Beck was giving customers and other visitors of the company’s annual “Becknology Days” an overview of the year in business last Friday morning. He said from 1972-2019, Beck’s has roughly tripled its sales every 10 years, which is an average 11.3 percent growth each year. For 2019, he reported the company was headed for 16-17 percent growth but the massive prevent-plant areas cut this severely. This isn’t to say the company isn’t still expanding. He said it saw a 9.3 percent gain in market share in the decade from 2009-18 and is now the third-largest corn and soybean seed brand in the nation. He listed facilities Beck’s is building or repurposing at its properties in other states, including Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota. President Scott Beck, his son, reported some of what is in the pipeline for the future. Beck’s recently signed on with Bayer to collaborate on a long-term corn germplasm. It is also working with Corteva and BASF on new soybeans. In 2020, Beck’s will offer three options for its Escalate treatment for beans: seed treated with only Escalate pesticides; seed with Escalate and Nemasect to control nematodes; and Escalate with Nemasect and SDS+ to also control sudden death syndrome and sclerotinia white mold. Scott said Beck’s continues to partner with tech companies as well, to advance its digital platform, giving growers the ability to access all types of farm data at once on their computers and mobile devices. Right now, Beck’s has connected with more than 50 companies. “The more that we can have things connected, the more efficient and adaptable we can be,” he said, explaining while farmers may not need so much crop-related data to decide what to plant for the year, the information comes in handy after that point. As the weather played so much havoc with this year’s planted acres, for instance, Scott said having access to many points of data on a digital platform helped some growers decide how to proceed in-season – what applications to make, when to apply, where it was needed. The three days last weekend at Beck’s, attended by more than 11,000 people, were filled with research plot tours and presentations, equipment and product displays, plenty of food, and signups for seed purchases and reward premiums for loyal customers. Find the company online at www.beckshybrids.com |
