Lockwood Farmers Exchange Could Face Sale

Sources familiar with the situation have confirmed that the Lockwood Farmers Exchange may be looking to sell its assets as early as Dec. 15, 2020.

It is unclear what will happen to the Exchange and its operations if the mid-December deadline is not met. No prospective buyers have been named, though several are rumored.

The Lockwood Farmers Exchange is a locally owned affiliate of MFA, Inc., a larger regional cooperative based in Columbia. It is incorporated separately from MFA, Inc., has its own separate class of ownership and a separate, local board of directors.

MFA has directly taken ownership of a number of its few remaining locally owned affiliates in recent years, including the MFA Cooperative Association of Salem in Salem, Mo., during 2019 and Producers Grain of ElDorado Springs in 2013. The larger MFA recently closed a number of locations as well, including a branch in Bronaugh and its last facility in Springfield last year.

A few of MFA's local affiliates in similar situations have left MFA entirely, such as Farmers Elevator & Produce Company No. 53 in Memphis, Mo, which in August 2015 pulled out of the MFA system and merged with Prairieland FS, a co-op with locations in Missouri and Illinois affiliated with the Growmark, Inc., cooperative system.

The Lockwood Farmers Exchange is the descendant of a number of Farm Clubs formed in Dade County beginning in February 1917; the Farmers Exchange was established as a farm supply store owned by local club members in 1921. A member of the Lockwood club, H.B. Patterson, became known in the movement for writing a book of farm club songs that could be sung at meetings.

In the years prior to construction of the current facility, it was located in the row of buildings on Main Street that would later become part of the Easson’s Sales & Service Pontiac-GMC Truck dealership.

In 1954, the board and local membership determined that expansion was necessary, and the reinforced concrete elevator that still dominates the Lockwood skyline was completed by 1957, with a storage capacity of about 100,000 bu. The retail facility and warehouse adjacent to the elevator was constructed in 1961 at a cost of $130,000, paid for by local subscription.

Additional grain storage space was added throughout the 1960s and ‘70s, with the feed mill brought to its current form in 1976.

In 2003, six storage bins were erected on the south side of the feed mill to allow for better management of ingredients and more efficient local manufacture of animal feeds. Further expansion came in 2010, when the Exchange purchased the former Green Seed facility a few blocks to the west. Sometimes referred to now as the Exchange Annex, it is used for additional grain storage and provides expanded office space for the spraying operations. In 2011, four new bins were added to the annex, bringing total storage capacity at the Exchange to about 825,000 bu., including the original elevator facility.

The Lockwood Exchange is one of just over 20 local co-ops (and their branch locations) still remaining as part of the MFA system. Most of the original local co-ops have consolidated into the larger MFA so that today there are about 140 locations directly owned by MFA, Inc., among them a dry fertilizer bulk plant in Lockwood (which is not a part of the local exchange). Because of this affiliation, members of the Lockwood Exchange automatically become members of MFA, Inc., when they do $5,000 worth of business with the exchange in a year.