Business Plan for Producers to Create Value-added Crop-based Products

Project Overview

FW06-314
Project Type: Professional + Producer
Funds awarded in 2006: $20,000.00
Projected End Date: 12/31/2006
Region: Western
State: Colorado
Principal Investigator:
Ravi Malhotra
Email
ICAST Intl Ctr for Appropriate & Sustainable Tech

Commodities

  • Agronomic: corn, soybeans, wheat

Practices

  • Crop Production: double cropping, no-till
  • Education and Training: farmer to farmer, on-farm/ranch research, participatory research
  • Farm Business Management: feasibility study, agricultural finance
  • Production Systems: general crop production

    Proposal abstract:

    The producers of Holyoke, Colo., are interested in growing soybeans as a rotation crop with corn and wheat. This project will evaluate the viability of a business enterprise that will crush at least 300,000 bushels of soybeans into meal and oil and determine whether the resulting products can be sold at a profit. Because 75% of the soybeans will be converted to meal, the plan is to develop a meal-processing operation that can produce value-added products like bulk animal feed, meal pellets for feedlots and dairies, meal cake for range animals and bio-energy pellets for heating homes and other buildings. The remaining 25% that comes out of the crusher as oil will be sold to a processor to convert to cooking oil or bio-diesel. This project will develop a business plan for the producers to evaluate the economic viability of the strategy, including the costs of developing and operating a storage, crushing and meal processing facility.

    Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture or SARE.