Image by JamesDeMers from Pixabay

Greenfield Holdings, LLC, a small Colorado company, is buying grain elevators in the state. This is the same company who wants to build one in St John the Baptist Parish that has raised opposition.

A small Colorado company looking to build a $400 million grain terminal in St. John the Baptist Parish is growing its network of elevators. Last week, Greenfield Holdings LLC announced its acquisition of four grain elevators already operating in Louisiana and Arkansas. While just one, located in the northeast Louisiana town of Lake Providence, sits along the Mississippi River, Greenfield Holdings CEO Adam Johnson said each elevator will connect with farmers and source products such as wheat, corn, soybeans and rice. Our company is committed to maintaining a local-first policy and a close relationship with our neighbors,” Johnson said in an announcement last week. “With these acquisitions, we are dedicated to maintaining a strong, local job base and the assets in Louisiana will provide immediate benefits to our export facility and the Louisiana local community.”

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We have heard this story before but then seen actions that don’t meet the words. Since one of their plants is under attack by the community at their one existing site why the accommodation here?

In addition to the Lake Providence site, Greenfield now holds elevators in Crowville and Delhi, along with one in Parkdale, Arkansas. The company would not disclose what it spent on the acquisition or release details on the elevators’ storage and through-put capacity. All have been in operation for at least 15 years, Johnson said, and the company plans to hold all elevators to “the highest safety standards in the market for (their) farmers and neighbors in the community to visit.” Currently, each elevator is being leased by another company, but Greenfield will assume operations at some point in 2022.

Their efforts to build have been the source of antagonism by the community tired of bad air.

In St. John, Greenfield wants to construct a major 54-silo grain export terminal that would transport products by barge to ship across the world. The new terminal has faced opposition from residents near the site as it would be built within a few hundred feet of a majority Black neighborhood, where residents are now suing to overturn the property’s industrial zoning designation. The company has said it wants to build a “state-of-the-art” facility that exceeds health and safety requirements and ultimately use its network to ease the market pressure leading to some of the clear-cutting of land for agriculture in countries like Brazil by making it more efficient for U.S. farmers to supply international buyers. “Current U.S. infrastructure could benefit from an increase in capacity, speed, safety and efficiency to keep the US farmer competitive with farmers around the world,” Johnson said. “We believe that the U.S. farmer is already the most efficient in the world and can, and will, produce enough grain to feed the world in the most environmentally-friendly way possible.” “Current U.S. infrastructure could benefit from an increase in capacity, speed, safety and efficiency to keep the US farmer competitive with farmers around the world,” Johnson said. “We believe that the U.S. farmer is already the most efficient in the world and can, and will, produce enough grain to feed the world in the most environmentally-friendly way possible.”

Time will tell as we see this action develop. Stay tuned!

Grain elevators bought