A proposed merger between two South Dakota based cooperatives will not happen. The North Central Farmers Elevator and Wheat Growers held membership meetings Thursday in Aberdeen, South Dakota to count ballots about the proposed merger of the two into what would have be called CentraGro Cooperative. Sixty-one percent of the Wheat Growers members voting approved the merger. The vote was much closer for North Central with 51 percent of the members voting against the merger, so the proposal failed. Wheat Growers CEO Dale Locken says they will continue to operate as they have been.
North Central Farmers Elevator board chairman Rick Osterday says they’ll move forward serving their customers.
Despite the closeness of the vote, Locken and Osterday both said this was a one-time idea and there are no plans to bring it to a vote of the membership again.