FBN planning expansion of product line

Farmers Business Network is expanding its footprint in Canada.

The company that is primarily known for retailing agricultural chemicals direct to its farmer-members plans to branch out into providing various other crop inputs, such as farm lending products.

“That’s something we do in the U.S. that we don’t do in Canada,” FBN’s general manager of Canada, Breen Neeser, said during an interview at the Ag in Motion farm show.

It is also exploring the idea of offering risk management tools to its Canadian farmer members.

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“Insurance is something we’ve toyed with, and it is another possible platform we’re thinking seriously on,” he said.

The company intends to start providing livestock inputs, including both pharmaceutical and feed products to Canadian producers. And it is starting to dabble in the seed sector as well, utilizing its breeding facility in La Salle, Manitoba where it has been developing traits for many years.

“We feel that we’re very close to having canola seed commercially available,” said Neeser.

All the new platforms he mentioned should be available in Canada in the next year or two once they have been properly engineered for the company’s online store.

FBN’s chief executive officer Diego Casanello made the trip to Langham, Sask., to speak to members attending the AIM show. He told Canadian growers they can expect to see FBN start offering a program that will help them certify their grains as low carbon intensity feedstocks for the biofuel industry.

“We paid already more than (US)$45 million of premiums to our (U.S.) farmer members,” he said.

It is the biggest biofuel feedstock certification platform in the U.S. with more than 10,000 members.

“We’re bringing this to Canada next year,” he said.

Casanello said FBN has strength in numbers with 85,000 farmer members in the U.S. and Canada. “It’s a massive bargaining power that collectively we have to go and sit down with suppliers and get the best possible deal, the best possible price for you,” he said.

The company is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. Neeser said FBN has not lost focus on its main business despite all the new platforms it will be introducing in the next couple of years. One of the main thrusts in the crop protection side of the business is to continue expanding its cereal crop portfolio. For instance, it hopes to have Pinoxaden available in time for its fall cybersale.

“It’s a very popular product in Western Canada and one that we haven’t had access to in the past,” he said.

FBN also intends to have a number of granular herbicides in its lineup including Treflan, Avadex, Fortress and Edge.

“We will have access to all four of those products for fall on our FBN label,” he said.

Neeser said crop protection products from the late-1980s, the 1990s and early-2000s are experiencing a renaissance with growers because they can combat some of the resistance issues that modern chemistries are less effective at controlling. Growers are finding it a cost-effective way of managing problematic weeds like Kochia.