New fertilizer production plant opens in Boone

Landus President and CEO Matt Carstens, USDA Rural Development Administrator Betsy Dirksen Londrigan and others participate in the ribbon cutting ceremony on Thursday. Photo by Jack O’Connor

More than 100 employees, farmers and local community members turned out Thursday for the grand opening of a 75,000-square-foot fertilizer production and distribution facility in Boone.

The $15 million facility, owned by Landus Cooperative in rural central Iowa, will lower costs on local farmers, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and support dozens of local businesses, according to Landus President and CEO Matt Carstens. 

“We will show up for our farmers, we will show up for the rural communities and this right here demonstrates that every day,” Carstens said.

Around $5 million of the facility’s $15 million price tag came from a United States Department of Agriculture grant.

The Landus facility is a part of the federal government’s effort to expand domestic production of fertilizer at a time when most fertilizer comes from outside the U.S., the USDA’s rural development administrator, Betsy Dirksen Londrigan, said. As the November election approaches, Dirksen Londrigan reiterated the administration’s support for rural communities.

“This is at the heart of President Biden’s agenda to build the economy from the middle out and bottom up,” Dirksen Londrigan said.

The new plant does more than produce fertilizer, Carstens said, and will also create adjuvants and soil products. Other portions of the property are used to store millions of bushels of corn, grain and soybeans, and another section of the property produces green ammonia in partnership with TalusAg.

Carstens said green ammonia allows the facility to greatly reduce its carbon footprint while not forcing farmers to change anything about their operation.

By removing the costly international shipping costs and using raw ingredients, Carstens said the plant will make the whole process more affordable for farmers across the Midwest.

Dirksen Londrigan praised the new facility for how it will not only create jobs but support the nearby farms and local businesses which will result in more people coming through the area to have their fertilizer needs met.

“One of the things I’d really love for you to think about is how not just this building, but how the business is touching every one of the farmers, how it’s touching the community and realizing that it is part of a bigger picture,” Dirksen Londrigan said.

Farmers interested in getting fertilizer from the plant can pick it up on site or have it shipped to them. The facility is almost finished, aside from the green ammonia production and extra grain, corn and soybean storage that still needs to be built.

Carstens said because of the new facility and all of the incoming traffic, jobs are being created and maintained. “This expansion obviously means jobs,” he said.

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