Planting the seed

Times Reporter

 

It was in 2010 when Andy and Christina Stender created Crowfoot Ag Solutions. The pair, who have partnered with Greg Andrukow, were happy to ‘plant the seed’ on Dec. 18 when they broke ground at their new facility location. The new location is just off of Hwy 1 and Hwy 21. It was an exciting day for the three partners. 

“Very (excited). It’s been a long two years of waiting,” said Christina Stender.

“It’s a market we’re familiar with. This particular location provides us with two well-travelled highways. It’s fairly centrally located for our customer base,” said Andy Stender. 

Crowfoot Ag Solutions is an agricultural input retailer, focusing predominately on fertilizers, crop protection products and seed.  

“Basically we want to get to the point that we’re utilizing the assets that we’re building today,” said Andy.

“The industry is continually changing so we feel we’re in a position where we can easily and quickly adapt to either market changes or changes in agriculture in general. So whether that means retailing different types of seed or expanding our facilities to include different types of fertilizer or what have you. 

“We’re a locally owned and operated company and so if we don’t like where we’re headed at lunch time we can change it by two o’clock.”

The first structure is the office and warehouse, which will be ready in early spring next year. Andy said the plan to also build a fertilizer facility that will be the first of its kind in Canada. The new facility will be a dome structure with interior blending capabilities. Stender said there are lots of domes in Canada, but none that are utilized for fertilizer and for the blending of multiple products. Construction of the dome will begin in the late spring with a completion date set for the summer.