Conagra, Farmland
Ink Grain Alliance

KANSAS CITY, Mo. —(AP)— Farmland Industries Inc., the nation's largest farmer-owned cooperative, announced last week that it is forming a grain marketing and service alliance with ConAgra Inc.

ConAgra, based in Omaha, Neb., is the country's largest independent food company.

"This development reflects the new market-driven grain business," said Harry Cleberg, Farmland president and chief executive officer. "We must now be prepared to deliver precisely what the global grain consumer wants in order to strengthen our members' grain business for the long term."

The alliance will allow each company to use the other's export facilities. It creates one new company, Concourse Grain, which will market all Farmland wheat and some ConAgra wheat.

Farmland will also buy 50 percent of ConAgra's Atwood-Kellogg subsidiary, which will be renamed Farmland-Atwood and headquartered in Kansas City.

Concourse Grain, also to be headquartered in Kansas City, will be operational within a few weeks, Cleberg said.

ConAgra will benefit from increased use of its port facilities and better access to hard red winter wheat, president Fred Page said.

"This is a unique alliance for ConAgra. We believe both parties stand to gain by working together where it makes sense," Page said.

Farmland-Atwood will provide risk management, financial and grain support and grain brokerage services.

"Farmland-Atwood will allow us to offer a competitive services program of financial and risk management for the convenience of our members and customers," said John Berardi, Farmland executive vice president.

"We also envision that Farmland-Atwood could facilitate sales of Farmland System feed grains and soybeans to some of ConAgra's food businesses, providing a major marketing avenue for our members' feed grains and soybeans."

ConAgra has annual sales of about $24 billion. Its independent operating companies market more than 70 brands, including Healthy Choice, Wesson, Hunt's, Orville Redenbacher's, Armour and Peter Pan.

Farmland had sales last year of more than $9.1 billion in all 50 states and 80 countries.