MFA Incorporated to close five Agri Services centers in Missouri

MFA Incorporated announced this week that it will close five Missouri Agri Services retail operations: Bronaugh, Columbia, Essex, Fulton and Springfield. Customers of these locations will be served by MFA staff and equipment from nearby MFA Agri Services centers.

MFA Incorporated is a Midwest-based regional farm supply and marketing cooperative serving more than 45,000 farmer/owners in Missouri and adjacent states. The organization operates 135 MFA Agri Services centers in Missouri and neighboring states and has business agreements with 24 locally owned affiliated cooperatives.

Employees and operations at MFA’s headquarters in Columbia will not be affected.

“This decision comes from a multi-year analysis of how MFA can best deploy its assets,” said Craig Childs MFA senior vice president of retail operations. “Resources from these five locations will be employed at nearby MFA Agri Services locations for continued service to area farmers.”

Childs added that MFA is communicating with its customers to provide details about the changes.

“In Columbia and Springfield, we were working in facilities that had been convenient for agriculture in the past, but over time, urbanization has affected our operations. As the urban area expanded, it made trucking grain into the facilities difficult. It also has become challenging to move agricultural inputs from the facilities to the farm. At Columbia, we began to address the situation in the early 2000s by building an agronomy facility east of town,” he said.

Childs added that MFA improved and expanded its grain system in Centralia to better accommodate grain from area farmers.

A majority of employees at affected retail locations were offered and accepted positions within the company. In total, the closures will result in the elimination of four positions.

The last day of operations for the Columbia and Fulton facilities will be July 17. Essex, Bronaugh and Springfield locations will close by July 31. MFA intends to sell the properties, including the Paris Road facility in Columbia.

MFA will continue to offer annual MFA Foundation $2,000 scholarships to college-bound high school seniors in communities surrounding the closing locations.