Beck's Hybrids buys Ohio’s Imboden Farms

By GARY BROCK

gbrock@recordherald.com

ATLANTA, IND. — Beck’s Hybrids has announced the pur­chase of Imbo­den Farms in cen­tral Ohio, a pur­chase esti­mated to include more than 5,000 acres.

The Beck-Imboden Ohio Farm includes fields south of Colum­bus along the Scioto River and extends just north of Cir­cleville to south of Waverly. The pur­chase spans at least four Ohio coun­ties, includ­ing Fayette, Pick­away, Ross, Pike and Scioto Counties.

The pur­chase, along with other land pur­chases last year, has been called a “great strate­gic move for Beck’s and a great deci­sion for agri­cul­ture in Ohio.”

Accord­ing to the announce­ment from Beck’s, as a large irri­gated grain pro­ducer in the Mid­west, Les and Carol Imbo­den founded Imbo­den Farms nearly 30 years ago and have been instru­men­tal in design­ing and installing irri­ga­tion systems.

“Estab­lish­ing the best suc­ces­sion plan for Imbo­den Farms was extremely impor­tant to Carol and I,” said Les Imbo­den, owner of Imbo­den Farms. “After being a 100 per­cent Beck’s Hybrids cus­tomer for sev­eral years, we approached the Beck fam­ily because of the out­stand­ing busi­ness envi­ron­ment they’ve created.”

Last May, Beck’s pur­chased 285 acres of land in Madi­son County near Lon­don. The land is near I-70 and other major high­ways, and also right next to the large 2,100-acre Ohio Farm Sci­ence Review com­plex at the Molly Caren Agri­cul­tural Center.

Chuck Gam­ble, Farm Sci­ence Review Man­ager, told ACRES of South­west Ohio that the pur­chase in May and the just-announced pur­chase of the Imbo­den land “Is an excel­lent move on Beck’s behalf. It really posi­tions them for the future. They are look­ing to the future.”

He also pointed out that the announce­ment by Beck’s just adds to the pos­i­tive envi­ron­ment being seen in the Ohio agri­cul­tural economy.

“I look at it as a very aggres­sive move on Beck’s part. They are explod­ing and grow­ing out,” Gam­ble said.

Gam­ble was excited by what the deci­sion will mean for Ohio’s agri­cul­ture com­mu­nity. “Holy moly… we (Ohio) are posi­tioned for a very good year. The deci­sion by Beck’s just demon­strates how pos­i­tive the eco­nomic cli­mate is here in Ohio,” he said.

“Because over time, there cer­tainly will be syn­ergy from the pur­chase. I think it will be a win-win for every­one,” he said.

Beck’s has long been a major pres­ence at the annual Ohio Farm Sci­ence Review, an annual agri­cul­ture and farm­ing event held each Sep­tem­ber, draw­ing more than 150,000 each year for the week-long event high­light­ing the lat­est in farm­ing tech­nol­ogy and research.

The 285 acres next to the Farm Sci­ence Review site is expected to be used as a ware­house and dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­ter, with con­struc­tion start­ing later in the year and into 2014. Beck’s spokesman Bruce Ket­tler told Busi­ness First in Colum­bus that small research plots may be planted at the Madi­son County loca­tion this spring. He added that the seed pro­cess­ing facil­i­ties will stay in Indi­ana and Illinois.

Jason Gen­try, a Beck’s seed advi­sor for South­west Ohio, said he is excited about his company’s com­mit­ment to the com­mu­nity and Ohio. “That is a big step.”

Gen­try has been with the com­pany for five years, and says it is a won­der­ful com­pany and the Beck’s are a “won­der­ful fam­ily. They have the farmer, their cus­tomers and their employ­ees in mind in this growth and in every­thing they do.”

Presently, Beck’s has seed crops in Indi­ana, Illi­nois and Michi­gan. But the Imbo­den farms in Ohio were attrac­tive because of the central-pivot irri­ga­tion on the plots and the fact that the land is iso­lated from most other cen­tral Ohio farms — reduc­ing the risks of genetic contamination.

Les Imbo­den will remain as gen­eral man­ager of the Beck-Imboden Ohio Farm and become an employee of Beck’s Hybrids. Beck’s has also hired three full-time employ­ees and one part-time employee for the Beck-Imboden Ohio Farm.

Imbo­den is a first gen­er­a­tion farmer and over the years has become a leader in many indus­try orga­ni­za­tions. He cur­rently serves as board trea­surer of the Ohio Corn Mar­ket­ing Asso­ci­a­tion, a del­e­gate for the U.S. Grains Coun­cil, is a mem­ber of the Grower Ser­vices Action Team for the National Corn Grow­ers Asso­ci­a­tion, and is board sec­re­tary for the Ohio Chris­t­ian Uni­ver­sity Foundation.

For the 2013 grow­ing year, the farm will con­tinue to raise com­mer­cial corn and soy­beans. Imbo­den will also con­tinue to man­age the Rivers Edge Golf Club located on the property.

“With nearly 75 per­cent of the farms under irri­ga­tion and con­tain­ing mostly higher pro­duc­tiv­ity soils, this pur­chase is a solid, long-term invest­ment for Beck’s and for the ben­e­fit of our cus­tomers,” said Scott Beck, vice pres­i­dent of Beck’s Hybrids. “As we keep grow­ing, it’s impor­tant that our seed pro­duc­tion is diver­si­fied in mul­ti­ple states and envi­ron­ments, to con­tinue pro­vid­ing our cus­tomers with the best in seed qual­ity, field per­for­mance and service.”

(Gary Brock is edi­tor of ACRES of South­west Ohio.)

Posted by Tina Murdock on Feb 24 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.