In March, Wisconsin-headquartered ALCIVIA opened its state-of-the-art rail loading grain terminal in Hager City, Wisc.
Jim Dell, CEO and president of ALCIVIA, says this has been a project in the works since 2022. It will serve farmers in west central Wisconin and southeast Minnesota.
“We did a fair amount of due diligence as something like this takes time,” he says. “We had to figure out how to break the project before we could make it successful, and working across the grain and logistics industries, we made sure we weren’t missing something.”
Dell says the need for the rail terminal is underscored by the aging river system and its infrastructure.
“The new barge equipment isn’t being built for the draft of the upper Mississippi, that’s one issue. The second is when the river freezes, it stops logistics,” Dell explains.
He adds a market study evaluated future potential for the co-op’s grain, opening access to domestic and export markets and arbitrage. At the new terminal, ALCIVIA previously had a shuttle loading on the BNSF railway. With this addition, the co-op now has facilities on three different Class 1 railways: BNSF, UP and CPKC.
“This opens the doors for us to have greater flexibility—that wherever our grain can go, we can serve that market,” he says. Dells points to the southwestern U.S. as an example.
The 40-acre site includes eight grain bins totaling 3.9 million bushels of grain storage, two 4,700-bushel-per-hour grain dryers and three 1,500-bushel-capacity dump pits.
On the ground, Dell says with labor continues to be a challenge. The technology and equipment at the new terminal facilitates less labor demand from the cooperative as well as farmers.
“If they were getting two loads to the river before in a day, they’ll get six loads here,” he says. “With the technology at the terminal, we made it a priority in the ease of doing business. All of the sampling is based on RFID tags—the customer is identified when the roll in, the grain is automatically graded, except for damage, and then they are sent to the right pit with the legs automatically moved to the right bins. So, the producer can pull in with automatic tarps, weigh, unload, and grab their ticket—or not and have it electronic—and be back on the way to the farm in six minutes.”
Hager City is located about 100 miles away from another co-op grain facility.
“We looked at the infrastructure our producers need for the next 30 to 50 years,” Dell says. “This gives us the ability to help producers have a solution for their marketing and logistics with 12 month market access—underline year-round four times.”
ALCIVIA opened the facility with a ribbon cutting attended by 600 farmers. Operations have started, and the co-op has 13 trains sold for the last half of May through August from the facility.
Dell highlights that in the past four years, the board has approved investment of $86 million in capital improvements and rolling stock.
The Hager City site has the future site plan of adding agronomic and fuel products as well.
