Farmers in Chester County and surrounding areas now have an impressive new facility — a spacious fertilizer building that can hold 4,000 tons of products as compared to the 1,200-ton capacity from the former building, basically tripling the capacity for storage.

A grand opening celebration was held at the new facility during an August 8 customer appreciation event. Attendees were given exclusive tours of the building, enjoyed ribeye sandwiches, and gathered giveaways like First Farmers hats, license plates, and 2025 agronomy guides. There were also drawings for several door prize items.

First Farmers Co-op General Manager Rob White and Henderson Branch Store Manager Matt Hearn, along with many other First Farmer’s employees, were on hand to welcome community members and show off their newest addition.

“We are excited to celebrate the completion of this new building that’s been five years in the making,” White announced to the crowd. “If you’re a director or former director, we appreciate you and the hard work you did to get to this day. We put in a lot of hours and hundreds of miles looking at different styles of buildings and various options before we made construction decisions.”

“I also want to thank the city of Henderson,” he added, giving a smile to several members of the Chamber in attendance. “They had to annex this area to provide for services to be hooked up. They were excellent to work with, as well as Mary Beth Shackelford from CoBank. It’s just been a great team effort from so many to get this accomplished. Also, lots of appreciation for our Henderson Co-op crew — we have employees from all four First Farmers locations here today. This building wouldn’t have been completed without their assistance.”

Hearn said the new building is large, with 16-foot-wide storage bins that are about 50-feet deep, enabling the Co-op to stockpile a lot more fertilizer.

“The more we can store, the more we can offer our farmers, so that’s a huge benefit for our organization, Hearn said. “The building can handle 1,000 tons of potash compared to just 500 tons we used to store. Also, we used to only have enough room to load one or two trucks with fertilizer simultaneously. Now we can load five different blends at a time.

Hearn pointed out that the new floor is heated by a natural gas boiler that basically keeps the floor at a constant temperature year-round.

“Fertilizer melts,” he said. “This floor will keep it dry, which makes it easier to sweep the spilled fertilizer right back into the bin. We’ll have less waste, clumping, and mess, and we should get more longevity out of our blenders, hoppers, and loaders. This building provides the perfect situation to be efficient, and we couldn’t be prouder of what we’ve built.”

Along with the many visitors at the celebration, former Co-op board member Gary Shelton, who served 14 years on the board, made his way around the new building. He fondly recalled all those decisions the board made two years ago when they decided to move forward with the building. He’s been row-cropping for 50 years and, like many others, he saw the need to invest in this new endeavor.

“We needed this capacity, and we needed it in a central location,” said Shelton. “When we were making the decisions, we first thought about where the need was, the amount of fertilizer going through each location, and what area was growing the most, so we placed it in Henderson, and we have plenty of room here to expand.”

Neil Smith, a part-time farmer who also works at Centennial Bank, was also on hand for the festivities.

“I’ve watched it being built from the ground up, and I’m thrilled to finally see it in its finished state,” said Smith, who farms with his son, Robin. “I think it’s magnificent — big, impressive, and state-of-the-art. I just can’t tell you how much it means to us, Chester County as a whole, and the surrounding areas.”