When folks in Iowa sing about “amber waves of grain,” they have more than a song about the beauty of the country on their minds. For the farmers in this corn belt region, grain is money, and rarely has that phrase held more true than when a large grain coop in the area turned problems of insufficient capacity and outmoded equipment into improved profitability.

Gold-Eagle Cooperative based in Goldfield, IA, stores and distributes grain for farmers in north central Iowa. The successful business strives to accommodate all the grain its farmers provide, presently housing some 34 million bushels of produce in several facilities (Figure 1). It uses the corn it receives for its ethanol and feed processing plants, while soybeans typically are stored at the facilities and then distributed to processors.

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