A Season For Growing- Page 1

Free Health Resources Available- Page 3

Safety Corner - Safety Starts With You- Page 5

April 2017The

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A Season For GrowingThe month of April was likely one of the busiest ever for Viafield. All our businesses were at full throttle serving our member’s needs. The feed department is producing record volumes of feed and agronomy is delivering seed, fertilizer, and chemical sales growth in a difficult environment. Growers are seeing positive change at Viafield and voting with their decision to do business with our

talented team of people. Growth is essential to the success of our members and for Viafield. The saying goes, “if your business isn’t growing it’s falling behind.” We’re seeing positive growth across the board and it is exciting! We are also growing the volume in our grain business. As some of you may notice, we are shipping out a high volume of both truck and rail grain to various markets. With the inventory on hand and what we anticipate receiving from the farmer this summer, we’ll be very active all the way into next harvest. To meet our year end objectives we must

continue to be aggressive in buying grain from our customers. One recent report showed that some of our major agronomy customers don’t sell all their grain to Viafield. This alone could be a 10 million bushel opportunity! The key is simply asking consistently for their business. We expect prices to move higher in the next 60 days due to weather and crop concerns

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Chris LudwigCEO

We are committed to be the full-service provider of choice enhancing the

success of our customers, team and communities.

Viafield

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which is a perfect opportunity to sell. Starting now we’ll be running a campaign to get Offer Buy contracts for both old crop and new crop bushels. Farmers don’t have time to watch the market’s in the spring and Offer Buy is an excellent marketing tool we can call and offer! With the storm of activity this season it’s important we all take our time and do the job or task safely. Your safety is the #1 goal at Viafield. Don’t cut corners to get the job done faster or take a risk that might result in an accident. Observe your teammates and address unsafe

behaviors…their wellbeing may depend on it. Safety is a team effort and it takes everyone’s leadership to ensure a work environment we can all be proud of. It is exciting to see all the activity and growth in our businesses. It’s a result of all our team members working together to earn the customer’s business. Thank you very much for your hard work, extra hours, and positive attitude during this extremely busy season!

- Chris

Steve BodensteinerCFO

Moving The NeedleA quick update on the financial position of your cooperative

Grain bushels purchased are up 318,378. Grain margins are up both for corn and beans significantly. We had a really good month in grain. Since the beginning of March, we have sold between 8 and 9 million bushels of corn and over 1 million bushels of beans.

Prepaid/Booked fertilizer tons are up 5,730 tons and $877,000 in chemicals over last year. Seed dollars booked are up 18.8% and chemicals sales booked are up 16.3%. As of Wednesday morning, we had delivered 6,294 tons of fertilizer. So this number will continue to climb through the end of the month. Good work people!

AFD delivered gallons continue to grow. We are up almost 400,000 gallons. Propane gallons are up over 30,000 gallons from last year.

Feed tons continue to grow as well. Currently, we are up 30,154 tons over last year.

Thanks to everyone’s hard work, we are moving the needle in the correct direction. Keep thinking “big.” Thanks for all your efforts.

VOLUMES March Last March Change from Last YearGrain Purchased (bushels) 21,756,730 21,438,352 318,378 Corn Margins/bu $0.24 $0.15 Soybean Margins/bu $0.35 $0.25Fertilizer Sales (tons) 24,394 18,664 5,730Chemical Sales $5,380,736 $4,503,358 $877,378AFD Delivered (gal) 1,741,866 1,343,070 398,796AFD Monitors Installed 414 404 10Propane Delivered (gal) 2,523,394 2,490,397 32,997Feed (tons) 141,090 110,936 30,154

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SPRING 2017

connections

inside:New Equipment For Spring

Racing To Feed Others

Fertilizer Plant Ready To Go

Energy Meetings Hosted

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The Spring 2017 edition of Connections has been sent to members and is also on our website at www.viafield.com/connections2017

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Free Health Resources AvailableIf you elected Viafield’s medical plan there are a variety of Wellmark resources at your fingertips at no additional cost.

One of the tools highlighted here, is the BeWell 24/7 program. The health care professional Wellmark provides on the other end of the line can answer many questions putting your mind at ease in situations like, addressing basic (non-emergency) health problems you or your family are experiencing, helping you find a health provider, or even estimating the cost of an upcoming surgery.

Simply call (884)-842-3935 to receive assistance any time any day. It is more than a “nurse line”, the health care professionals are your health advocate relieving stress around your healthcare concerns.

Anne BenningHR Leader

REAL PEOPLE.REAL HELP.24/7.

Life can get stressful sometimes.Like when your toddler has a fever at midnight, or your’re trying ro help an elderly parent schedule a medical appointment. Luckily, there’s BeWell 24/7sm, a service exclusively for Wellmark members.

It’s so much more than a nurse line. It’s help from real people 24/7. With BeWell 24/7, you’ll have access to:

BeWell 24/7

844-84-BeWell

HEALTHY ADVOCACY - Get personalized help coordinatingcare, locating specialists, scheduling home-care services,transferring medical records and more.

NURSE SUPPORT - Having side effects from a new drug?Want to better understand a diagnosis? A registered nurse can provide trusted insight and recommend next steps.

CARE NAVIGATION - Received information from healthprofessionals who can help you better understand your healthcondition and leatn more about how Wellmark can help.

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GET EVEN MORE ANSWERS WITH myWELLMARK. Use myWELLMARK to access all your health information inone place. Register at Wellmark.com.

Current Full-Time Openings

• Feed Truck Driver - Rudd• Grain Operations - London• Grain Operations - Northwood • Grain Team Leader• Transportation Logistics Manager & Grain Merchant

CareerOpportunitiesCurrent Part-Time & Seasonal Openings

• Truck Tender Driver & Agronomy Operations - Multiple Locations

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Spring is in the air, and winter is behind us. Fuel orders are rolling in. Please remember to ask customers when they NEED the fuel by, rather than suggesting same day/next day fuel orders. If a customer runs into an emergency, and needs fuel in a rush, we will do our best to service their needs. However, please remind them we do need 2-3 days’ notice for fuel orders. Our fuel trucks are loaded very early in the morning with all the fuel on them already being spoken for. Our customers may be in the Springy mood and wondering why they are still receiving winter fuel on their Viafield statements. Customers are on our monthly average consumption billing very well may still have winter fuel “in” their tanks yet to be billed. The billing process works on a first in – first out basis. So if winter fuel was delivered back in December and then they received a Ruby delivery in April, they may not have used all of the gallons that were received as winter fuel. The customer’s usage may have been so low during the last few months that they are just now finishing up the winter fuel gallons, and then they will start being billed for summer fuel. Another thing to keep in mind is monitored customers that are on our monthly average consumption billing have a fuel billing period of the 21st through the 20th. For example, fuel billed on their April statement will include ALL of the fuel the customer used March 21st through April 20th. Some customers may think they did not use the amount of fuel they were billed for since the beginning of the month, when in reality, the billing actually goes back to the 21st of the previous month. The Energy Department cannot thank you enough for all of your help and support. If you run into customers who have questions you are not able to answer, please direct the calls to Jessica Mayer, Energy Coordinator. Have a happy and safe Spring!

Spring is in Full Forceby:

Jessica MayerEnergy Coordinator

Ryan Smith and his Ashley welcomed their 3rd lil’ baby into the world on Thursday, April 20th at 11:19am. Lilli Michele weighed 7 lbs. 3 oz. and was 20 3/4 inches long. The whole family is doing well...so we couldn’t help but share all the pics Ryan sent showcasing Lilli, Easton, & Elijah. Ryan is an Agronomy Account Relationship Manager out of our Manly & Grafton locations.

Congratulations to the Smith family!

OUR GROWING VIAFIELD FAMILY

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Safety Starts With You.

SAFETY CORNER

Kevin DavisSafety Team Leader

Even though it doesn’t seem like it should be, we are well into the busy Spring season. I want to send out a big “THANK YOU” to all team members following the policies and procedures and wearing the proper personal protective equipment when doing your job assignments. I haven’t heard of any incidents involving team members or customers who were wearing the proper PPE. I also want to commend the team members came from out in the western part of the territory to help out in the eastern territory when the ground wasn’t fit to work. More hands make less work for everyone and building stronger team unity is

always a good sign as well. I know that it was greatly appreciated by location team leaders as well as COO Bill Hayes. I’m also sure that eastern territory team members will be willing to head west when the weather turns and they are called on to assist and/or help.

I also want to remind team members to continue to inspect their vehicles by doing the pre-trip and post trip inspections. “ROAD CHECK 2017” will be June 6th through June 8th and the DOT emphasis will be focusing on cargo securement. So we need to make sure that all team members driving company vehicles are properly securing everything when hauling to customers or from location to location. If you have questions, make sure you ask team members with more experience or knowledge about compliance with the issue that you are dealing with.

Continue to watch the backs of your fellow team members and

“COMMUNICATE” with each other and your team leaders because great communication leads to elimination of accidents/incidents. It also makes for smoother operations and less headaches for all involved.

Thanks again for all that you do to make VIAFIELD the best Cooperative it can be.

A D D I T I O N S

Adam Fliehler

Position:Grain Operations

Locations:Maynard

Start Date:April 17, 2017

Larry Harrah

Position:Agronomy Account Relationship Manager

Locations:Marble Rock

Start Date:April 17, 2017

Charles Landis

Position:Feed Mill Operations

Locations:Maynard

Start Date:April 24, 2017

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May 18, 2017 - Safety Meeting - Charles City - 9:30-11:30

May 18, 2017 - Summer Intern Kick-off - Charles City - 12:00-4:30

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Copyright © 2017 Viafield, a cooperative. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without the express written permission of Viafield is prohibited.

A number of Team Members will be celebrating their birthdays in May. Here’s your reminder to send them best wishes on their special day.

Grant Reckling May 1 Arlington Kevin Davis May 9 MaynardBrady Cotter May 10 NorthwoodLarry Gardner May 12 GraftonKyle Wurzer May 16 RandaliaAaron Taylor May16 ElginDoug Davis May 18 LamontFrank Burgin May 19 ArlingtonSarah Winters May 21 RuddDanny Becker May 24 ElginCharlie Hamilton May 24 WinthropErika Brincks May 25 ElginKevin Peterson May 25 ClermontDean Peterson May 25 RuddAaron Stevens May 30 Northwood

AnniversariesTeam Member Hire Date Years Location

Curt Caley May 9, 2005 12 Elgin

Gary Benson May 26, 2009 8 Arlington

Mason Kleitsch May 9, 2011 6 Maynard

Courtney Bartz May 7, 2012 5 Northwood

Ryan Smith May 14, 2012 5 Manly

Regina Panuska May 13, 2013 4 Randalia

Tim Hanna May 6, 2014 3 Northwood

Chelsea Watkins May 16, 2016 1 Arlington

Happy Birthday

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Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.

Sunday, May 14th is

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