The combination of perfect weather, southern cooking, Delta blues and merry hearts made for a grand opening of epic proportions for Nufarm Americas Inc.’s newest manufacturing facility on Wednesday.
The Australia-based company welcomed an exciting crowd of state and local government officials, Nufarm team members, media and local students to be a part of the event.
Will Coppage, executive director for the Washington County Economic Alliance, opened the ceremony by warmly welcoming the crowd to the event and apprising them of what it took to achieve the expansion of Nufarm to Greenville and what it means for the future of Washington County.
He also introduced Tom Lyons, Nufarm’s vice president of supply chain and operations.
Lyons submitted to the attendees his appreciation for their dedication to agriculture, which he said, was responsible for bringing them together for the occasion and after which, he presented Governor Phil Bryant.
“It’s always a great day when I get to come back to my home in the Mississippi Delta,” Bryant gleamed.
Bryant commended local government officials for their cohesion and commitment when it comes to workforce development and the community colleges that are dedicated to providing work force training.
He also offered praise and recognition to Mickey Milligan, the Chief Economic Officer of the Mississippi Development Authority’s Economic Development Division who was in attendance and is responsible for overseeing the agency’s recruitment and expansion of industries in Mississippi.
“Our community colleges are routinely credited for being the best work force development programs in America,” Bryant said.
As Coppage did, the governor emphasized how Nufarm’s investment is one that will pay back in great dividends because of the potential in the field of agriculture here in the Mississippi Delta.
“Perhaps we will get others that will come here now that they see Nufarm and say, 'you know, we were thinking about moving our processing plant here,’ like Uncle Ben’s long grain rice,” Bryant explained.
As he neared the conclusion of his address, he also pointed out the integral part Andy Gipson plays, who was also in attendance, as the Mississippi Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce, with the exports in Mississippi having increased by 259% over the last 10 years.
Nufarm has put the state in prime position to build on that momentum.
Nufarm’s CEO of four years, Greg Hunt, took the lectern after Bryant and expounded on Nufarm’s 100-year history of agriculture and helping to meet farmers’ needs.
“Our North American history is not quite as long — we’ve been in this market for about 30 years,” he said. “The Mississippi Delta is very much an important market for us and the reason that we made this investment here in Greenville. This is a facility that we believe is where we can work more closely with our distribution partners to service the needs of farmers in the Mississippi Delta.”
Hunt said that he believed the factory spoke for itself.
He added, “An investment like this doesn’t happen without the help and the support of a lot of people and I do want to thank the city of Greenville, the Washington County Economic Alliance, and I also want to thank the local people.”
Upon concluding his speech Hunt said that Nufarm genuinely looks forward to contributing to the Greenville community and extended his gratitude to the Nufarm team.
“I know you work extremely hard, but I just have to say again, I’m so proud of our team,” he said.
After the grand opening reception, Lyons guided officials and media through a tour of the facility and allowed Nufarm team members such as technicians and operators to give a brief overview of what their roles entailed.
“The facility design is to address the need of when to buy product,” Lyons said in reference to the needs of farmers. “What we strive for is efficiency and flexibility.”
To the average individual, especially one who may not be at all versed on the subject of agriculture, what is needed for crop production and successful yields may be somewhat complex.
What is evident of the facility is that the technology and automation is indeed state of the art as it has capabilities to produce crop product at the rate of 300 gallons per minute.
Lyons said that the facility has the best one can find in agricultural technology, and of the operators, “a really exciting level of talent.”
Hollandale’s Keevione Haggard for example, is a lab technician for the facility and oversees quality control.
In addition, the facility design enables him to virtually correspond with Nufarm team members from other sites such as the company’s Chicago Heights location.
Operations Manager for the Greenville site, Scott Pfantz is in charge of overseeing every aspect of the facility (budget, consumption of raw materials and any kind of customer complaints), which makes him the highest ranking official of Nufarm at the site.
Pfantz also works closely with the production superintendent, Cathy Ray, in hiring the most qualified candidates, providing them with quality training for the job and managing the production schedule.
“All the operators are taught about all the equipment as it is coming in.” Ray said. “We’ve made some production, but we’re really still in the training session right now so everyday we pick a different area that we’re gonna review and learn about.”
Greenville native and Nufarm operator Arusher Sturdevant shared briefly about his experience and the extensive training that he and others had to complete in preparation for operating.
“It’s fantastic,” he said of his experience so far, “I went out to interview with Cathy, I guess she liked my interview, scored well on the test, and here I am.”
Positively overwhelmed by the day’s festivities, Coppage said, “Not only was the event a huge success, but to see the facility in completion, I’m overwhelmed about what they’ve done and the improvements. It’s beautiful.”
The recruitment process started in February 2018 and Coppage said that even though there were hurdles to get over throughout the process, Nufarm always found a way to work together in getting over them.
“When you have an event like today and folks are here on the state level, on the federal level, and from the local community all coming together, it is an extremely big deal,” he said. “It was celebrated on all levels and that’s why it just exceeds all expectations.”
