Pro Cooperative
Gilmore City, Iowa
Pro Cooperative has been a steadfast resource for farmers in north-central and northwestern Iowa since 1911. Headquartered in Pocahontas, Pro Coop serves producers in 12 counties nestled in between and above the Des Moines and Boone River watersheds. These watersheds are areas of focus in the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy and part of the ACWA water monitoring program, where the rivers and their tributaries are annually sampled for nitrate-N levels.
Although Pro Cooperative’s customers generally aren’t located in these targeted watersheds, the waterbodies in the areas the cooperative serve flow into the focused watersheds. Farm and land management in Pro Cooperative’s geographic areas affects their neighbors downstream.
In addition to agronomy, grain, livestock feed, and energy products, Pro Cooperative offers its customers nutrient management recommendations, nitrogen stabilizers, grid sampling, recommendations for variable rate applications for phosphorus and potassium, as well as cover crop seed. All of these contribute to improved soil health and the reduction of nutrients entering Iowa’s waterbodies. Pro Cooperative’s customers have increased using these conservation-minded tools over the last decade, which aligns favorably with the company’s membership in ACWA.
Pro Cooperative has been part of ACWA since the organization’s founding more than 20 years ago. The company strives to be proactive leaders for their customers before water quality improvement legislation is enacted. The Pro Cooperative staff helps ACWA achieve the organization’s goals by informing their customers about practices that can be done to protect water quality. It is important for Pro Cooperative to ensure their customers maintain productivity and profitability as well as help them implement conservation practices for healthy soil and cleaner water.