Kinze holding grain cart photo contest

Dec 10, 2021

The grand prize winner will meet Kinze founder Jon Kinzenbaw

By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com

A grain cart manufacturer is looking for photos of its oldest grain cart still in operation.

Kinze Manufacturing’s Oldest Grain Cart Contest encourages farmers with running Kinze grain carts to submit a photo of the cart along with the model number and serial number.

“We know there’s a lot of original grain carts out there being used today,” Susanne Kinzenbaw Veatch, president of Kinze Manufacturing and daughter of company founder Jon Kinzenbaw, told Farms.com. “It’s fun for us to see how many are out there and still in operation.”

Whomever submits the oldest grain cart entry will be declared the grand prize winner.

That person will have the opportunity to meet Jon Kinzenbaw, tour his private tractor collection, receive a signed copy of his book, “Fifty Years of Disruptive Innovation,” a $250 Kinze gift card and tours of the Kinze Innovation Center and factory in Williamsburg, Iowa.

Ten additional entries will receive a 1:32 scale grain cart signed by Jon Kinzenbaw and a $25 Kinze gift card.

The contest runs until the end of December and the winner will be announced in January.

Photos are coming in steadily, Kinzenbaw Veatch said.

“There’s a lot of excitement out there and farmers believe they have the oldest grain cart,” she said. “We’ve already got close to 70 entries and I imagine many more are going to come in. It’s been fun for us and for my dad to look at the pictures to see if he remembers the carts or the customers.”

The photo contest coincides with the 50^th anniversary of the grain cart, which Kinzenbaw Veatch’s father invented in 1971. He started the company six years earlier.

At the time, Kinzenbaw’s innovations for the grain cart were met with resistance, his daughter said.

“It had large flotation tires in order to haul grain from the combine to the truck,” she said. “He had a lot of opposition from people telling him they would never work, but it made the farmer very efficient and it caught on.”

Jon Kinzenbaw pulling grain cart
Jon Kinzenbaw with a Kinze 400 grain cart.
Kinze photo

Today, multiple equipment manufacturers offer grain carts with different features.

But they all were born out of the Kinze cart all those years ago.

“You see the carts now with tracks and other things, but everything came from the original concept my dad had,” Kinzenbaw Veatch said. “Our grain carts helped shape the industry.”

In addition to celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the grain cart, Kinze is also releasing a new cart.

The Harvest Commander 1121 dual auger grain cart is now available for order from Kinze dealers for the 2022 season.

It has a 1,100-bushel capacity, optional Camso tracks and a dump door cleanout for easy and quick crop changeover.

The new cart is modeled after the Kinze 1050.

“That was the first grain cart I learned to drive as a kid and it was a very popular model,” Kinzenbaw Veatch said. “So we’ve introduced the 1050 and added some enhancements to it to make it the Harvest Commander.”

Video: The Investment Opportunities of Industrial Hemp

The fledgling U.S. hemp industry is decades behind countries like Canada, France and China, but according to impact investor and this week’s podcast guest, Pierre Berard, it could flourish into a $2.2 billion industry by 2030 and create thousands of jobs.

To reach its potential, what the hemp industry needs most right now, Berard said, is capital investment.

Last month, Berard published a report titled “Seeing the U.S. Industrial Hemp Opportunity — A Pioneering Venture for Investors and Corporations Driven by Environmental, Social and Financial Concerns” in which he lays out the case for investment.

It’s as if Berard, with this report, is waving a giant flag, trying to attract the eyes of investors, saying, “Look over here. Look at all this opportunity.”

Berard likens the burgeoning American hemp industry to a developing country.

“There is no capital. People don’t want to finance. This is too risky. And I was like, OK, this sounds like something for me,” he said.

As an impact investor who manages funds specializing in agro-processing companies, Berard now has his sights set on the U.S. hemp industry, which he believes has great economic value as well as social and environmental benefits.

He spent many years developing investment in the agriculture infrastructure of developing countries in Latin America and Africa, and said the hemp industry feels similar.

“It is very nascent and it is a very fragmented sector. You have pioneers and trailblazers inventing or reinventing the field after 80 years of prohibition,” he said. “So I feel very familiar with this context.”

On this week’s hemp podcast, Berard talks about the report and the opportunities available to investors in the feed, fiber and food sectors of the hemp industry.

Building an industry around an agricultural commodity takes time, he said. According to the report, “The soybean industry took about 50 years to become firmly established, from the first USDA imports in 1898 to the U.S. being the top worldwide producer in the 1950s.”

Berard has a plan to accelerate the growth of the hemp industry and sees a four-pillar approach to attract investment.

First, he said, the foundation of the industry is the relationship between farmers and processors at the local level.

Second, he said the industry needs what he calls a “federating body” that will represent it, foster markets and innovations, and reduce risk for its members and investors.

The third pillar is “collaboration with corporations that aim to secure or diversify their supply chains with sustainable products and enhance their ESG credentials. This will be key to funding the industry and creating markets,” he said.

The fourth pillar is investment. Lots of it. Over $1.6 billion over seven years. This money will come from government, corporations, individual investors, and philanthropic donors.

The 75-page report goes into detail about the hemp industry, its environmental and social impact, and the opportunities available to investors.

Read the report here: Seeing the U.S. Industrial Hemp Opportunity

Also on this episode, we check in with hemp and bison farmer Herb Grove from Brush Mountain Bison in Centre County, PA, where he grew 50 acres of hemp grain. We’ll hear about harvest and dry down and crushing the seed for oil and cake.