Owner: Alan Letterman

Location: Marshfield, Mo.

History: “I grew up on a 400-acre dairy farm and really enjoyed it. Wished we could have stayed, but there just wasn’t any money in it,” Alan Letterman said.

Alan now lives on a 7-acre farm south of Marshfield and operates his business from there.

He got started with corn and soybean seed through a man he had met through tractor-pulling in Northern Missouri.

“He sells it and we got to talking and he asked if I’d be interested in selling some down here. So that’s how I got started in that,” Alan explained. “The mineral part of it was some guys at work. Kenneth Smith was going to retire and they were wanting somebody to take over the Vigortone business. I looked into it and checked it out and just started doing it two years ago. It is a little more expensive than the other brands, but in the long run they won’t eat as much of it. So it turns out to be about equal in price. You will get more value out of it.”

Alan works at Webster Electric Cooperative.

“I was looking at maybe a second income for retirement; something to do after I retire in a few years. Basically, something to do.”

Products: “We sell a long line of minerals for beef and dairy cattle for spring and fall. We have stuff for spring for the fescue endophyte toxicity,” Alan said. “There is a disease in the fescue in the spring, so they need a higher magnesium count. We have that. We have an IGR. It’s a fly control for the summer. We can add to it. We have just plain cattle mineral. We have a mineral for dairy cattle. We have a long line of horse mineral, sheep, goats and pigs.”

“On the other side of the seed corn and soybeans, we sell a large assortment of seed corn for growing, chopping and combining. Also with the soybeans, we have lots of different types of soybeans that we sell. We also have a very good milk replacer.”

Philosophy: “When Kenneth handed the business to me, he treated his customers very well. That is something I try to continue to do. I deliver it to them. Some come to the house and get it. I try to keep it on hand, so it’s available for them. I am a small business, so I can’t afford to have a lot of it here.

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