Harvest 2026 will be the last under CHS Inc. for three grain elevators in Minnesota. The company said on Monday, 19 October, that it is selling its elevators at Kasson, Ostrander and Wykoff, along with the Claremont elevator it has already closed, through a sealed-bid auction, DTN reported.
CHS said in June that it would either close or sell the Kasson, Ostrander and Wykoff sites. It will keep accepting grain at all three through harvest. Bids for the four elevators are due by 19 November 2026, and the auction is being run by Maas Companies Inc. of Rochester, Minnesota. CHS is also selling two commercial properties, in Dodge Center and Ostrander.
Together the four sites hold about 7.5 million bushels of grain storage. Kasson is the largest, with about 3.5 million bushels of combined storage, a self-serve fuel station, an office, a scale and leased warehouses that bring in rent. Ostrander has about 2.2 million bushels, and Wykoff about 1.4 million, each with an office and a scale. Claremont holds about 584,000 bushels and comes with a sale and leaseback of its office and scale to CHS for two years, with an option to renew for two more.
The sale follows a difficult year for the company. CHS reported a second-quarter net loss of $147.1 million earlier this year, 95 percent larger than the $75.8 million loss a year before. In 2025 it closed a large grain terminal at the Port of Duluth-Superior and an elevator in Superior, Wisconsin, according to media reports.
CHS has also been investing elsewhere: it finished a new grain storage and handling facility in Worthing, South Dakota, in July 2025, and its 2025 annual report said grain handling would expand in Kindred and Lansford, North Dakota, and Warren, Minnesota. In April 2024 it announced plans to buy eight Cargill grain facilities in five states, adding about 15.5 million bushels of storage.
For farmers around the four towns, the question after this harvest is who will run the storage. CHS said it will stay in the region, selling agronomy and energy products and services to producers there.
Photo: AlexiusHoratius / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Source: DTN / Progressive Farmer
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