FALL 2025
Jeremy Wilhelm, Chief Executive Officer
Clint Bornemeier, Frontier Board of Directors
Rachel Niemann, Marketing Brand Manager
Alaina Agnew, Marketing Intern
Seth Huenink, Business Development Manager
John McNamara, Seed Technical Advisor
Trent Bohling, Grain Marketing Advisor Manager
Jeremy Wilhelm
Every year brings new challenges and new opportunities. This year, we were disappointed in fertilizer prices compared to the commodity prices of corn and soybeans. This will undeniably create cash flow concerns going into 2026. To offset this gap, we put together some very competitive financing offers for seed, chemicals and fertilizer. As a steward of your cooperative, we are also looking at needs versus wants to ensure that our balance sheet remains strong. We are confident in the diversity of our cooperative across the grain, agronomy, energy and feed sectors, and our wide footprint across eastern Nebraska also helps with our stability. This strength of the cooperative system is largely why we have been in business for 110 years and counting.
We ended our 2025 fiscal year August 31, 2025, and every year we look forward to making harvest plans. Our goal is always to empty our grain facilities as well as we can before combines start rolling, although September saw a surge of deliveries at many of our locations as farmers looked to empty bins on the farm. Harvest started at a trickle in the first week of September, and it appears that we are going to have an above average crop for corn and soybeans. Stalk quality — as we get to the back half of harvest — will be a concern and Southern Rust took the top end off some of the corn.
County fair season was busy and successful for many of our employees in various capacities this year. Our employees participated in 14 parades, contributed to livestock auctions, and volunteered at many of the county fairs within our footprint. Supporting county fairs is part of our mission of giving back to the communities that have supported Frontier Cooperative over the years. We continue to focus our giving in time, talent and funds to youth in agriculture, agriculture education and agriculture safety. Investing in these areas is not only an investment in the future of our business, but also the future of agriculture in Nebraska.
Our cooperative is strong and well-positioned heading into 2026. We continue to work through the inflationary pressures of higher repair costs, insurance costs and interest costs. At the same time, we are growing appropriately to support our farmer-owners, with finishing touches going in on a grain storage expansion project in Elk Creek and a dry fertilizer shed expansion project in Syracuse.
Rest assured we are ready to support you through the challenges and opportunities that may come your way in 2026. Thank you for your business – we wish you a safe and prosperous finish to harvest.
Clinton (Clint) Bornemeier was born and raised in Elmwood, Nebraska. He attended Elmwood Murdock Public Schools and furthered his education at Northwest Missouri State University and majored in Agronomy and Agricultural Business. He was hired by Winfield United as a Sales Associate before graduation. Prior to graduation, he decided to return to the family farm where he and his brother started a land improvement business Agri-Builders, LLC. He now manages his family farm with his dad, Danny, and brother, Tanner. Clint is happily married to his wife, Monica, and they reside in Murdock, Nebraska.
Clint manages his family’s farm with his dad, Danny, and brother, Tanner.
Clint joined the Frontier Cooperative Board of Directors with the desire to serve an entity that builds and maintains equity while serving its patrons through its services. He believes that equity is leverage and one of the biggest advantages producers have in an economic climate that doesn’t provide many advantages. Clint knows the cooperative model can use that leverage to help create opportunities for producers — ones they might not be able to achieve independently.
The board at Frontier Cooperative is focused on making equitable decisions and leveraging itself into opportunities that will serve its member owners now and for generations to come. He challenges all patrons to take ownership of the value that Frontier has provided to them and remember this organization was built to serve you.
Clint and his brother started a land improvement business called Agri-Builders, LLC.
“We love camping and going to the lake during the summertime and in the wintertime after harvest, I like to deer hunt.”
“To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”
– St. Thomas Aquinas
Rachel Niemann, Marketing Brand Manager
This morning, I started my week like usual — standing at the Dwight Frontier fuel pump 3.5 blocks from my house (for those of you counting), filling up my tank before heading out for the day.
In a town of just 200 people, I have a place to fuel up because Frontier Cooperative made an investment here. Not just in tanks and pumps, but in a community.
And that’s what this article is really about: the power of local cooperatives to invest in rural communities in ways that truly matter — sometimes in quiet ways that you might miss if you’re not looking closely.
The cooperative model is designed to return value to the people who create it. When our member-owners succeed, their cooperative reinvests those dollars right back into their communities — whether that’s through improved agronomy services, better facilities, or something as everyday (and essential) as a local fuel pump.
At Frontier, we believe our communities deserve access to quality infrastructure and services. Because when we invest in places like Dwight, we’re not just providing convenience — we’re providing confidence in our local communities.
That’s also why we’re investing in Elk Creek. This year, Frontier completed construction of a new grain bin that quadruples storage capacity at the site. Alongside that bin, we added a second leg that moves grain at 20,000 bushels per hour — up from the old 12,500 bushels per hour system. The result? Farmers can unload faster, spend less time waiting in line, and get back to what they do best: feeding the world.
Frontier Cooperative in Dwight, Nebraska
Operations employees at the Elk Creek location unload the first load of corn into the new grain bin built this year.
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” Cooperatives are not just businesses. They are commitments — To people, to places, and to shared success.
This isn’t just a steel bin or a faster leg. It’s a signal that we believe in Elk Creek, in the farmers who haul their grain there, and in the community that relies on agriculture to thrive.
Agriculture is full of uncertainty, but cooperatives help bring steadiness and support—through expertise, infrastructure, logistics, and community-minded service. Whether it’s helping farmers manage risk or providing long-term investments, we’re in it for the long haul.
And that long view matters. Without intentional investment, the things we take for granted — like fuel in Dwight or grain handling in Elk Creek — can quietly disappear.
Cooperatives are not just businesses. They are commitments — to people, to places, and to shared success. When co-ops like Frontier invest locally, we aren’t just supporting agriculture — we’re supporting schools, main streets, ball fields, and communities.
As I pushed the fuel door closed this morning, it reminded me of something simple but profound: these places matter.
And at Frontier Cooperative, we’ll keep showing up — for our members, for our neighbors, and for the future of the local communities that we serve.
Alaina Agnew, Marketing Intern
Growing up, I watched my mom — through her work with the Nebraska FFA Foundation — help students discover their place in agriculture. That early influence sparked my own passion for applying my skills in marketing to an industry that sustains and strengthens local communities.
This passion led me to the marketing internship at Frontier Cooperative —an experience that helped me grow professionally and deepened my connection to Nebraska’s agricultural community.
As an intern at Frontier this summer, I quickly learned that agricultural marketing is more than designing visuals or posting quick updates on social media. It’s about sharing the stories of the people who keep Nebraska growing and resilient.
The interns participated in a service day, completing improvement projects at the Otoe County Fair.
Alaina’s final project was a video series highlighting members of Frontier leadership as they stepped into operations roles for a day.
Alaina honed her photography skills this summer as the Frontier Cooperative marketing intern.
One of my favorite experiences was producing my final project, the Leaders in the Field video series. It allowed me to meet employees across departments and see firsthand how every role contributes to Frontier’s mission. Creating those videos not only built my skills in storytelling and project management, but also helped me form meaningful relationships across the company.
Over the summer, I refined my abilities in design, analytics, and project planning while gaining a deeper appreciation for Frontier’s core values: do the right thing, create opportunities, support the Frontier family, better our best, and make a difference. The team not only welcomed me, but also trusted me to make meaningful contributions. I’m especially grateful to Rachel Niemann for being an outstanding mentor and role model.
This summer internship proved that marketing can be a powerful way to support agriculture and the communities I care about. Frontier transformed an early spark of inspiration into a clear direction for my career, showing me how authentic storytelling can help sustain the future of rural Nebraska.
Seth Huenink, Business Development Manager
It’s a new year with a new set of challenges, but history has taught us that even in the darkest of times, there is opportunity. There are things we can control and things we cannot. We always have choices, and one of the most powerful tools that shapes how we make decisions is a solid business plan.
Business planning is what the Ultimate Acre System is all about — placing focus on maximizing ROI and lowering stress by reducing reactivity and focusing on things we can control.
The best time to make decisions is when logic is highest and when emotions are lowest. Usually, logic drives decision making when thinking ahead. The closer we get to the execution time of unmade decisions, the higher our emotions, which increases the chances of making a reactive decision.
It’s easy to lose sight of your “why” when facing market pressures, weather challenges, and outside circumstances. Farming is an emotional business and making decisions on the fly is a proven recipe for the worst outcome.
Unearthing your “whys” through business plan creation pays dividends. And getting paid dividends is something that should excite anyone in a descending year just as much as an ascending year. Revealing what moves the mark and what doesn’t is always good.
Early planning is one of the cornerstones of the Ultimate Acre System. Farm plans vary greatly from operation to operation, but the key component of a good farm plan is to take a thorough, holistic, non-emotional look at every area of execution for the upcoming year. It’s also critical to work alongside a trusted advisor, someone who can assist in providing an objective look at what works best for your operation.
The first step toward building a solid business plan is to start the conversation. Reach out to a Frontier advisor—someone who understands your operation and can help guide you through a customized, objective planning process that sets you up for success.
Business planning is what the Ultimate Acre System is all about––placing focus on maximizing ROI and lowering stress by reducing reactivity and focusing on things we can control.
Yield is important when evaluating crop performance, but it’s also vital to evaluate the entire genetic package and how well it withstood challenges across multiple seasons.
John McNamara, Seed Technical Advisor
Agronomically, every growing season comes with its unique sets of challenges and rewards. 2025 has certainly been no different. Sometimes, we tend to focus our year-end evaluations of success based on things that are beyond our control. Usually, weather and grain markets play a role in this process.
A dry planting season accelerated planting to an earlier-than-normal completion. Lack of soil moisture was all we talked about at planting – and then the rains came. Timely moisture provided fuel for vigorous early growth. Heat indexes in the 115-120 range, a wetter-than-average summer in many (but not all) locations, hurricane force winds on August 9th, 6-8” local downpours over Labor Day and unprecedented levels of foliar corn diseases have all played a role in taxing our management strategies. The reward? Many areas are on track to harvest a high-yield crop in eastern Nebraska despite everything that took place this growing season.
There are always a few things we learn in years like this one, and one of those is to NEVER give up on a crop. As we progress through harvest, evaluate this year’s performance, rather than just yield. Don’t get us wrong, yield is important, but it is very hard to rate corn and soybean genetics and management decisions based on one year’s yield performance. Consider multiple years’ data and the total agronomic package your current genetic and management strategy offered you this past season. Were you satisfied with your crop emergence, ability to handle weather extremes, disease tolerance, etc.? If you are satisfied with many of these aspects of the genetic packages you are planting, you should also be pleased with its yield. We must face the fact that the weather plays a very large role in the final product of how genetics perform.
Unfortunately, grain markets have not been supportive of many things we would suggest as an agronomic input. As we “sharpen the pencil” and progress into planning the next crop while we harvest the current one, let us help you focus on what we can manage to maintain your profitability.
Let’s start planning for 2026. Contact your local Frontier Ag Advisor to get started.
Trent Bohling, Grain Marketing Advisor Manager
The marketing timeline for the 2025 crop year has not given us the opportunity we expected. For the first time in the modern era of crop insurance and its spring price discovery timelines, the December corn contract did not trade above the February average before harvest. While this fact provides an example of the challenges for marketing this crop, it does not provide an immediate solution.
Early season drought, late season disease, trade uncertainty and domestic demand conversations each deserve their own thesis for this year, as do other factors. Cash flow and utilizing that cash flow to the best of our abilities to capture input discounts, manage interest expenses, and pre-plan the 2026 crop year is increasingly important in this margin environment. Utilizing minimumprice contracts for unpriced bushels that cannot be stored on farms has been common.
Learning from 2025 marketing struggles, forward marketing the 2026 crop when opportunities present themselves is critical. Marketing only gets more expensive each day after a crop is harvested––whether that is on farm or in commercial storage. Creating a holistic, systemsbased approach that utilizes marketing tools such as average price, minimum price, and cash offer targets greatly improves the chances of nailing those base hits that are important in consistent profitability.
Learning from 2025 marketing struggles, forward marketing the 2026 crop when opportunities present themselves is critical.
Each marketer has their strengths and weaknesses. I’m not here to introduce a one-size-fits-all approach. There isn’t one. Do you enjoy growing the crop over marketing it? Many do, and it may be best to use cash offer (target) contracts throughout the year. Do you enjoy watching the intricacies of basis and spreads and have farm storage to capture them? Then hedging or hedge-to-arrives may fit that style. Do you enjoy watching delta/theta values? You would be in the minority, but then advanced option marketing may fit you very well!
My point is simple: find your comfort zone and let your Frontier Grain Market Advisor assist in your individualized plan that caters to your strengths.
We hope you have a prosperous and safe harvest, and we look forward to helping you market your grain for 2025 and beyond!
