By JULIE CARLE
BG Independent News
GRAND RAPIDS, Ohio—Fifty years ago, the Weaver Field Seed Company, started by Orlie Weaver on the Wood-Henry County Line Road, was acquired by and began operating under the Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc.’s Peterson Soybean Seed Division.
At the time, gasoline was 54 cents a gallon. A tractor cost between $4,000 and $12,000. The popular Ford F150 pickup truck was $4,500.
Also in 1975, Bill Gates had just started Microsoft, Jaws was the No. 1 movie in theaters and Saturday Night Live and Wheel of Fortune aired for the first time.
Prices and popular culture have changed over those 50 years, as have the company names, technologies and production quantities of the Grand Rapids seed company. What hasn’t changed are quality of the people and teams that have made the facility successful over five decades.
On June 12, the company, known as Corteva Agriscience since 2019, honored the spectrum of people who have helped the Grand Rapids seed production plant reach its golden anniversary.
“Today is about recognizing the people that make this place work and who contribute to the success of this facility,” said Scott Millikan, plant manager of Corteva’s Grand Rapids facility. “We want to recognize our community members, employees, contract seed growers, truck drivers and customers.”
The current 63 full-time employees were thanked along with an additional 30 agency workers who work seasonally and “how we are able to get our work done,” Millikan said
Millikan also thanked the local EMS, fire and first responders that the plant depends on during emergencies.
To the people who worked at the plan and then moved on or retired, Millikan said, “The good, hard work, the customer dedication and the can-do spirit didn’t start when we started. You started that environment with that kind of work ethic. We’re just trying to follow suit.”
He called out retiree John Drewes and soon-to-retire Kurt Kistner for their dedication and dependability for nearly 50 years of service.
And to the people “we are serving by what we do here at the Grand Rapids plant,” Millikan thanked the Corteva and Pioneer customers.
“We appreciate you choosing Pioneer and Corteva every year on your farms,” he said. It’s because of you that we have lasted 50 years and hopefully it’s because of you that we last another 50 years and get to do this again.”
The contract carriers are the “unsung heroes,” he said. “They are the ones who make us look like champs or chunks. They are critical in the relationship we have with our reps and customers.:
Summing up what the seed plant does, Millikan said, “You take these research folks who are really smart; they develop a great product and make a tiny little pile of it. They hand us that little pile, and we make it a big pile. Then it goes to sales, and they distribute that to the farmers. And then we bring in our crop protection folks, who make sure your fields are clean and your plants stay healthy throughout the season.”
The contract growers “are what keeps this place running,” Millikan said. “We need their soybeans and wheat to come in for us to do any of the things that we do here. They continually amaze me, year after year, especially given all of Mother Nature’s curveballs” such as this season’s rainy weather.
Of the contingent of growers who live in the area, five farms have provided seed to the plant for all 50 years. Recognized during the ceremony were Dave and Dick Flowers of Flowers Brothers Farms, Tom and Eric Flowers of another Flowers Brothers Farms, Penland Farms of Tiffin, Dave Kistner of Kistner Farms in McClure and Perrysburg (started by Don and Carl Kistner), and Bill Suter of Maple Drive Farms of Pandora.
Suter was just starting to farm with his father Dwight when they signed on to grow seed for then Peterson Seed before it became Pioneer.
“It’s been a good relationship even with a lot of personnel changes over the years,” he said. “Change is inevitable, but the companies have made it pretty seamless.”
Mark Deterding, vice president of global seed operations at Corteva, acknowledged mergers—like when Pioneer merged with Corteva—bring a lot of people and ideas together.
“We dreamt about what we would become, because we wanted to be a true independent ag-focused company focused on customers and providing the best value for the farm,” Deterding said.
Grand Rapids is part of a global network of 65 production sites—37 in North America—that are in the supply chain to get seed to farmers around the world.
“What Scott (Millikan) and the team here do every day to support farmers, our seed growers and to support our employees is unprecedented,” Deterding said.
Corteva is making significant investments in the company including improvements at the Grand Rapids site. Companywide, Corteva has spent $150 million with technology to improve the quality and appearance of germination of soybeans and the facilities for the soybean product line, Deterding said. At Grand Rapids, they have invested $20 million to improve fire and safety measures and add the True Bulk system to effect efficiencies that will ultimately improve seed quality, he said.
Making sure that employees return home safely every day has been a focus of Corteva since the merger. With a concerted effort and a change in the safety messaging to reduce injuries, Deterding said the company’s reported injuries from falls, forklift accidents and other power equipment incidents are down 40%.
“We certainly appreciate the investment in our facility,” Millikan said. “There’s only so much capital to go around, so we’re very happy to have received that capital, and we’ll do the best we can with it.”
“We produce between 70 and 75 million units of seed for our customers every year,” said Matt Kurtz, senior director for seed production and supply chain in North America. “It is a big number, but it’s a privilege to be able to serve customers and go back and ask for that business year in year out.”
Product performance for corn and soybean “has been stellar,” he said. “We have exciting innovations coming” for hybrid wheat, biofuel and other opportunities.
Grand Rapids seed plant progress outlined
Orlie Weaver founded Weaver Field Seed Company at the current location In 1937 and ran it for 39 years before it was acquired by Peterson Soybean Seeds and then sold to Pioneer.
Pioneer purchased the plant when it decided to get into the soybean market. For the first year, the seeds were sold under the Peterson brand, but by the next year, “the seeds were planted as Peterson and harvested as Pioneer,” Millikan said.
The first growing plan was to raise 4,500 acres of seed under the plant leadership of Barry Grant.
As production increased, the plant added warehouses to increase capacity over the years. In 2025, more than 61,000 acres of soybeans are contracted.
The latest addition is for raw seed storage. In the past, the facility had about 60,000 bushels of storage. Farmers would produce seed and put it in their bins and the plant would call them to bring it in, not always at convenient times. With the addition, storage capacity will double “to have much more seed on hand that will sustain us through weather events or weekends,” he explained.
Corteva is also implementing the True Bulk system that will be part of the Grand Rapids plant— one of seven across North America. The system will minimize handling of the seed, which will improve the quality of the seed and cut down on the forklift traffic to reduce the risk of injuries.
Corteva will celebrate another anniversary in 2026 when Pioneer Hybrid marks 100 years since Henry Wallace started the Pioneer Seed Company in Iowa.
