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In the past couple of years, local farmers got together and invested a large sum of money to build the state-of-the-art ethanol plant.
A number of sites in the five-county area were studied to identify a possible location. The farmer investors were looking for available land with access to a railroad spur. The chosen site is next to the spur and there weren’t any secrets about building in the Sparta area.
Hormel, which is Century Foods, did not want the land on request nor did it seem to care when they were approached. The railroad spur does not belong to Hormel. It was built many years ago for input and output for local people’s products from the county.
Many of us farmers are descendants of settlers from the 1800s who built roads and railroads, and cleared the land which, in turn, built the cities. Farmers are true stewards of the land.
Some of the things that have come out in the news media as well as some things stated from the people called friends of Sparta are untrue and had somewhat of a nasty reflection on local farmers.
The local farmers still have a lot of pride in the city of Sparta. We continue to be proud of our heritage and our future, and this ethanol plant is part of who we are.
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