Grain firm Richardson Pioneer’s crop input retail business is expanding into an area of eastern Alberta its network hasn’t yet reached.

The company, an arm of Winnipeg-based agrifood firm Richardson International, closed a deal April 4 to buy Eagle Agro Services, an inputs dealer at Veteran, Alta., about 200 km east of Red Deer.

The family-owned Eagle Agro business “is a great addition to our network and we are pleased to welcome the employees to our team,” Richardson’s vice-president of agribusiness operations, Tom Hamilton, said in a release.

“Producers can be assured that they will be dealing with the same people at the location and we will build on the trust and level of service to which they have been accustomed.”

The deal for Eagle Agro, which has operated at Veteran since 2002, puts Richardson into “a new geography” in Alberta, he said.

“We look forward to building relationships with producers in the area and providing them with leading seed, fertilizer and crop protection technologies in addition to year-round support with our CropWatch agronomy team supported by our leading-edge CropMatrix platform.”

The CropMatrix platform, which Richardson rolled out in April last year, includes agronomic tools allowing farmer customers to “analyze and gain insights from production and yield data.”

Richardson Pioneer said at that time the new platform will allow it “to streamline the management of its field trials across the Prairies to get information out to customers quickly and efficiently.” — AGCanada.com Network