Ag Innovation Campus Board announced that the operations of the Ag Innovation Campus (AIC) processing plant, in Crookston, Minnesota — which included a soybean crushing facility — has come to an end after one year.
The plant was damaged by a fire in the bean conditioning system in August. The soybean crush facility had the capacity to crush more than 60,000 tons of soybean meal annually while creating up to 60 jobs.
The company says the vision and mission were to serve as an incubator for agricultural innovations with the goal of fostering new and novel products, creating jobs and increasing the value of agriculture in the region, state and nation.
Funding for the AIC came, in large part, from loans advanced by Ag Country Farm Services, as well as investments from private entities and grants from various institutions. The project also received about $5 million in state funds following a push by the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association in 2019.
To assist the lenders, AIC has made an Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors, which will allow secured parties and others to which AIC owes an obligation to recover their funding to the extent possible. The Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors has put in place an assignee or receiver who will now be responsible for collecting and distributing proceeds from the sale of the AIC assets.