A2O-Lancastar Farming, Saturday, Saptambar 20,1986
Farmer Opens Grain Warehouse In Northampton
BY ED SHAMY
Northampton Co. Correspondent
NORTHAMPTON A natural
limestone deposit that cuts across
Northampton County’s midsection
led to the creation of one of the
nation’s most concentrated, and
oldest, groups of cement plants.
But before there was cement,
there was farming, and so it
seemed appropriate that farmers
and agricultural leaders gathered
last week at a former cement
factory to rechristen the massive
plant as a grain storage
warehouse. <
David Fink, 35, of Germansville,
Lehigh County, masterminded the
Atlas Grain Corp. venture after
attending a marketing seminar
sponsored last fall by the Penn
sylvania Farmers’ Association.
It hit home then that farmers in
Lehigh and Northampton counties
often struggle to sell their
products, and often end up hauling
commodities long distances to sell,
said Fink.
Fink cultivates 800 acres of hay,
and exports some of it to Carib
bean nations. He knows the im
portance of markets, and of selling
to the right place at the right time.
He began to search for a location
where grain could be stored while
farmers lined up their best deals
after harvest, and he was attracted
to the Atlas Cement Co. plant
between Northampton and Bath.
The plant was huge, that was
easily seen by the towering con
crete silos that rose above the
treetops. It was accessible, just off
Route 329 with a railroad track
cutting through the property. And
it was near the border of Nor
thampton and Lehigh counties.
Fink pitched the idea to in
vestors and sold stock in the
corporation. He struck a lease with
Frank Horwith, who owns the
former cement plant, that gives
Atlas Grain 20 years in the
location, access to a large truck
scale and to a rail spur and Hor
with’s locomotive to shuttle bet
ween the storage bins and Conrail
tracks nearby.
In June, workers descended into
the bins, sandblasting, chipping
and scraping the residue of 80
years of cement production from
the walls. The Atlas Cement plant
last operated in 1982, but it once
supplied all of the cement used in
the construction of the Panama
Canal. There was plenty of history
to chisel off the inner walls of the
100-foot-high bins.'
Two of the bins are done, and
Fink and his plant manager Dave
Jackson expect to open next week
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717-867-5222
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with an 80,000-bushel capacity.
When they finish their work, the
corporation will be able to hold 1.5
million bushels of grain. It will be a
government-approved warehouse,
the only such facility within miles.
Area farmers now must drive to
other parts of Pennsylvania or into
Maryland when they deliver grains
for the federal government’s
commodity loans. Corn, wheat,
oats and soybeans will be stored at
Atlas Grain, according to Fink.
An official from the govern
ment’s Commodity Credit Corp. is
expected to make one last in
spection once the final electrical
hookups between conveyors, bins
and augers have been made next
week.
Atlas Grain Corp. will then open
for business, just in time for the
harvest of ear corn in the area.
Pennsylvania Secretary of
Agriculture Richard Grubb
commended Fink during an
opening ceremony for making the
investment that could open new
markets to grain farmers in east
central Pennsylvania.
“All industries have cycles,”
said Grubb. “We are certainly at a
low point in our cycle.”
But shrewd investors know that
the low points are the best time to
invest, because inevitable upturns
in the agricultural or industrial
economies can, in hindsight, make
the ventures successful, said
Grubb.
Grubb said Fink’s venture
should send a signal to other in
vestors not to write off Penn
sylvania’s largest industry.
Farming, he said, will again enjoy
good health.
Indeed, Atlas Grain Corp. has
already drawn attention from a
wide variety ’of sources.
Agricultural Stabilization and
Conservation Service offices in
Lehigh and Northampton counties,
which dispatch loads of govern
ment-purchased grains, are well
aware that the CCC is eyeing the
new firm as a warehouse.
The USDA reimburses farmers
part of the freight costs for hauling
grain purchased by the CCC to
distant warehouses. A local grain
bin could save thousands of dollars
in transportation costs annually.
Conrail has helped, putting Fink
in touch with Keystone Food
Products Inc. of Palmer Township,
Northampton County, a snack food
manufacturer and coordinating
the rail shipment of a carload of
food corn from Illinois for the
company.
Greg Solt, Northampton
County’s agricultural extension
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tailgates
★ Any size grain chute
agent, has been participating in
talks with two of his counterparts
in New Jersey to see if Atlas Grain
can act as a conduit for grain
exports through the Salem, N.J.
port.
Solt and extension agents
Everett Chamberlain of Warren
County, N.J. and David Lee of
Salem County, N.J. have been
courting potential buyers in Spain
and in Egypt.
The agents feel grains from the
two states could be shipped out of
Salem’s fledgling port, just off the
Delaware Bay across from New
Castle, Del.
Solt said the foreign purchasers
were given a tour of the new grain
Van Buskirk Honored For
Role In Avian Flu Outbreak
HARRISBURG - Dr. Max A.
Van Buskirk, Jr., director of the
Pennsylvania Agriculture
Department’s Bureau of Animal
Industry, has received the 1986
Honor Award for Service from the
National Association of State
Departments of Agriculture
(NASDA).
Van Buskirk was an in
strumental figure in the
eradication of an avian influenza
outbreak that threatened the
poultry industries of Pennsylvania
and the United States in 1983-84,
and in preventing another such
crisis in 1986.
He was nominated by Penn
sylvania Agriculture Secretary
Richard E. Grubb for his “con
tributions to the livestock industry
of Pennsylvania, and in particular,
the poultry industries of Penn
sylvania and the United States.”
An independent panel of judges
selected Van Buskirk for the
award, presented to him at a
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warehouse and of the port, and
have returned to their countries to
weigh their options.
He said cooperative extension
workers must turn their focus to
help operations like Atlas Grain.
“We’ve been teaching people to
grow things for years,” Solt said.
“It’s got to the point where we
have to teach them how to sell. ’ ’
According to Solt, the success of
the Atlas Grain and Salem port
experiment depends to a large
extent on how inexpensively grains
can be shipped from the Midwest,
down the Mississippi, to Port New
Orleans.
If Pennsylvania and New Jersey
growers can get their grains to
ceremony Sept. 16 at the NASDA
annual meeting in Chicago.
“His selection underscores the
significance of the contributions he
has made in preserving the well
being of Pennsylvania’s |2.3 billion
livestock and poultry industries,”
Grubb commented.
As head of the Bureau of Animal
Industry, Van Buskirk played a
leading role in the state-federal
task force that curtailed a severe
outbreak of highly pathogenic
avian influenza in Pennsylvania
poultry in 1983-84. The epidemic
cost the state’s poultry industry
more than $lOO million.
Van Buskirk subsequently
established an avian influenza
surveillance program that resulted
in immediate detection of the virus
when it emerged again in 1986. He
directed a control program that
limited its spread to 14 flocks and
eradicated the disease from
Pennsylvania poultry within two
months.
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Salem cheaper than those in the
Midwest can get theirs to New
Orleans, and can pass that savingi
abroad, they may find themselvei
at no loss for buyers.
Fink expects to spend about half
his time running Atlas Grain, with
Jackson in charge of the day-to
day operation. Sonia Fink, David’s
wife, serves as the secretary and
treasurer of the corporation.
Fink admits he has had his
nervous moments preparing for
the Atlas Grain operation, but
calms himself with the thought
that he has more at stake finan
cially in running his farm.
And he seems to have done a
good job at that.
His invitation to be a principal in
the Second International Sym
posium on Avian Influenza, held
recently in Athens, GA, is in
dicative of the high regard his
leadership during the outbreaks
has earned him.
Also during Van Buskirk’s
tenure as director, the Bureau
eradicated bovine brucellosis in
1983 and bovine tuberculosis in
1984. It has conducted a pilot
project with the U.S. Department
of Agriculture since 1984 to
eradicate pseudorabies, a viral
disease in swine.
Van Buskirk attended Bucknell
University and received his degree
in veterinary medicine from the
University of Pennsylvania in 1956.
He practiced veterinary
medicine and owned and operated
the Lewisburg Veterinary Hospital
from 1968 until his appointment as
head of the Bureau of Animal
Industry in 1980.
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