Salford has purchased Manitoba’s Valmar Airflo.
The southern Ontario based company has made inroads into the prairie market in recent years with air seeding and vertical tillage equipment. It has also introduced its more aggressive tillage tools to Western Canada.
This week, the company announced the purchase of Valmar, a well-known short-line machinery maker.
Valmar’s granular and fertilizer applicators have been well-known since the late 1970s, when dry herbicide products such as Avadex became popular.
The equipment is used in larger-scale fertilizer spreading, inter-row seeding, grass and small seeded forage applications, canola planting with harrow bars and the growing cover-crop trend in the United States.
Air driven product delivery with precision metering is the basis of the Valmar lineup and was one of agriculture innovations created by Charlie Balmer, a short-line manufacturer from southern Manitoba.
Both companies share a similar story: mechanically inclined European immigrants from farms received agriculture degrees and came to Canada as young men, where they began working as mechanics but eventually started designing and building farm machinery. Both started their businesses from small shops in the late 1970s.
Balmer was also known for Ag Chem, LOR*AL and Willmar products, including high clearance sprayers, which are still manufactured under license.
Read Also
Draft ‘MAHA’ commission report avoids pesticide crackdown feared by farm groups
The White House will not impose new guardrails on the farm industry’s use of pesticides as part of a strategy to address children’s health outcomes, according to a draft obtained by Reuters of a widely anticipated report from President Donald Trump’s ‘Make America Healthy Again’ commission.
Jake Rozendaal began his business in Salford, Ont., building cultivators, plows and V-box manure spreaders.
Salford has expanded to Osceola, Iowa, and Omsk, Russia, and is now owned by GenNx360 Capital Partners, a private equity firm focused on agriculture and industrial business-to-business companies.
Valmar’s operations are located in Elie, Man., and Salford officials say it plans to expand that business in the southern Manitoba location.
The new combined company will carry a lineup that includes tillage and vertical tillage tools, air seeders, commodity carts, cover crop seeders, spinner-type fertilizer spreaders, air-booms and granular applicators for fertilizer, insecticide, seed, legume inoculant and forage preservatives for baling and silaging.
Goef Gray, who heads the Salford business, said the combined company is well-positioned to provide complete seeding and tillage lineups for producers on a global basis.
Mercedes Caron of Valmar agreed, saying the expanded reach internationally that Salford brings to the prairie company will allow Valmar opportunities in more places and for more farmers.
Contact michael.raine@producer.com
