Column: Predicting Farmland’s next move is tricky business
Published 12:00 am Saturday, March 16, 2002
Every once in a while, I get an e-mail or a phone call about Farmland.
Saturday, March 16, 2002
Every once in a while, I get an e-mail or a phone call about Farmland. It’s usually somebody who doesn’t live around here, but who is interested in the company’s fate somehow. Sometimes, they are former employees, sometimes they are workers at another Farmland plant, and sometimes they are industry analysts or other journalists trying to get a handle on the plant’s situation.
They call me because they’re hoping I can give them an update, or some shred of inside information that help them surmise what’s going on.
I don’t mind their calls; it’s a nice reminder me that a lot of people are watching, waiting and wondering what’s going to happen. But if I step back and think about it, I wonder: Why do they call me?
Because, even though I know nothing about what Farmland execs are thinking and saying right now, I’m a better source of information than the company brass. That’s because I will talk and Farmland won’t.
As we all know, Farmland has been tight-lipped on the subject since day one. This has frustrated the community, the media and, more importantly, the employees themselves, who are trying to decide whether to roll the dice by waiting for the plant to reopen, start a new career in Freeborn County or hit the road and start fresh. More than half the employees have already chosen one of the last two options.
I don’t know the reasons Farmland won’t say much, although it’s probably because they aren’t sure themselves what is going to happen. While I would criticize their public-relations strategy – near-silence is never better than frank, straight talk – I think their worst offense was the things they did say.
First, they said they would give us a decision by October. That seemed reasonable. It gave them a few months to assess the damage and weigh the benefits of rebuilding or calling it quits in Albert Lea. The city had its offer on the table before the October deadline came and went, and since has been waiting for word.
Starting in October, our reporter called them every day. Every day he got a similar answer. Finally, one day at the start of November, they said &uot;maybe next week.&uot;
&uot;Next week&uot; came and went. No word.
Then it was the holiday season. Surely they couldn’t make an announcement then; maybe after the holidays. Then somebody said mid-February.
Now it’s mid-March. Everything Farmland has said with respect to the timing of their decision has turned out to be false.
This is probably not intentional. They probably underestimated how long it would take. That’s understandable. But why, then, after earlier estimates failed, would you continue to issue new forecasts? Just to get people off your back? If they don’t know, they don’t have to guess; they can say &uot;We don’t know.&uot;
In the vacuum created by the lack of credible information from Farmland, the rumor mill has started churning, cranking out a new one seemingly every week. We have heard so many false alarms about forthcoming announcements that I can’t remember them all. I’ve heard fourth- or fifth-hand that some employee in Carroll, Iowa was told to get ready to move back to Albert Lea. I’ve been told that Farmland was not going to rebuild at all. I got a call this week from somebody asking if it’s true that the company is already preparing to move earth on its new site. As far as I know, none of these things are true.
I can tell you what I do know: It appears at this moment that a lot hinges on what happens in St. Paul. A couple of bills in the legislature would make building a new plant a lot easier. One provides an unprecedented tax-increment financing arrangement where extra tax money generated from the new site could be used to clean up the old eyesore on Main Street. Another exempts their construction materials from sales tax.
We know this for a fact: Farmland has hired a lobbyist to see that these things get done. I figure they wouldn’t do that unless they were planning to rebuild here, and were looking to get the best deal possible. Maybe those bills will pass and we’ll find out soon what the company plans to do.
Or maybe not. I’ve learned that making predictions about what’s going to happen is dangerous business.