Arden Hills, Minn.-Land O’Lakes Inc. reported an 83 percent increase in net earnings for the year ending Dec. 31, 2007, to $162.1 million on sales of $8.9 billion versus 2006’s $88.7 million and $7.1 billion. LOL reported improved performances nearly across the board in all businesses. LOL’s agronomy business reported $13.6 million in pretax earnings for the year, up from $11.8 million in 2006. Those earnings were generated by LOL’s stake in Agriliance LLC. For the fourth quarter, the restructured agronomy business (in its off season) reported a pretax loss of $35.6 million versus a year-ago $16.3 million loss. Those losses include one-time losses related to Agriliance’s repositioning. LOL reported $287 million in crop protection sales through Winfield Solutions LLC for the fourth quarter since the Sept. 1 repositioning. LOL’s seed sales were up significantly for the year, to $917 million from 2006’s $756 million, while pretax earnings were up slightly, to $43.9 million versus $40.1 million. Seed corn volumes were up 35 percent, just over twice the acreage increase. Soybean seed sales were down 6 percent, while overall acreage declined 14 percent. LOL-wide, fourth-quarter net income was off, at $5.5 million on sales of $2.6 billion from the year-ago $44.5 million and $1.9 billion. The company cited reduced earnings in its dairy food section due to the impact of strong product prices on volumes and product mix.
Transparency Across the Fertilizer Value-Chain