Agrium Inc. was a major

retail Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is the sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholes ...

supplier of

agricultural Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created f ...

products and services in North America, South America and Australia and a wholesale producer and marketer of all three major agricultural nutrients and a supplier of specialty

fertilizer A fertilizer or fertiliser is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from liming materials or other non-nutrient soil amendments. Man ...

s in North America. In 2018, Agrium merged with

PotashCorp The Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan, also known as PotashCorp, was a company based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The company merged with Calgary-based Agrium to form Nutrien, in a transaction that closed on January 1, 2018. The company was the ...

to form

Nutrien Nutrien is a Canadian fertilizer company based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. It is the largest producer of potash, second largest producer of nitrogen fertilizer in the world and generally the 2nd largest in fertilizers worldwide. It has over 2,0 ...

History

Agrium was founded as Cominco Fertilizers (short for Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company) in 1931 and changed its name to Agrium in 1995. Agrium was headquartered in

Calgary, Alberta Calgary () is a major city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a Metropolitan area, metropolitan population of 1,481,806 making it the List of ...

, Canada. Crop Production Services, Inc., a subsidiary company, was based in

Loveland, Colorado Loveland is a List of cities and towns in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule municipality and the List of cities and towns in Colorado, second most populous municipality in Larimer County, Colorado, United States. Loveland is situated n ...

and was the location of Agrium's Retail Business Unit head office. The company was a part-owner of Canpotex, which manages all potash exporting from

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada. It is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and to the south by the ...

. On September 12, 2016, Agrium announced that it had agreed to merge with PotashCorp, which will make the combined company,

, the largest producer of potash and second-largest producer of

nitrogen fertilizer A fertilizer or fertiliser is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from liming materials or other non-nutrient soil amendments. Man ...

worldwide. Agrium divested certain U.S. assets. The merger closed on January 1, 2018.

Business units

Agrium operated in two business segments:

Retail

Agrium operated close to 1,500 retail agricultural centres in the U.S., Canada, South America and Australia under the brand names Crop Production Services (CPS), Crop Production Services Canada (CPSC), Agroservicios Pampeanos S.A. and Landmark. Crop Production Services was acquired in 1994. On December 3, 2010, Agrium announced the completion of the acquisition of the Australian Wheat Board for a total acquisition price of $1.236-billion Australian dollars. This acquisition added to the retail division of Agrium. Roughly 40% of the AWB holdings were sold to

Cargill Cargill, Incorporated is an American multinational food corporation based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, Minnetonka, Minnesota, and incorporated in Wilmington, Delaware. Founded in 1865 by William Wallace Cargill, it is the largest privately held c ...

, including the Commodity Management Business. In October 2013, Agrium announced the acquisition of

Viterra Viterra Limited is a Canadian grain handling business, that began as the nation's largest grain handler, with its historic formative roots in prairie grain-handling cooperatives, among them the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool. Viterra Inc grew into a g ...

's Canadian retail assets, after previously acquiring Viterra's retail locations in Australia.

Wholesale

The Wholesale segment produced nitrogen,

phosphate Phosphates are the naturally occurring form of the element phosphorus. In chemistry, a phosphate is an anion, salt, functional group or ester derived from a phosphoric acid. It most commonly means orthophosphate, a derivative of orthop ...

potash Potash ( ) includes various mined and manufactured salts that contain potassium in water- soluble form.

, and

sulphur Sulfur (American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphur (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth spelling) is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol S and atomic number 16. It is abundance of the chemical ...

-based

fertilizers A fertilizer or fertiliser is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrition, plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from Liming (soil), liming materials or other non- ...

. This segment also owned and operated a potash mine and production facility in the Rural Municipality of Vanscoy No. 345 in

, Canada, and a phosphate mine in

Conda, Idaho Conda is an unincorporated community in Caribou County, Idaho, United States. Conda is northeast of Soda Springs. Conda has a post office with ZIP code 83230. History Conda's population was estimated at 200 in 1960. Climate This climatic ...

, U.S. The Wholesale segment engaged in the ownership of nitrogen-based fertilizer plants in

Bahía Blanca Bahía Blanca (; English: ''White Bay''), colloquially referred to by its own local inhabitants as simply Bahía, is a city in the Buenos Aires Province, Buenos Aires province of Argentina, centered on the northwestern end of the eponymous Blanc ...

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

, and in

Damietta, Egypt Damietta ( ' ) is a harbor, port city and the capital of the Damietta Governorate in Egypt. It is located at the Damietta branch, an eastern distributary of the Nile Delta, from the Mediterranean Sea, and about north of Cairo. It was a Cath ...

Environmental and social impacts

In 2003, Agrium was issued an administrative compliance order for excessive emissions at a

Kennewick, Washington Kennewick () is a city in Benton County, Washington, Benton County in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. It is located along the southwest bank of the Columbia River, just southeast of the confluence of the Columbia and Yakima ...

plant. Agrium discovered the violations at the Kennewick facility through a comprehensive Clean Air Act audit of the facility in late 2000. Agrium promptly reported the audit findings to EPA under EPA's policy on Incentives for Self-Policing, also referred to as the "Self-Disclosure Policy". In 2005, Agrium was fined for failure to disclose release of

toxic gases Many gases have toxic properties, which are often assessed using the LC50 (median lethal concentration) measure. In the United States, many of these gases have been assigned an NFPA 704 health rating of 4 (may be fatal) or 3 (may cause serious ...

at this same plant.Kennewick Fertilizer Plant Issued $24,575 Penalty for Late Reporting of Hazardous Gas Release , Newsroom , US EPA
/ref>

References

External links

Official site
{{Authority control Companies based in Calgary Chemical companies established in 1931 Fertilizer companies of Canada Grain industry of Australia Retail companies established in 1931 Retail companies disestablished in 2017 1931 establishments in Alberta 2017 disestablishments in Alberta Stock and station agencies Companies formerly listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange Companies formerly listed on the New York Stock Exchange Agriculture companies established in 1931