We are pleased to share with you that this is our fifth consecutive year paying patronage, continuing our commitment of returning Centerra’s profitability to you, our valued member.

In addition to this achievement, we are particularly proud that the amount of patronage we are paying is significantly more than what we paid out last year. Thanks to your loyal support, each of our businesses (grain, agronomy, feed, fuel, and propane) will be paying patronage this year.

As this patronage payment is 50/50 cash and equity, your ownership in the co-op will increase by the same amount as your check. We have currently redeemed all equity through 2007 and we are committed to consistently redeeming equity in the years to come.

In addition to patronage, we pass “DPAD” tax credits to you. We estimate that the tax credits to members will match the amount of patronage dollars. In other words, for most co-op members, this this patronage payment is tax free.

We are working as hard as possible to get our suppliers to lock in prices for inputs with us. As soon as that happens, you have our commitment that we will contact you with our lock-in input price programs.

In the meantime, we are offering you, our loyal member who is receiving patronage this year, this proposal: If you use this patronage payment to prepay next year’s agronomy inputs, we will add an additional 5% to the amount prepaid. You will have about a month to decide whether this is something of interest to you (deadline is December 15.) We will set up your prepay by the category(s) of ag input (Ex: dry fertilizer or chemicals) that you want. The amount that you prepay can be any amount from $1 up to the amount of the patronage check attached.

You are at the center of all our efforts. Thank you for your business.