I recently met up with and photographed Cotton Rohrscheib and Layne Fortenberry, COO and CEO of the Conway-based Grainster for a feature for Arkansas Business.
The concept of Grainster is simple: The service helps farmers find buyers for their product at the right price. It touts itself as an online marketplace by cutting out the middleman and providing a matchmaking service for farmers' grain.
Cotton Rohrscheib, left, COO and Layne Fortenberry, CEO of Grainster
What I know about farming you could put in a paper bag, but after taking to Rohrscheib and Fortenberry this sounds like a farmers (and buyers) dream.
According to the article, “There’s no access to the global marketplace,” Rohrscheib said. “And that’s in a time where every other aspect of agriculture has evolved in the last 100 years. …. So it really doesn’t make sense for the farmer to still sell his grain the same way.”
I have to thank Cotton and Layne immensely for meeting me at a farm in Keo for the photo shoot on a chilly and wet day and being willing to get a little dirty. In additional to the photos in front of the grain silos, they were willing to walk out in the middle of a wheat field for the photos.
