Grain project at Port of Chehalis nears completion
New facility is expected to open in the spring and help grain growers in Southwest Washington
Workers at the Port of Chehalis are putting the finishing touches on a project that will help area farmers.
The Southwest Washington Grain Project is scheduled to be complete in March and will help resolve storage and transportation issues grain growers in the area face.
“Our biggest challenge is handling aggregation and distribution,” said Jake Fay, general manager of the Southwest Washington Growers Cooperative, which has nearly 30 members. The grain project will provide storage space and rail access, which is necessary infrastructure for mid-sized grain growers and customers, according to information on the Cooperative’s website.
Fay said the facility will be online in time for the first harvest of 2026 and the Cooperative has around 500 tons of barley available to test the facility when construction is complete.
The grain project is around 90 percent complete and will be finished at the end of the first quarter of 2026, said Bill Teitzel, operations manager for the Port of Chehalis.
“It shows a need if we want to continue agriculture here,” he said about the project. It will provide three silos that will house around 25,000 bushels of grain and three smaller ones that will hold 60 tons.
The grain project shows how agriculture has changed in recent years.
Fay said a lot of the farmland was used for growing sweet corn and peas that would be sent to canneries. Those opportunities dried up and identified small grains (barley, wheat, canola) as a replacement.
Teitzel said barley growing started picking up in 2018-2019. He added that in 2023, a combination of high rail car demand and heavy rains damaged crops.
Several funding sources helped fund the grain project. The Port received $800,000 in 2019 from the Distressed Counties Fund to pay for construction of a rail spur. Construction of the spur was completed in 2020. An additional $1.75 million from the state capital budget, $3.41 million from the United States Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration, and $4.12 million from the state’s Community Project Funding helped pay for the project, according to the Port of Chehalis website.
The Northwest Agriculture Business Center was one of several organizations that helped identify funding sources for the project. Mike Peroni, executive director for NABC, said regional growers identified malt barley and small growers as a path to move forward.
“The success is due to the perseverance and support of growers in Southwestern Washington,” Peroni said.
Fay noted that the facility can be used to transport grain in and disperse to farms such as chicken feed or organic grains for dairies.
“It’s going to create some opportunity to move product into the local region,” Fay said.
Cooperative seeks members
The Southwest Washington Growers Cooperative is seeking members. The Cooperative is tied in with the Southwest Washington Food Hub that helps with marketing and distribution to sell produce, meat, and dairy to consumers, schools and food access organizations. The Co-op also collaborated with the Port of Chehalis to build the Southwest Washington Grain Project.
Farmers operating in the southwestern portion of Washington should contact Fay at (360) 269-6077 or go to www.swwafoodhub.com for more information.
