“They’re going to dry or blend it.”
“Probably.”
“And sell it back to farmers.”
“Probably.”
“At triple.”
“Maybe.”
She looked at him.
“You want to sign.”
He rubbed his face.
“I want the distillery to stop treating byproduct like a daily emergency.”
“That isn’t the same answer.”
“Yes.”
“I want to sign.”
At least honest.
She looked again at the contract.
“Give me a week.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“You called me because you wanted another option.”
“I called because you were first.”
“Same thing.”
The manager smiled despite himself.
“Five days.”
She left.
The older neighbor was waiting at her farm when she returned.
He leaned against his pickup.
“Problem?”
“How do you know?”
“You drove past me doing seventy.”
“I was doing sixty-four.”
“Still guilt.”
She walked toward the barn.
He followed.
“What happened?”
She told him.
The neighbor stopped.
“They take all of it?”
“Yes.”
“What do we do?”
The word caught her.
We.
Three months earlier, it had been her ridiculous slop.
Now we had a problem.
She looked at him.
“How many producers are using it?”
He counted.
“Seven I know.”
“More testing.”
“How many want it?”
“Probably twenty.”
She pulled out her notebook.
The neighbor smiled.
“That thing again.”
“Yes.”
“I respect it now.”
“Too late.”
They sat at the barn workbench.
The problem was not simply price.
It was scale.
The large company offered certainty.
Small producers offered chaos.
Different arrival times.
Different volumes.
Different equipment.
If local farmers wanted access, they had to become easier to serve.
The neighbor said:
“Co-op.”
She looked up.
“What?”
“Farmers already buy fertilizer that way.”
“Seed.”
“Fuel.”
“Why not this?”
She stared.
The neighbor continued.
“One contract.”
“Multiple farms.”
“Scheduled pickups.”
“Volume commitment.”
“You handle the feed side.”
“Someone else handles dispatch.”
She laughed.
“Someone else?”
“Not me.”
“Of course.”
He smiled.
She stopped laughing.
It could work.
Maybe.
They needed commitment.
Money.
Transportation.
Storage.
Liability.
Testing.
Someone to administer.
Five days suddenly felt cruel.
She called everyone.
Meeting that night.
Nine producers arrived.
Three spouses.
The extension specialist.
The distillery manager, reluctantly.
The farm woman stood beside a whiteboard in the machine shed.
She wrote the corporate offer volume.