Paul Casper is a fourth generation family farmer and has been farming 4500 acres with his parents and wife Korlyn for the past 26 years.  He has been married to Korlyn for 26 years, and they have four children, Drew – 23, Jessika – 21, Jaryn – 18, and Khrysta - 16.

Paul has been active in his local community by serving on the Lake Preston development board for the past nine years.  He has served on the Lake Preston Lutheran Church board for four years and was Tuesday night men’s bowling league president for six years.  He also volunteered his time coaching boys’ and girls’ 5th and 6th grade basketball for 17 years, coaching well over 1100 games.  Paul was voted outstanding citizen for the community of Lake Preston in 1993.

Paul has been very active in state and national activities such as Corn Growers and Soy-Action Network and served on the state board of South Dakota Soybean Association for six years.  During his last term as an SDSA board member he served as first vice president.  Paul was named South Dakota Jaycee Outstanding Young Farmer in 1992.

In 1993 Paul and seven other individuals formed a cooperative called South Dakota Soybean Processors, of which he has been board president for the past 12 years.  SDSP was the first and only farmer-owned soybean processing facility in the United States.  Paul was very involved in all facets of the new cooperative by helping organize the bylaws, offering circular, and prospectus, by which the board raised $21.2 million in funding from 2100 local farmers to build their own $33.7 million soybean processing plant.  In the fall of 1996 the co-op started processing 50,000 bushels per day of soybeans into soybean meal (protein used in animal feed) and crude soybean oil.  Today SDSP is processing 80,000 bushels per day (28,400,000 bushels per year) into soy protein for animal and human consumption and soy oil for bio-diesel fuels and food grade human consumption.  SDSP also has patented the process for using soybean oil in the urethane market making products as soft as seat cushion foam and as hard as a hockey puck.

Paul has traveled the world promoting sales of farmer-produced products.  In 1998 he traveled to China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan along with South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson.  Because of the trip, SDSP is selling products directly to the city of Beijing.  In 1999 the government of Western Australia invited Paul to come “down under” to talk to national, state, and local ag businessmen and farmers about how they could set up their own processing companies to compete and sell directly into the world market with their farmer products.  Paul and his wife Korlyn talked to well over 500 individuals and groups in their 21-day journey.

In 2000 Paul formed a consulting company to help local communities all over the upper Midwest organize capital funding to build soybean, corn, and livestock processing facilities.  In the past 13 years of organizing locally owned companies in the United States, he has helped organize funding well over two billion dollars.  Paul has capital investments in several different ethanol plants and soybean processing companies.

In 1994 Paul was featured on the cover of Top Producer magazine, which is a national farm publication.  He was the called “The Value Added Evangelist” because of his belief in having local community ownership in ag processing.  He has been called the “father of value added ag processing” in the state of South Dakota.

August 1-3
UGA Tifton Campus Conference Center
Tifton, Georgia