About Gilmour Pacific Trading LLC
Johnny Gilmour (owner/CEO) comes from a long line of farmers on both sides of his family. One might say that farming is truly "in his blood." Johnny's grandpa on the Kent side of his family came from several generations of farmers himself. His grandpa farmed cotton, corn, and hay in California, then moved to Oregon, where he farmed grass hay and alfalfa until retirement.
On the Gilmour side of his family, farming dates back to the late1800's, growing a variety of row crops, peppermint, and grass seed in the Willamette Valley. Johnny grew up on a grass seed farm in Corvallis, Oregon, working most of his life alongside his father. In his early 20’s, Johnny started custom stacking straw bales for local farmers with his new-to-him stack wagon. He soon started custom baling around the Willamette Valley, adding more equipment to his arsenal each year.
The Rise of Gilmour Pacific Trading
June through late August consisted of 100-plus-hour long workweeks in the field, which seems to have aided Johnny's expertise for the entire industry today. After roughly 10 years of having a full baling harvest crew, Johnny decided it was time to put his own hay press in and develop a name for himself in not only the straw bale industry but exporting as well. So, Pacific Trading, LLC was born and had opened its doors for the first time in 2012.
State-of-the-Art Equipment
With one hay press, two Peterbilts, and the support of a very large family, Johnny and Gilmour Pacific Trading were now part of the agricultural exporting business, shipping out around 12,000 tons of double compressed hay and straw bales overseas for the first time. Flash forward to 2021, Gilmour Pacific Trading has doubled in exporting volume almost every year and now ships roughly 140,000 tons (as of 2020) to multiple countries.
Currently, Gilmour Pacific Trading employs 30-50 (year-round and seasonal) workers with three hay presses, 15+ Peterbilts, and a full-time shop/mechanics. The harvest baling crew has also grown in quality and size with 12 John Deere tractors that pull five high-density krone balers, 5 New Holland rakes, and 2 Bale Chaser stack wagons behind them, making up about 25-30% of the company's total production volume. This will also be the 6th harvest season that Johnny’s sons, Matt and Joey, will have been running the entire baling operation side of the business.
Highest Grade Alfalfa Bales
With deep family ties, Gilmour Pacific Trading outsources all of its alfalfa locally from farmers who have a long history with Johnny's grandpa and uncle. All are located in Christmas Valley, Oregon. Christmas Valley is known for its volatile climate, specifically the beautiful green alfalfa it can produce each year. It is said that the alfalfa grown in this isolated desert area is unlike any other alfalfa in the world. With little to no history of diseases and pest control problems, these farmers can get three cuttings off their alfalfa fields, resulting in some of the highest grade alfalfa bales on the market.