The Farmers Union Grain Terminal Association (GTA or FUGTA), a cooperative grain marketing organization of Midwestern farmers, began operations on June 1, 1938. Its origins, however, go back much farther into the nineteenth century with farmers' rebellions against low prices, mis-grading of grain, false weights, buyer collaboration, and excessive dockage and transportation costs, which resulted in their first attempts at cooperative action. By 1916 many farmers believed they were losing an estimated $55 Million per year because of inequities in the marketing business. To combat these perceived inequities, a group of them organized the Equity Cooperative Exchange in 1908 to market their grain. The Equity and other small farmer-run cooperatives faced widespread opposition from railroads, banks, grain companies, and many city newspapers. The Equity formed the St. Paul Grain Exchange in 1914 (they were not allowed to trade on the Minneapolis Grain Exchange) and built their own elevator on the Mississippi River in St. Paul. In the 1920s the Equity was forced into receivership and in 1926 the Farmers Union Terminal Association (FUTA) was formed to carry on the farmers' grain cooperative movement. This association worked to enact uniform inspection regulations and honest weighing practices at both local and terminal elevators. In the 1930s FUTA became affiliated with the quasi-governmental Farmers National Grain Corporation. In 1938 this corporation ceased operations and GTA took its place, eventually growing into one of the largest grain marketing and processing cooperatives in the world.

On its first day of business, the new co-op had one terminal elevator in St. Paul and branch offices in Duluth, Minnesota and Great Falls, Montana. Operating capital consisted of a $30,000 loan from the Farmers Union Central Exchange and slightly over one million dollars in credit from the federal Farm Credit Administration. Myron William (Bill) Thatcher, who had been a legislative lobbyist for the Farmers National Grain Corporation in Washington, D.C., in the early 1930s, was named GTA's general manager. Thatcher, an experienced accountant who had helped successfully liquidate the Equity Cooperative Exchange, led GTA for the next thirty years.

The growth of GTA between 1938 and 1983 was remarkable and only some highlights of its history can be presented here. In 1941 GTA began construction of its Superior, Wisconsin terminal, which by 1982 had expanded its capacity to 18.5 million bushels making it the largest inland export elevator in the nation. Terminal construction in Shelby and Lewiston, Montana and publication of the GTA Digest also began in 1941. In 1942 the Amber Mill in Rush City, Minnesota was acquired and began milling durum wheat into semolina for pasta products. Most of the country's durum wheat was raised by GTA members in North Dakota. Co-op grain marketing reached into 100 additional communities in 1943 when GTA bought the St. Anthony and Dakota and Winter-Truesdell-Diercks elevator lines. Consequently, the GTA elevator line division was started with 108 stations, as well as some lumberyards that became the foundation of the Great Plains Supply Company. In 1943 GTA started its own daily radio program, which aired until 1968. 1943 also saw the establishment of The Terminal Agency, Inc. which offered insurance coverage for GTA-affiliated elevators and personnel. The post-World War II era saw GTA make international news through its contribution of 16 million of the 80 million bushels provided by the United States in the Mercy Wheat Campaign for war-ravaged Europe. By skillfully trading in the flax market, GTA was able to finance construction of a new corporate headquarters in St. Paul at the corner of Larpenteur and Snelling Avenues. The "House that Flax Built" opened in January 1947. In February 1947 the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled unanimously that GTA had the right to buy its own (its members') grain. A negative vote might have meant an end for the cooperative movement after years of court challenges by opponents.

In 1949 GTA built a terminal in Great Falls and purchased the Great Northern terminal in Minneapolis and the Spencer-Kellogg terminal in Superior. In 1954 GTA released its family farm survey, which showed that many farmers were actually working for pennies per hour and that low crop prices and high operating costs were forcing many farmers off land their families had owned for generations. In 1960 GTA bought the Honeymead Soybean processing plant and the Archer-Daniels-Midland elevator line in southern Minnesota. In 1963, along with two other cooperatives, GTA bought a river terminal in St. Louis, establishing the St. Louis Grain Corporation. In 1965 the food processing line was expanded with the acquisition of the Froedtert Malt Corporation of Milwaukee.

Bill Thatcher, GTA general manager since its founding, retired in May 1968 at the age of 85. For years his contacts and friendships with politicians such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Henry A. Wallace, Hubert Humphrey, and Milton R. Young helped promote GTA and the concept of parity prices for farmers. Upon Thatcher's retirement, B. J. (Barney) Malusky became president and general manager of the Association. GTA continued to expand with a new feed mill in Owatonna (1970), a barge-loading facility in Winona (1975), and a branch office in Portland, Oregon (1975). In 1977 GTA acquired Holsum Foods and sold nearly one million bushels of wheat to Taiwan. In 1981 GTA set a new grain-handling record of 459 million bushels. The next year GTA opened a river terminal in Savage, Minnesota; Malusky retired; and Allen D. Hansen was elected president and chief executive officer. In 1983 GTA and North Pacific Grain Growers, Inc., a cooperative established in the Pacific Northwest in 1929, merged to form Harvest States Cooperatives. Fifteen years later, in June 1998, Cenex (the old Farmers Union Central Exchange of South St. Paul, Minnesota) and Harvest States merged to form a new cooperative called Cenex Harvest States Cooperatives.