Rural

COOPERATIVES COOPERATIVES

January/February 2016

Co-op

Sprouts from

Grass Roots
By Sam Rikkers, Administrator

Rural Business Cooperative Service

USDA Rural Development

Regular readers of this magazine are likely

well aware of USDA’s commitment to

cooperative education and its role in

promoting the use of cooperative businesses

as a way to strengthen the rural economy.

USDA Rural Development also manages a number of

financial programs that can help producer cooperatives, one

of which is the Value-Added Producer Grants (VAPG)

program. 

Since the VAPG program was launched in 2001, it has

provided cooperatives and other producer-owned businesses

across the nation and U.S. territories with more than $308

million to turn their raw commodities into finished consumer

products and commercial goods. VAPGs can fund a wide

range of planning and working capital activities, from an

initial study to determine if there is a market for the product,

to eligible processing and marketing expenses. VAPG aims to

create new marketing opportunities and bring profits back to

the farm or ranch where the product was grown, and then to

local communities. 

The VAPG program helps agricultural producers enter

into value-added activities related to the processing and/or

marketing of bio-based, value-added products. Generating

new products, creating and expanding marketing

opportunities and increasing producer income are the goals

of this program. Priority for these grants is given to farmer

and rancher cooperatives, beginning or socially disadvantaged

farmers and ranchers and small- and medium-sized farms and

ranches that are structured as family farms, or others

proposing to develop a mid-tier value product.

The cover story for this magazine provides an excellent

example of the type of businesses the VAPG was designed to

help. It’s a profile of a newly launched, producer-owned coop in Arkansas that is helping beginning, sustainable-meat

producers (beef, poultry and pork) to jointly process and

market their products. The challenges facing any new small

business are many, but the demand for local, sustainably

produced food is growing rapidly, and the co-op reports that

it is selling everything its members can produce. 

Noteworthy in this article is an additional motivation

behind the creation of the co-op: the members’ desire to help

create jobs and generate economic stimulus in rural areas of

the state where the economic recovery has been slow to

reach. Commitment to bettering the communities of their

members is a core belief behind the cooperative movement,

which is well evidenced by this co-op. Equally laudatory is

the co-op’s commitment to helping hired farmworkers make

the transition to farm owners and co-op members.

That article is followed by another that provides a look at

a recent VAPG award which helped launch a much-needed

processing alternative for small- and medium-sized chicken

producers in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley area. 

VAPGs are awarded through a national competition, and

— in most years — USDA receives many more applications

than we have funds for. Since inception, the program has

averaged from $15 million to $30 million in appropriated

funds to be awarded annually. But there’s good news on this

front. The 2014 Farm Bill made mandatory funding available

which, when combined with this year’s annual appropriation,

will result in $52 million being available for VAPGs. So,

there’s never been a better time to see if the program would

be a good fit for a value-added project your co-op is

considering, or to help launch a new co-op. 

The maximum grant amount available is $75,000 for

planning purposes (such as the development of a business

feasibility study or for a marketing plan), or up to $250,000

for a working-capital grant. This is a “matching grant”

program, so recipients must provide 50 percent of the money

needed for the project. 

The 2016 program is expected to be announced in the

February-March timeframe. For applications and more

information about the program, visit: http://www.rd.usda.gov.

Just enter “VAPG” in the search engine window of the home

page. And while you’re there, you can read about some of the

other USDA Rural Development programs that can help coops and producers. You can also call or visit your nearest

USDA Rural Development office to discuss VAPG or any of

our other programs. 

Cooperative businesses offer so many ways to help

producers and other rural people improve their quality of life,

and the VAPG program is just one of many ways USDA

endeavors to strengthen the co-op sector. Check it out! n

2 January/February 2016 / Rural Cooperatives

Commentary 

VAPG program can be a good fit for co-ops
Features

Rural Cooperatives / January/February 2016 3

Volume 83, Number 1

January/February 2016

Rural Cooperatives (1088-8845) is published bimonthly

by USDA Rural Development, 1400 Independence Ave.

SW, Stop 0705, Washington, DC. 20250-0705.

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apply to all programs). Remedies and complaint filing

deadlines vary by program or incident. n Persons with

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communication for program information (e.g., Braille,

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should contact the responsible Agency or USDA's

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contact USDA through the Federal Relay Service at

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made available in languages other than English. n To

file a program discrimination complaint, complete the

USDA Program Discrimination Complaint Form, AD-3027,

found online at How to File a Program Discrimination

Complaint and at any USDA office or write a letter

addressed to USDA and provide in the letter all of the

information requested in the form. To request a copy of

the complaint form, call (866) 632-9992. Submit your

completed form or letter to USDA by: (1) mail: U.S.

Department of Agriculture, Office of the Assistant

Secretary for Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Avenue,

SW, Washington, D.C. 20250-9410; (2) fax: (202) 690-7442;

or (3) email: program.intake@usda.gov. 

Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture

Lisa Mensah, Under Secretary,

USDA Rural Development

Dan Campbell, Editor

Stephen Hall / KOTA, Design

Have a cooperative-related question? Call (202) 720-

6483, or email: coopinfo@wdc.usda.gov

This publication was printed with vegetable oil-based ink.

04 Minnesota, Iowa, California top states for ag co-op

business volume

By James Wadsworth, Carolyn Liebrand, Charita Coleman

08 Sprouting New Roots 

Grass Roots Farmers’ Co-op helps beginning livestock and poultry farmers in Arkansas

By Dan Campbell

13 New poultry processing plant bolsters Virginia’s 

small-scale producers

By James Matson, Dylan Timmerman and Caitlin Butler 

14 From Bars to Freedom

Prisoner co-ops boost employment, self-esteem and support re-entry into society

By Meegan Moriarty

20 Safety in Numbers

Food safety certification hurdles can be lowered through use of USDA’s GroupGAP

program 

By Charles W. Parrott

24 Expertise to Share

ATTRA resources offer valuable assistance to sustainable producers, cooperatives

By Rich Myers

Departments

02 COMMENTARY

19 UTILITY CO-OP CONNECTION

22 CO-OP & COMMUNITY

26 LEGAL CORNER

30 NEWSLINE

p. 4

ON THE COVER: Andrea Todt, with toddler in “papoosestyle” backpack, unwinds electric-line fencing used to

circulate cattle from one paddock to another on her farm

in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. Todt is a founding

member of Grass Roots Farmers Cooperative (GRFC),

which produces sustainable beef, pork and poultry. Photo

by Miranda Yelvington, courtesy GRFC

p. 14 p. 22
4 January/February 2016 / Rural Cooperatives

By James Wadsworth, Carolyn Liebrand,

Charita Coleman

USDA Cooperative Programs

Editor’s note: This is the third of three

articles that present highlights of USDA's

2014 survey of rural farmer, rancher and

fishery cooperatives. The first two articles

(focusing on overall co-op statistics and the

Top 100 ag co-ops) can be read in the

November/December 2015 issue of Rural

Cooperatives, online at

http://www.rd.usda.gov/files/RDRuralCoop

Mag_NovDec15.pdf.

Minnesota was the

nation’s top state for

business volume

conducted by

agricultural

cooperatives during 2014. Based on

USDA’s annual survey of cooperatives,

203 Minnesota agricultural cooperatives

reported $29.2 billion in gross business

volume, derived from marketing farm

commodities, selling farm supplies and

providing services for producers in

Minnesota (Table 1). Ranking second

was Iowa, where 111 co-ops did $25.1

billion worth of business. Of the $240.3

billion in gross business volume for ag

co-ops nationwide, Minnesota and Iowa

accounted for 22.6 percent of it. 

California ranked third among the

states for co-op business volume, with

its 122 ag co-ops recording $14 billion

in gross business. Wisconsin was close

behind with $13.8 billion generated by

95 co-ops. These two states together

represented about 12 percent of the

national co-op business total, or about 6

percent each. 

Co-op marketing 

of commodities

Co-ops marketed $58.8 billion in

grains and oilseeds in 2014, making it

the largest commodity sector for ag coops. Dairy was second, at $52.4 billion.

Fruit and vegetables ranked third, at

$8.4 billion, followed by: sugar ($7.8

billion), livestock ($4.9 billion), cotton

($2.3 billion), nuts ($1.6 billion),

poultry ($1.3 billion), rice ($935

million), cotton ginning ($476 million),

beans and peas ($238 million), fish

($215 million) and tobacco ($339

million). “Other” products (which

includes forest products, hay, hops, seed

for growers, nursery products, biofuels,

coffee, wool, mohair, etc.) accounted for

$8 billion in business volume. 

Cooperatives sourced some products

from other nations in four commodity

sectors: fruit/vegetables, grains/oilseeds,

livestock and “other.” These foreignsourced products were valued at $527

million, with fruit/vegetables

accounting for 63 percent of the total. 

Grains/oilseeds accounted for the

largest portion of commodities

marketed by cooperatives, 39.8 percent

of total gross marketing, followed by

dairy with 35.5 percent (Figure 1). Next

came fruit/vegetable (5.7 percent), sugar

(5.3 percent), cotton (1.5 percent) and

nuts (1.1 percent). The “other”

category, including multiple

commodities, accounted for 6.5 percent

of co-op marketing. 

Compared to 2013, nine commodity

categories saw marketing gains in 2014.

These included: dairy, livestock, fruit

and vegetables, sugar, poultry, nuts, fish,

tobacco, and cotton ginning. Four

categories showed drops in co-op

commodity marketing: grains/oilseeds,

Minnesota, Iowa, California

top states for ag co-op business volume

USDA photo by Lance Cheung
Rural Cooperatives / January/February 2016 5

Gross Volume Gross Farm Total Service Gross Business Net # Co-ops

of Products Supplies Gross Receipts Business Between Business Doing

Marketed Sales Sales & Other Volume Co-ops Volume Business

State Income in State

Millions $ Number

Alabama 466.6 384.9 851.5 26.5 878.0 90.3 787.7 53

Arkansas 1,988.0 857.4 2,845.4 57.9 2,903.3 324.8 2,578.5 44

Arizona 1,181.4 143.2 1,324.6 13.5 1338.1 134.3 1,203.8 19

California 12,975.0 1,001.8 13,976.8 406.8 14383.6 1,263.8 13,119.8 122

Colorado 714.0 1,393.0 2,107.0 53.3 2160.3 551.9 1,608.4 37

Florida 1,592.6 361.5 1,954.1 103.7 2057.8 817.6 1,240.2 39

Georgia 502.9 1,365.5 1,868.4 4.7 1873.1 644.3 1,228.8 28

Iowa 13,658.0 11,435.5 25,093.5 716.5 25810.0 3,069.5 22,740.5 111

Idaho 1,630.8 1,706.5 3,337.2 87.7 3424.9 1,516.9 1,908.0 35

Illinois 8,919.6 8,601.1 17,520.6 450.9 17971.5 2,329.6 15,641.9 123

Indiana 1,829.4 4,526.5 6,355.9 180.9 6536.8 1,789.6 4,747.2 44

Kansas 6,165.5 3,916.2 10,081.7 305.4 10387.1 1,536.0 8,851.1 108

Kentucky 812.1 952.6 1,764.6 11.1 1775.7 237.4 1,538.3 24

Louisiana 1,803.1 446.2 2,249.3 (8.9) 2240.4 185.7 2,054.7 44

Michigan 3,883.0 1,564.0 5,447.0 64.6 5511.6 876.6 4,635.0 60

Minnesota 22,239.7 6,990.1 29,229.8 1,267.8 30497.6 3,545.7 26,951.9 203

Missouri 7,597.6 4,440.3 12,037.9 284.8 12322.7 1,691.5 10,631.2 78

Mississippi 1,030.3 509.6 1,539.9 37.7 1577.6 209.9 1,367.7 54

Montana 1,191.5 2,279.8 3,471.3 31.8 3503.1 818.3 2,684.8 55

North Carolina 626.9 347.2 974.0 5.8 979.8 135.2 844.6 20

North Dakota 6,739.4 4,399.6 11,139.0 192.5 11331.5 887.7 10,443.8 160

Nebraska 7,190.1 5,157.8 12,348.0 465.7 12813.6 1,393.3 11,420.4 66

New Mexico 560.2 46.7 606.9 16.9 623.8 36.0 587.8 17

Nevada 5.2 65.1 70.4 0.0 70.4 24.1 46.3 8

New York 3,448.1 395.1 3,843.2 29.8 3873.0 441.5 3,431.5 63

Ohio 3,491.7 2,447.6 5,939.4 182.4 6121.8 607.3 5,514.5 53

Oklahoma 1,369.5 2,079.1 3,448.5 71.0 3519.5 1,414.4 2,105.1 67

Oregon 3,535.4 2,700.0 6,236.0 31.7 6267.7 936.0 5,331.7 43

Pennsylvania 2,239.4 474.4 2,713.8 7.7 2,721.5 364.5 2,357.0 40

South Carolina 99.1 117.6 216.7 0.3 217.0 41.2 175.8 11

South Dakota 4,938.3 3,853.6 8,792.0 174.7 8,966.7 1,335.5 7,631.2 87

Tennessee 214.1 2,292.7 2,506.8 65.5 2,572.3 640.3 1,932.0 70

Texas 4,800.6 1,620.1 6,420.7 212.0 6,632.7 431.0 6,201.7 194

Utah 313.3 1,011.4 1,324.7 202.9 1,527.6 520.4 1,007.2 21

Virginia 645.1 1,903.1 2,548.2 25.6 2,573.8 728.2 1,845.6 40

Washington 4,715.1 2,773.4 7,488.5 123.1 7,611.6 924.0 6,687.6 70

Wisconsin 9,106.8 4,692.0 13,798.8 393.5 14,192.3 2,021.9 12,170.4 95

Wyoming 73.8 879.1 952.9 8.3 961.2 331.4 629.8 19

Alaska, Hawaii 20.9 193.6 214.5 4.3 218.8 66.1 152.7 22

Mid-Atlantic1 840.0 1,041.9 1,881.9 3.6 1,885.5 439.1 1,446.4 36

New England2 2,049.4 388.2 2,437.6 1.3 2,438.9 289.4 2,149.5 49

Foreign3 526.9 868.5 1,395.4 0.0 1,395.4 734.7 660.7 11

Total 147,730.6 92,623.9 240,354.5 6,315.3 246,669.7 36,376.9 210,292.8 2,1064

TABLE 1—Cooperative business volume of products marketed, supply sales and

service receipts by state, 2014

1 Mid-Atlantic consists of the states: MD, DC, DE, NJ, WV. 2

New England states: CT, MA, ME, NH, RI, VT.

3 Sourced from outside the 50 states.

4 Note: some cooperatives do business in several states, so the sum

of the state number of cooperatives does not sum to the total

number of U.S. ag co-ops which is 2,106.
6 January/February 2016 / Rural Cooperatives

cotton, rice and beans/peas.

Minnesota top marketing state 

For total products marketed by ag

co-ops, Minnesota, Iowa, California and

Wisconsin were the leading states (in

that order). Minnesota marketed $22.2

billion of farm commodities, (15.1

percent of the national total for co-ops),

followed by Iowa ($13.7 billion),

California ($13 billion) and Wisconsin

($9.1 billion). 

Minnesota co-ops marketed the most

grain and sugar ($14.5 billion,

combined) while California was the top

co-op state for dairy, fruit/vegetables,

poultry and nuts (combined total of

$12.3 billion). Arkansas was the top

state for rice, with $409 million in sales,

followed by California at $328 million.

Iowa was the top state for co-op

livestock marketing ($763 million)

while Texas was No. 1 for cotton

production and ginning ($1.2 billion,

combined). North Dakota co-ops were

tops for beans/peas marketing ($82

million) while North Carolina was the

top cooperative marketer of tobacco

($295 million). New England states led

the nation’s fishing co-ops with a

combined $100 million in sales.

Iowa leading state 

for farm supply sales

Iowa was the top state for farm

supply sales by co-ops in 2014,

recording $11.4 billion in sales for

fertilizer, feed and crop protectants

(Table 3). That represented 12.3

percent of the national total of $92.7

billion in gross farm supply sales by coops. 

Illinois ranked second, with $8.6

billion in farm supply sales. It was

followed by Minnesota ($7 billion),

Nebraska ($5.1 billion), Wisconsin

($4.7 billion), Indiana ($4.5 billion), and

Missouri and North Dakota (each with

$4.4 billion).

Of the six categories of co-op farm

supply sales, petroleum was the largest,

at $39.2 billion. It was followed by:

fertilizer ($16.2 billion), feed ($13.7

billion), crop protectants ($11.5 billion)

and seed ($5.8 billion). Compared to

2013, gross sales of crop protectants,

fertilizer and miscellaneous other inputs

were up slightly, while feed, petroleum

and seed sales were down.

Fig. 2 shows that petroleum

accounted for 45 percent of total gross

farm supplies sold by co-ops. Fertilizer

was next, at 18 percent, followed by

feed (15 percent), crop protectants (12

percent), seed (7 percent), and “other”

supplies (7 percent).

Inter-cooperative business

Co-ops also cooperate with each

other, conducting a significant amount

of inter-cooperative business. About

$36.4 billion in inter-cooperative

business was conducted in 2014, a slight

decrease from $37.5 billion in 2013. 

The number of agricultural co-ops

continues to decline each year, due to

mergers and other reasons, but the

business they conduct on behalf of their

members is increasing. 

Regardless of the size of the

cooperative or the roles played for

members, agricultural cooperatives are

owned and controlled by their

members. They continue to play a

critical role in marketing producers’

commodities, often adding value to raw

products, as well as selling supplies and

providing needed services to memberproducers and other patrons. n

FIGURE 1

Relative proportion of commodities marketing by co-ops, 2014

FIGURE 2

Proportion of gross

farm supply inputs sold

by co-ops, 2014

Other

7%

Seed

6%

Petroleum

42%

Fertilizer

18%

Feed

15%

Crop 

Protectants

12%

Other 6.5%

Poultry .9%

Nuts 1.1%

Sugar 5.3%

Cotton 1.5%

Fruits & Vegetables 5.7%

Livestock 3.3% Dairy 35.5%

Grains & Oilseeds 39.8%
Rural Cooperatives / January/February 2016 7

All numbers in millions $

Grain & Oilseeds Dairy Livestock Fruit & Vegetables Cotton Sugar

MN 10,750.7 CA 7,342.3 IA 763.2 CA 3,193.3 TX 914.9 MN 3,756.1

IA 9,029.3 WI 6,704.8 IL 658.0 FL 862.6 GA 303.8 LA 836.3

IL 5964.7 MN 5,142.0 WI 621.5 MI 838.4 MS 200.0 ND 811.7

ND 5,316.2 MO 4,841.7 OH 326.8 WA 757.2 NC 164.7 ID 788.2

NE 5,160.3 NY 3,038.9 IN 284.8 OR 664.4 AL 117.5 MI 486.8

SE 4,191.0 IL 2,267.9 KS 236.8 WI 474.6 AZ 84.8 FL 448.7

KS 4,083.6 WA 2,228.1 MN 231.2 PA 409.8 AR 66.9 CO 309.0

OH 2,340.6 TX 2,180.0 KY 210.2 N.Eng. 220.8 CA 62.6 MT 93.0

MO 2,038.1 IA 2,082.3 MO 205.3 TX 92.3 OK 60.6 TX 70.1

MT 1,026.6 MI 1,820.3 MI 194.1 NY 82.4 SC 51.3 OR 50.7

Total 143 58,836.7 Total 52,394.4 Total 4,948.3 Total 8,361.5 Total 2,253.7 Total 7,758.3

Total 13’ 67,006.7 2013’ 42,729.0 2013’ 3,345.3 2013’ 8,156.6 2013’ 2,620.16 2013’ 2,908.8

Poultry Nuts Fish Rice Bean & Pea Tobacco

CA 340.1 CA 1,504.6 N. Eng. 99.6 AR 409.4 ND 81.6 NC 294.6

MI 230.8 OR 21.2 WA 48.8 CA 328.3 MI 46.6 KY 22.9

IA 182.7 TX 17.1 AL 39.3 MS 133.4 NE 33.3 TN 21.2

MO 155.1 VA 12.6 AK/HI 12.1 TX 44.7 ID 31.8 Total4 338.7

UT 131.6 GA 10.6 MidAtl. 11.8 LA 16.2 CA 15.8 Cotton Ginning

N.Eng. 120.8 OK 1.5 CA 1.4 MN 3.3 MT 15.5 TX 242.0

CO 53.6 AL 0.5 MN 1.1 MO 0.2 WA 9.5 CA 72.7

WI 46.6 LA 0.3 LA 0.9 MN 2.8 AR 37.2

OH 44.9 NM 0.3 WY 1.1 AZ 26.1

MN 39.5 MO 0.1 TN 24.0

LA 18.2

Total 143 1,353.3 Total 1,568.8 Total 215.0 Total 935.5 Total 238.1 Total 475.7

Total 13’ 726.9 2013 1,336.9 2013’ 184.5 2013’ 1,732.4 2013’ 247.1 2013’ 459.1

1 Other: Minnesota ($2.3 billion) and Iowa ($1.6 billion) were the top two states for “other” marketing which includes: forest products, hay, hops, seed 

marketed for growers, nursery stock, biofuels, coffee, and wool and mohair. Total for 2014 = $8,052.7 and for 2013 = $7,216.3. 2 Source: Table 7 of SR 78, Agricultural Cooperative Statistics, 2014. See that table for more information on states or regions not listed here.

3 Totals are of all states and foreign, not just the co-ops listed, except for nuts, fish, rice, and bean and pea which are actual totals.

4 2013 total for tobacco = $136.9 million.

All numbers in millions $

Crop Protectants Feed Fertilizer Petroleum2 Seed Other3

IA 2,216.1 IA 2,224.9 IA 2,913.7 IL 4,112.6 IL 823.3 ND 610.5

IL 1,171.0 MN 1,567.8 IL 1,748.9 IA 2,918.6 IA 803.7 MN 467.3

NE 800.7 ID 703.5 NE 1,295.6 IN 2,823.3 MN 683.8 WI 432.9

MN 787.1 TX 694.5 MN 1,264.9 MO 2,774.9 SD 440.3 IA 358.5

SD 623.3 WI 637.8 WI 858.0 KS 2,294.4 WI 367.0 OR 299.3

WA 605.2 Mid Atl. 478.6 SD 835.5 ND 2,277.6 ND 331.3 WA 294.1

WI 513.3 IL 466.6 MO 721.3 MN 2,219.2 NE 298.0 TN 279.9

ND 475.3 NE 458.5 IN 640.6 NE 2,117.8 IN 275.3 IL 278.7

IN 389.9 OH 427.2 WA 626.9 WI 1,883.0 OH 244.7 CA 274.7

KS 363.0 CA 424.9 OH 614.8 OK 1,596.2 KS 216.6 TX 210.4

Total 11,530.4 13,673.8 16,251.0 39,211.3 5,790.8 6,166.6

Total 13’ 11,586.0 16,183.1 17,656.5 38,523.7 5,542.1 6,441.7

1 Table 17 of SR 78 contains the data used for this table, see for more information on states or regions not listed.

2 Includes all types of petroleum products and lubricants as well as bioenergy fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel.

3 Includes building materials, containers, packaging supplies, machinery and equipment, meats and groceries, 

automotive supplies, hardware, chicks, and miscellaneous.

TABLE 2—Top States for gross co-op marketing of commodities1, 20142

TABLE 3—Top States for co-op volume for farm supplies, 20141
8 January/February 2016 / Rural Cooperatives

Sprouting

New Roots!

Grass Roots Farmers’ Co-op

helps beginning livestock

and poultry farmers

in Arkansas

By Dan Campbell, Editor

e-mail: dan.campbell@wdc.usda.gov

When Cody Hopkins and Andrea

Todt launched Falling Sky Farm

in the Ozark Mountains of northcentral Arkansas, figuring out

how to raise livestock and poultry

was not the hardest part of the job for the two

novice farmers. Rather, it was the many other

aspects of running a farm as a successful business

that was “a very tough nut to crack,” Hopkins

says. 

There were a number of resources

that helped them learn to raise grassfed beef, pastured poultry and pork.

The bigger challenge, Hopkins says,

was “figuring out how to get your

animals processed, finding cold storage,

marketing and delivering to

customers.” Doing all of that while

generating the cash flow needed to

cover production costs, to live on and,

hopefully, to save some money to

eventually buy their land — that was

the real trick, he confides. 

Eventually, Hopkins and Todt joined

with a small group of like-minded

producers to open the door that has

helped so many other farmers and
Rural Cooperatives / January/February 2016 9

Producing pasture-raised beef on Falling Sky Farm involves a management system of intensive rotational grazing. Here, Andrea Todt is stringing

electric-line fencing. Photo by Miranda Yelvington. Inset photo, opposite page: Who needs a stuffy conference room to hold a meeting when co-op

members can convene on the grass under a beautiful Arkansas sky! Photo by Bryan Clifton. Photos courtesy Grass Roots Farmers Cooperative
10 January/February 2016 / Rural Cooperatives

ranchers overcome similar

obstacles: they formed a

producer-owned co-op. It

took about a year of talks and

planning before the Grass

Roots Farmers’ Cooperative

was formally incorporated in

April of 2014. This followed

a number of years during

which a small network of

sustainable meat producers

around the state had

informally worked together. 

“For a small producer on your own,

it is hard to find the right partners in

the value chain that can help get your

products from farm to market,”

Hopkins says. “Investing in walk-in

freezers or refrigerated trailers is

inefficient. We were friends with other

farmers who we had been sharing ideas

with for years. That led to talks about

joint marketing, since we all were using

the same sustainable ag production

standards.” 

Todt and Hopkins were both raised

in Arkansas, and while they each had

some experience raising animals in their

youth, neither had ever farmed.

Hopkins earned a college degree in

physics and had taught school for a

couple of years in the Northeast, but

then decided to head back to Arkansas,

and in 2007 he and Todt started Falling

Sky Farm in Searcy County. 

The county is very rural and per

capita income there is well below

average. Jobs are needed, Hopkins says,

which is another goal of the co-op: to

create jobs and generate income in rural

areas that badly need an economic boost.

“We were looking not only for a

livelihood for ourselves, but hopefully

to do something that would create some

jobs for others. Raising local foods is

one way for more people to make a

living where there are not always a lot

of other options.” 

Informal cooperation 

leads to co-op

During the pre-co-op years, farmers

would gain economies of scale by

jointly buying bulk loads of genetically

modified organisms (GMO)-free feed,

or would aggregate enough animals to

fill a big order. “Together, to

get the best price, we could

buy 15 tons of feed. Or

maybe one of us would have

100 turkeys ready to market,

but would need another 100

birds to fill an order. We all

benefited from working

together in these ways,”

Hopkins recalls. 

Forming the co-op was a

natural outgrowth of such

activities.

The Grass Roots Farmers’

Cooperative currently has 14 members,

which includes seven full members and

seven apprentice members. Apprentice

members do a one-year trial, during

which time the co-op provides support

in a number of ways, such as ordering

feed and with the logistics of hauling

animals to the processor. If they

complete the first year successfully and

still want to be in the co-op, the board

votes on whether to admit them as full,

voting members. 

Hopkins, the co-op’s general

manager, says he expects that all the

current apprentice farmers will be

approved as full members. “There is no

big buy-in required to join the co-op,”

he says. Just a token fee of $10 is paid

for a share in the co-op, which is

governed by a five-member board. 

All the members meet the USDA

“beginning farmer” standard, Hopkins

says, meaning they have been farming

less than 10 years, although Hopkins

and Todt are just about to mark their

10th year as farmers. 

Sustainable 

production standards

For this co-op, “sustainable” means

humane, environmentally benign or

beneficial farming practices are

followed. No growth hormones or

antibiotics are used for the animals or

“We were looking not only for a livelihood for ourselves,

but hopefully to do something that would create some jobs for others.”

Co-op members raise poultry in portable

structures they call “prairie schooners,”

which are moved to a different plot daily. The

“schooners” are often towed onto a paddock

right after beef cattle have grazed it. Photos

by Bryan Clifton 
Rural Cooperatives / January/February 2016 11

any feed used. 

“We sat down together to come up

with the best production standards,”

says Jeremy Prater, the co-op board

chairman. “We were not interested in

setting average standards — ones that

any farmer could meet. Rather, we

wanted to set the best standards. Every

member has been brought up to these

standards so that we can ensure product

consistency across the state. 

“Wherever our customers are,”

Prater continues, “they will experience

the best in what Arkansas farmers can

produce. The co-op allows us to reach

out to more people.” 

Beef cattle are 100 percent pasture

raised. Poultry (chickens and turkeys)

are also pasture raised using mobile

structures (which the co-op helped to

design) called “prairie schooners.”

These rolling poultry houses are moved

to a new location every day, allowing

the birds to get out in the grass and

spend the day scratching and pecking.

Their diet is supplemented by GMOfree feed. About 500 chickens go into

each “schooner.” Turkeys are raised in a

similar way. 

Hogs are usually raised in the forest,

where they eat acorns and hickory nuts,

a variety of berries or other wild fruits

and anything else a hog can root up.

Their diet is also supplemented with

GMO-free feeds. 

“Producing pasture-raised meat takes

a different management style, based on

very intensive rotational grazing,”

Hopkins says. Farmers improve their

pastures by planting winter and summer

cover crops, such as rye grass. Raising

livestock this way is good for the health

of the animals while also improving the

quality of the soil and grass, co-op

members say. 

“On any given day, 95 percent of our

farm is resting,” Hopkins explains.

“The other 5 percent is a place of heavy

activity. The next day, we’ll have moved

on to another 5 percent of the land. If

we are grazing cattle, the rest period is

more like 30 to 65 days, depending on

the time of year. With pigs, we allow 4

to 6 months for the forest land to rest.” 

Some members currently only

produce poultry, but most plan to

expand to hogs in the near future, and

then to add cattle, depending on how

much, and what type, of land they have. 

Meats are processed at USDAinspected plants in west Arkansas or

southern Missouri. The co-op leases

freezer space from where it does its own

“pick and pack” distribution. It leases a

delivery truck. 

Poultry is produced seasonally, from

early April through about

Thanksgiving. The co-op stores enough

chicken during the fall to supply

customers throughout the winter. 

Falling Sky is the largest farm in the

co-op, at about 220 acres, farmed on a

long-term lease. Average farm size for a

member is closer to 40 to 50 acres. Last

year, the farm produced 15,000

chickens, 500 turkeys, 40 head of beef

and about 250 hogs. 

The co-op’s goal — which it is very

near achieving — is to market about 60

USDA, Heifer International provide key help

Grass Roots Farmers’ Cooperative has received valuable financial and

technical assistance, especially from Heifer International USA and USDA, says

Cody Hopkins, the co-op general manager. Heifer International, which is

headquartered in Arkansas, is probably best known for its efforts to help

subsistence-level farmers overseas get started in livestock production by

providing them with seed-stock animals on which to build herds. But the

organization also has a domestic program — Heifer USA — that provides

technical assistance to beginning farmers and ranchers. 

Heifer USA’s technical support for the co-op included mentorship,

marketing strategy development and legal help for incorporating the co-op, as

well as some working capital. It also invested in a community development

financial institution (CDFI) “which is essentially a local bank with a strong

social mission,” Hopkins says, “It created a loan-loss reserve to help small

farmers — who might not normally have good access to credit — to scale-up

their farms.” 

USDA Rural Development has provided the co-op with two Value-Added

Producer Grants (VAPGs). The first was used to fund the co-op’s feasibility

study, the second for working capital needed for the launch. The USDA

Natural Resources Conservation Service helped the co-op on a fencing

project. 

The funds have helped the co-op create an informative website that

features a short video about the co-op. The website also has snapshots and

short bios of every member. “The website (www.grassrootscoop.com) has

been very well received and has aided in our marketing efforts by telling the

story of a how group of small farmers is working together.” 

For more information on the VAPG program, visit:

www.rd.usda.gov/programs-services/value-added-producer-grants.

In many respects, Hopkins says the co-op can be looked upon as a type of

food hub that helps knock down barriers faced by new producers. 

“The beauty of it all is that there is a great market right now for what we

are producing,” he says. “If there wasn’t, I wouldn’t be talking to you right

now. More people want to know where their food is coming from and how it

was produced, and we are happy to tell them.”
12 January/February 2016 / Rural Cooperatives

percent of its food directly to

consumers via its subscriber-based,

home-delivery program. The other 40

percent is sold to restaurants and

institutional food service (including

colleges and hospitals). It also sells meat

to an online beef retailer in Missouri. 

Co-op bolsters 

apprentice farmers

The co-op membership is quite

diverse, including three military

veterans, immigrant families from

Africa and Costa Rica and two womanrun farms. 

Among the apprentice co-op

members who will soon be transitioning

to full membership are Damon and Jana

Helton. They are also new to farming

— “we’re both city kids,” says Damon.

He’s a military veteran who was

previously working a corporate sales job

and “traveling the country, living out of

a suitcase.” Not the way he wanted to

live the rest of his life or to raise his

children. 

A country lifestyle appealed to both

Jana and him, and they became

intrigued by the burgeoning

local/sustainable farming movement.

“Both of us were passionate about

wanting to try our hands at agriculture

and to raise our children in a healthy,

rural environment,” he says. So, three

years ago, they bought a 160-acre farm

in the Ouachita Mountains of western

Arkansas, about 20 miles from both Hot

Springs and Little Rock. 

The Heltons were still studying what

crops to grow when they heard about

the new meat co-op and its sustainable

production philosophy and broader

economic mission. They applied for

membership, and they say the co-op has

proved to be invaluable to them.

They currently raise pastured poultry

and grass-fed beef. “We only do steers

at this time, so we don’t have to worry

about a breeding program or handling

bulls,” Damon says. They plan to add

hogs to the farm next year. 

To move cattle from one paddock to

another, they use retractable electricline fencing. “It’s effective and

inexpensive,” Damon says. Once the

cattle have grazed a paddock and moved

on, a “prairie schooner” with chickens

is towed in. “They eat the bugs and fly

larvae, and the chicken and cattle

manure fertilizes the grass.” 

“The move to the farm has been a

complete change of pace for us, and it

so rewarding to see the fruits of your

labor when you farm,” says Jana, who

also has a fulltime job as the financial

director for three gastroenterology

medical clinics that operate as

GastroArkansas. 

“It’s one thing to have an idea, but

quite another to initiate it,” says Jana.

The co-op has provided the help they

needed. “Co-op members are so

generous in sharing ideas and their

experiences.”

As if farming, working her medical

job and being a fulltime mom to four

children (ages 1-9) weren’t enough, the

family also just opened an old-fashioned

general store in the small community of

Crows Station. The store focuses on

selling Arkansas-produced foods and

products. The meat cooler — no

surprise — features a good selection of

Grass Roots Farmers Co-op beef,

poultry and pork. 

“The storefront has a long history in

the community but had been closed for

several years, so people were really glad

to see it reopen,” Jana says. “The store

and farm work great together in helping

to educate the community about local

foods.

“We’re located just about five miles

from a huge retirement community,

where there is a lot of emphasis placed

on healthy diets, including natural

meat,” Jana continues. “That’s been a

good source of business. Overall, the

community response [to the store and

the co-op products] has been incredible.”

Anchor farm program

The co-op hopes to grow by adding

four or five new members each year.

One way it will strive to do this is

through an “anchor farm” program,

which helps hired farmworkers

transition to farm owners. Kerry

Harrington had worked at Falling Sky

Farm for four years and was interested

in starting her own farm, so Hopkins

and Todt helped her find some land not

far away and start her own operation. 

Harrington wound up being one of

the founding members of the co-op.

“It’s another part of creating a

community of farmers who help each

other out,” Hopkins says. 

Co-op members are dispersed in

three basic geographic clusters of the

state: the Mississippi Delta region in

the east; the Ozarks of north-central

Arkansas and in the Arkansas River

Valley in the west. Being that dispersed

creates some challenges, but also

advantages. For example, when one area

gets slammed by bad weather, it may

have less impact in another part of the

state. 

“We’re often 10 degrees cooler here

[in the Ozarks] than in the Delta, so we

can still produce chickens in August

when it’s harder to do so there,”

Hopkins says. In winter, the opposite is

true. “We’re 10 degrees cooler and

windy, so conditions are better for

livestock in the Delta.” 

On the other hand, the distances

create more challenges when it comes

to aggregating animals and product for

shipping. 

The co-op’s CSA (community

supported ag) program gives consumers

a number of enrollment levels that are

delivered quarterly for a year. The coop also offers monthly subscriptions for

customers who want smaller, more

frequent deliveries. 

To expand the home delivery

program, Hopkins says the co-op has

recently partnered with Chef’s Shuttle,

a business that delivers restaurant meals

to homes in some cities. “We are always

looking for ways to decrease barriers for

people who want to try local, farmraised meats.” n
Rural Cooperatives / January/February 2016 13

By James Matson, Dylan Timmerman 

and Caitlin Butler

Editor’s note: All authors are with

Matson Consulting in Aiken, S.C., which

specializes in cooperative and small business

development services. 

Corwin Heatwole is on

a mission to grow

Virginia’s organic

poultry industry, based

on a desire to produce

healthy, local food and to help create

jobs and economic activity in rural

communities that need both. 

A lifelong farmer, Heatwole grew up

on a family dairy farm, but by age 14,

he was already working for a large

poultry-growing operation. At 19, he

purchased his own poultry farm and was

raising 26,000 birds under contract to

Cargill. His business quickly expanded,

and soon he had a contract to grow a

vastly larger flock for Tysons. 

As his commercial business boomed,

Heatwole often found himself reflecting

on his family’s happiness and success

farming on a much smaller scale. His

family derived great satisfaction from

running an independent dairy farm,

where they were free to operate as they

saw fit, without any corporate controls

or contracts. 

That type of independence is

something most farmers cherish, and

they often cite it as one of the main

reasons they choose to farm. But that

sense of independence is getting harder

to find in today’s industrialized poultry

industry. 

Heatwole also often thought about

the fresh food his family farm produced,

and contrasted that with the difficulty

families in his own community often

had in obtaining healthy, local foods. 

Desire to help 

struggling farmers 

He began having conversations with

small-scale, local farmers who were

struggling to keep their farms afloat,

many of whom desperately needed

assistance. Farmers were struggling to

gain access to processing plants. For

organic poultry growers, plant access

was even more limited. 

After collaborating with a close

friend, Heatwole purchased a small

flock of about 300 birds, which he

raised organically to see how the

process worked. Adopting organic

practices allowed Heatwole to increase

the value of his product, since organic

birds in the area sell for about double

the price of non-organic chicken.

Fueled by the desire to help his

fellow farmers and the local community,

Heatwole decided to start a poultry

processing facility that would focus on

handling birds for organic and smallscale growers, helping them find an

alternative to industrial-scale poultry

production. 

In 2013, Heatwole founded

Shenandoah Processing LLC, which

offers processing services to small-scale

and organic chicken producers in the

Harrisonburg, Va., area. These services

include aggregating, processing and

selling chickens to distribution chains. 

Although not formally organized as a

cooperative, Shenandoah works

cooperatively with producers,

consumers and the community to help

small-scale, independent farmers earn a

profit while providing their

communities with healthy food and

much-needed jobs.

New poultry processing plant 

bolsters Virginia’s small-scale producers 

Corwin Heatwole (center, facing camera) leads poultry producers on a tour of Shenandoah

Processing’s facility in Harrisonburg, Va., which caters service to organic and small-scale

chicken producers.

continued on page 37
14 January/February 2016 / Rural Cooperatives

By Meegan Moriarty

USDA Cooperative Programs 

Artists create, exhibit and sell

their work through Cooperativa

de Servicios ARIGOS in Puerto

Rico. 

At the Shifting Gears bike shop

in Stevens Point, Wis., skilled mechanics tuneup, refurbish and sell pre-owned bicycles while

educating the community on biking’s beneficial

impact on health and the environment.

At the Cooperativa Alice in Milan, Italy,

women create costumes for television and

theater, design clothing and make uniforms for

the local football team. 

Caterers and chefs feed customers at the Café

Solberg in Gotenberg, Sweden.

These business organizations may be diverse,

but they have a few things in common. All of

them are cooperatives. And all of them benefit

prisoners or ex-prisoners. 

Prison populations

More than 2.2 million people in the United

States are in prison. Worldwide, 9 million

people are incarcerated. The United States has

the highest prison rate in the world, with 724

From Bars to Freedom

Prisoner co-ops boost

employment, self-esteem

and support re-entry 

into society

Graphic by Stephen Hall
Rural Cooperatives / January/February 2016 15

people per 100,000 imprisoned.

Another 600,000 are on probation or

parole. In 2014, the cost to the taxpayer

of incarcerating just one individual in

federal prison was $29,291.

Almost 3 percent of U.S. adults are

under correctional supervision (in

prison, on probation or on parole).

Juvenile detention centers house 54,148

youth offenders. More than threequarters of people released from jail are

arrested again within five years. More

than half of these recidivists are arrested

within the first year of release. 

A disproportionate number of

incarcerated individuals are African

American males (37 percent) or

Hispanic males (22 percent); black

females are imprisoned at twice the rate

of white females. 

Strict sentencing rules contribute to

the high prison rate in the United

States. For example, under current

federal law, people found guilty of three

drug offenses are given life in prison

without parole. But these rules may

change. 

Sentencing reform is a priority of the

Obama administration. The Sentencing

Reform and Corrections Act (S. 2123),

introduced by Sen. Charles Grassley

(R-Iowa) and Sen. Richard Durbin (DIll.), was passed out of the Senate

Judiciary Committee on Oct. 22. That

legislation would reduce drug-related

mandatory sentences significantly,

reduce the wide gap in sentencing terms

for powder vs. crack cocaine offenses,

and provide credit toward sentence

reduction for nonviolent offenders who

undergo drug rehabilitation and/or take

certain classes. The legislation would

apply only for the 200,000 federal

prisoners. However, states may follow

suit, based on the concern that too

many people are in prison for too long.

A reduction in years spent in prison

would equate to more individuals reentering society. A small number of

these prisoners (about 13,000 in 2013)

may have acquired job skills while in

prison from UNICOR, the federal

prison system’s in-house employment

program. However, the vast majority of

ex-prisoners lack job skills, education,

self-confidence and social supports.

Some face the additional challenges of

mental illness and addiction. 

“In addition to dehumanizing people

who are incarcerated, we also totally

take away all of their economic

opportunities — their livelihoods,”

Jessica Gordon Nembhard, professor

at John Jay College, City University of

New York, said during an October

roundtable. The event was sponsored

by the Sustainable Economies Law

Center in Oakland, Calif. 

How can these people face a difficult

job market where many employers

screen out ex-offenders? Italy may have

an answer.

Italy’s cooperative system

Italy has been a leader in forming

cooperatives, starting in the 1970s,

when the Italian economy was suffering

a downturn and individuals needed an

innovative solution to address high

unemployment. The social cooperative

movement gained momentum when

caregivers were faced with the

deinstitutionalization of psychiatric

patients. 

In 1991, Italy enacted law 381/91,

which defined two types of social

cooperatives: Type A and Type B. Type

A cooperatives provide social services,

including health care and education.

Members are workers or volunteers

who provide a variety of social services,

including mental health and addiction

services. 

Type B cooperatives help to integrate

disadvantaged people into the

workforce, including individuals who

are learning disabled, mentally ill, drug

and alcohol addicts, prisoners and exconvicts. People are certified by public

social service bodies as being

“disadvantaged,” and then referred to

the Type B cooperative. Disadvantaged

individuals must make up at least 30

percent of the B cooperative workers

under Law 381/91. 

Type B cooperative workers make

handicraft item, work in manufacturing,

do cleaning work, maintain parks and

gardens, and engage in agricultural

activities. Private-sector firms are

obligated to employ disabled

individuals, and many businesses fulfill

this obligation by engaging B cooperatives.

Half of B cooperative income comes

from public sources; B cooperatives get

About 10 percent of prisoners in Italy participate in prisoner cooperatives, including co-ops 

that operate prison farms, such as this. Photo by Awakening/Getty Images 
16 January/February 2016 / Rural Cooperatives

preferential treatment in bidding for

contracts with municipalities.

Volunteers may not make up more than

50 percent of A or B cooperative

members.

Italian cooperatives benefit from

significant government support. They

have lower corporate tax rates, their

reserves are not taxed and they can opt

to be exempted from value-added taxes.

Cooperatives are obligated to

contribute to a fund intended to help

other cooperatives. These contributions

are not taxed. 

Further, cooperatives are not

obligated to make pension and health

contributions. Organizations make

loans to cooperatives in Italy on

preferential terms.

Italian prisoner cooperatives

About 10 percent of prisoners in

Italy participate in prisoner

cooperatives, according to Ann Hoyt,

professor emeritus at the University of

Wisconsin, Madison. Her research

preliminarily has found that prisoner

cooperatives are a cost-effective way of

rehabilitating and transitioning

prisoners back into society. Hoyt has

traveled to Italy three times to study

Italian prison cooperatives. During her

visits, she observed a deep commitment

on the part of Italians to the

rehabilitation of the prisoners. 

Generally, prisoners first complete

time in Type A cooperatives, where

they acquire work skills and get help

from the professional members of the

cooperative, according to Hoyt. They

often benefit from the services of

psychiatrists, psychologists and legal

advisors.

Once they have acquired good work

skills, prisoners may be chosen to work

in Type B cooperatives, Hoyt says.

These individuals get further vocational

training and instruction on cooperative

operations and membership. 

Type B cooperatives operate in a

variety of ways. Hoyt visited a Padua

prison that operated a bakery, made

high-end luggage and crafted shutters.

An Italian cooperative of women

prisoners made high-end cosmetics. 

Hoyt says many prisons have

“creative business developers who are

nimble in changing from one [business]

opportunity to another.” For example, a

prisoner cooperative made mannequins

until the demand for them dried up.

The prison business developer switched

gears and — working with the prisoners

— started a call center, Hoyt says.

Cooperative workers also engage in

carpentry, plumbing, ornamental iron

work, hand-painting wallpaper,

gardening, recycling, manufacturing

garden and park furniture, making

playground equipment and putting on

theater productions. They also produce

coffee, artisan beer, wine and cheese.

Prisons may allow day-release for

prisoners to work in cooperatives.

Convicts with community-based

sentences, or who have been granted

house arrest, may work in cooperatives. 

All participants in the cooperatives

receive the same wages for the same

jobs, whether they are prisoners, exprisoners or workers who have never

been convicted of a crime.

Membership in a co-op is highly

desirable for prisoners, because it offers

the opportunity to earn wages — a

motivator to rehabilitate themselves,

Hoyt says. A prison employee holds the

wages for the worker, which can be

used to help the prisoner’s family, to

help the prisoner transition back into

society after release or to purchase

items to be used by the prisoner while

in jail.

Prisoners engage in a variety of jobs,

some of which involve dangerous

equipment. Hoyt visited a maximum

security prison for men with a

Inmates working for the Giotto Cooperative as bakers produce traditional panettone Christmas

cake at the state maximum security jail in Padua. Photo by Awakening/Getty Images
Rural Cooperatives / January/February 2016 17

wholesale nursery cooperative. The

prisoners used shovels, hoes, garden

forks and farm vehicles. The woman

who ran the cooperative told Hoyt that

the prisoners use self-discipline to

ensure compliance with safety rules. For

example, after a new co-op member

took a joy ride on a farming vehicle, his

fellow prisoners ejected him from the

cooperative.

Upon release, ex-offenders have a

job and a social network. The

recidivism rate for participants in Italian

prisoner cooperatives is less than 5

percent (compared to 75 percent in the

United States and 70 to 90 percent in

traditional Italian prison systems). 

Prisoner co-ops 

in other countries

Prisoner cooperatives are not limited

to Italy. Several Swedish service

organizations established Vagen ut!, a

cooperative intended to benefit

prisoners and individuals recovering

from substance abuse. Even after

government funding was withdrawn,

Vagen Ut! was able to employ 100

workers. Other prisoner cooperatives in

Sweden include the Villa Solberg

Halfway House, which provides work

and housing to male ex-convicts who

are battling substance abuse, and Karins

Dottar cooperative, formed to benefit

female ex-convicts and/or former

substance abusers. 

Convicts at Ethiopia’s Mekelle

Prison have formed more than 20

cooperatives through which they

perform various forms of work,

including farming, carpentry, plumbing,

electric work and handicrafts. An

Ethiopian banking institution provides

loans to prisoners to start cooperatives,

and the loans are guaranteed by the

prison. Prisoners use wages for

restitution to victims and to invest back

into the cooperatives.

The United Kingdom has several

cooperatives that employ ex-convicts.

The Ex-cell program provides housing

and employment to former prisoners

and homeless people and helps to

transition them to employment and

housing in the broader marketplace. 

Ex-prisoners receive mental health

and substance abuse services. Their

recidivism rate is less than 2 percent,

compared to a 40-percent rate for

typical ex-offenders. Another exprisoner cooperative, Recycle It!,

performs computer recycling and datawiping services. Prisoners may become

members of the UK’s Cooperative

Bank, which provides them with

financial counseling and allows them to

open bank accounts.

Prisoners and ex-convicts in British

Columbia, Canada, who participated in

a prisoner cooperative called InsideArt,

created and sold paintings, glass

artwork and carvings. Cooperative

members used the proceeds to make

restitution to victims, help with

transitioning after incarceration,

support prisoners’ families and to fund

local charities. The cooperative was

started with a $100,000 grant, and

although sales proceeds covered some

expenses, it folded when grant funding

dried up.

U.S. prisoner co-ops

A few prisoner cooperatives have

been established in the United States.

Shifting Gears, a community bicycle

shop in Wisconsin, is an “offender reentry program” created to provide exprisoners, at-risk youth and other

disadvantaged people with work and life

skills. It does this while promoting

cycling as a healthy, environmentally

friendly form of transportation. Co-op

members work with volunteers in a safe,

drug-free environment where they learn

to repair, clean and recycle donated or

used bicycles for resale. 

Lori Yach is a volunteer at Shifting

Gears who is pursuing a degree in

trauma-informed care, a treatment

philosophy used by some social service

agencies and counselors in jails and

schools that focuses on what has

happened to a person in the past, in the

hope of avoiding a reoccurrence of

trauma. She says the co-op is working

with local prisons to initiate a dayrelease program to help prisoners

working at Shifting Gears experience a

smooth transition from jail back into

society. 

“It’s good to have a safe place to

hang out and be around positive

people,” Yach says. People often come

out of jail and return to their old

acquaintances and patterns. “People

may not have any family to support

them, or, even if they do, their family

might be abusive or using [drugs],” she

says, adding that a high percentage of

inmates have dealt with some kind of

abuse. 

Funding is always an issue, according

to Yach. While the store makes enough

to pay the bills and rent, it does not

make much more. She may look into

applying for foundation grants. Shifting

Gears was created by Justiceworks Ltd.,

a nonprofit organization that promotes

restorative justice. The people at

Justiceworks started the cooperative

after reading Hoyt’s research on Italian

prisoner cooperatives.

Yach gets great satisfaction from

volunteering at Shifting Gears. When

she works with disadvantaged youth,

who often suffer from low self-esteem,

“you make a difference — you can see

in their eyes, they feel worth

something.” 

Recently two boys broke into the

shop and stole some money. Yach says

they will now be volunteering at

Shifting Gears. She sees the

opportunity to work with them as an

exciting chance to help the boys grow.

Transformational cooperativism

In 1995, 19-year-old Roberto Luis

Rodriguez Rosario was locked in prison

with sentences that, served

consecutively, he expected would keep

him in jail for 35 years. Rodriguez made

good use of his time in Guayama

Penitentiary in Puerto Rico. He and

several other prisoners founded

Cooperativa de Servicios ARIGOS. The

cooperative, made up of all prisoners —

both as members and the board of
18 January/February 2016 / Rural Cooperatives

directors — operates entirely inside the

prison, with the assistance of an outside

cooperative expert, Lymarie Nieves

Plaza. 

The cooperative started as a group of

prisoners doing art as therapy and to

make gifts for their families. Proud of

their work, the prisoners reached out to

a cooperative, Liga De Cooperativa y

Fomento Cooperativo, for information

on how to sell to the public. However,

the General Law of Puerto Rico

Cooperatives Societies prohibits

prisoners from forming cooperatives. 

Rodriguez, his fellow prisoners and

Nieves lobbied the Puerto Rican Senate

and wrote to Governor Sila Maria

Carderon. “To our surprise, the first

[person] to believe in us was the

governor,” Rodriguez said through a

Spanish interpreter at an October

roundtable sponsored by the

Sustainable Economies Law Center in

Oakland, Calif. “She made a promise to

change the laws so we could organize,”

he continued. In 2003, the law was

amended to allow prisoners to form

cooperative businesses.

Creating art and selling it to the

community with the help of outside

cooperatives was transformative for the

members of the ARIGOS Cooperative.

“I never imagined that working in a

cooperative, I would find the ideal

model to rehabilitate myself,”

Rodriguez said during the roundtable.

He and the other members had the

opportunity to attend outside

cooperative-organized exhibits

accompanied by guards. 

They chose to share their experience

with other prisoners. “Within the

cooperative, we all agreed to take on

the task, to put in simple words

everything we ourselves had

experienced, and to share it with the

incarcerated population,” said

Rodriguez. Participation in the

cooperative became a motivator for

those overcoming addiction, because

the cooperative would not let addicted

members attend the outside exhibits.

According to Rodriguez, “my biggest

satisfaction at the end of the day was

knowing that I was working toward the

service of others.” In addition to

becoming an advocate inside the prison

for the prison cooperative, Rodriguez

served as secretary of the cooperative

for several years, gained release to a

transitional program and then achieved

probation. 

Early release came as a surprise to

Rodriguez, who had stopped thinking

about his freedom. “The solution to all

the social ills that we have today is [in

working cooperatively], and the

evidence is that if you could rehabilitate

a delinquent person, you can do

anything that is to the service of . . .

society,” Rodriguez said. 

During the five-year transition,

Rodriguez served as a journalist for a

cooperative and as an editor for a reality

television show. He was freed in 2014. 

Rodriguez wrote a book about his

experiences, “Corazon Libre, Cuerpo

Confinado.” He also maintains a

Facebook page that addresses his

experiences. He still works with Nieves

to reform legal obstacles to forming

prisoner and ex-prisoner cooperatives. 

For example, he hopes to change the

Puerto Rican law that prohibits exprisoners from fraternizing. Currently,

the law is an obstacle to his goal of

forming a cooperative to help exconvicts gain employment and

transition back into society. Rodriguez

advocates for cooperatives at

conferences and other venues. 

Nieves found her life’s work when

she helped form Rodriguez’s

cooperative. She calls it

“transformational cooperatism.” In

addition to working with the men at

Guayama Penitentiary, Nieves has

helped form several other prisoner

cooperatives in both men’s and women’s

penitentiaries.

Framework for 

successful prisoner co-ops

Italy has successful cooperatives, to a

large degree, because the Italians

support them. Law 381/91 provides a

comprehensive framework for their

organization. Cooperatives enjoy lower

tax rates, exemptions from pension and

health contributions, and preferential

loan terms. 

These co-ops also get preferential

treatment for government contract

awards. Private employers are required

to employ disabled people. 

“It’s critical to have functional

businesses” for a prisoner cooperative

to succeed, Hoyt says. The cooperative

also succeeds if it has a combination of

members, including current and ex-

“I never imagined that working in a cooperative, I would find 

the ideal model to rehabilitate myself.”

Roberto Luis Rodriguez Rosario was just 19

when he was incarcerated in Puerto Rico to

begin serving a 35-year sentence. While in jail,

he and several other prisoners formed the

Cooperativa de Sericios ARIGOS, which

began by producing handcrafted gift items for

members’ families, and later for sale to the

public, with the help of another co-op.

continued on page 37
Rural Cooperatives / January/February 2016 19

Editor’s note: Malik Grace, a University of Georgie student who

interned at USDA Co-op Programs last summer, conducted this

interview with Randy Crenshaw of Middle Georgia EMC (electric

membership cooperative), Grace’s hometown electric co-op, which

also sponsored him on a youth tour trip to Washington D.C. 

Question: What is Middle Georgia EMC’s primary mission, and

who comprises your membership? How is your customer base

divided among residential and commercial accounts?

Randy Crenshaw: Our mission is to provide electric service

to an estimated 8,000 customers. We serve about 5,300

residential accounts and about 2,700 industrial accounts. Of

those, seven are large-load industrial accounts while about

1,055 serve irrigation systems. 

Q: Please provide a brief “thumbnail history” of the co-op —

how and why was Middle Georgia EMC created?

A: Middle Georgia EMC was formed in 1940 to service

rural customers, primarily Dooly, Pulaski and Wilcox

Counties, that were unserved by Georgia Power and other

surrounding EMCs. We’ve been a local power cooperative

for 75 years and are proud to be owned by those we

serve. Our business is about much more than power. It’s

about exceptional service and commitment to community.

Middle Georgia EMC has worked hard to provide quality

products and services at affordable prices for 75 years.

Q: Are there any new or innovative services being offered to

members? 

A: We allow members to purchase power by pre-paying in

order to not have a large deposit. We allow many ways to pay

bills such as phone apps, Internet payments and money

machines.

Q: Many rural communities are struggling economically. Is this

an issue for communities in your service area, and is the co-op

doing anything to promote community economic development,

beyond its basic utility service?

A: We work with all local chambers of commerce,

economic development groups and state economic

development groups, such as Georgia Department of

Economic Development and Georgia EMC.

Q: How do you make members feel like true user-owners of the

business, rather than just customers of it?

A: By using newsletter articles, having annual meetings,

using focus groups and having employees always treat

members as the owner.

Q: Why is a utility co-op a good business model for rural people

to be a part of?

A: It provides grass-root member participation in the dayto-day operation. It allows the savings to be given back to the

member in either lower rates or capital credits.

Q: Do you face competition for members, or have any plans to

expand your service area? Do you market your “co-op

difference”?

A: We compete for large consumers who have loads larger

than 900 killowatts. We do not have plans to expand our

territory. We have partnered with Irwin EMC to have joint

management since 2010.

Q: Is the co-op involved in “green-power,” such as solar or

wind? What do you do to promote power conservation among

members?

A: We are a member of Green Power EMC, which

provides landfill gas electricity, bio-mass plants, solar energy

and chicken litter plants. The pre-pay program promotes

conservation, We also promote energy conservation with

newspaper, newsletter and TV ads. Middle Georgia EMC

will be installing a 1-megawatt community solar project in

2016. Members will be able to purchase fixed energy blocks

of solar power that will be credited to their monthly bill. The

project will provide an alternative to members who would

like to access solar power, but can’t, or don’t want to, install

solar units on their roofs. 

Q: How do you recruit, elect and train board members? Does the

board meet monthly?

A: We nominate, from the local communities, directors

who have the cooperative business at heart. If they

demonstrated loyalty and positive interest in the co-op, they

will make good board members. The members elect on a 3-

year term, and they meet on a monthly basis. n

Utility Co-op Connection

Middle Georgia EMC

Vienna, Ga.
20 January/February 2016 / Rural Cooperatives

By Charles W. Parrott

Specialty Crops Program Deputy

Administrator

USDA Agricultural Marketing

Service 

Food safety is

on the minds of

everyone in the

produce

industry, and

ensuring that consumers have

access to a safe supply of fresh

fruits and vegetables is a top

priority. Concern over outbreaks

of foodborne illnesses associated

with both domestic and

imported produce has sparked

new rules under the Food Safety

Modernization Act (FSMA). 

As customers look for local

food in grocery stores,

restaurants and schools, more

retailers are requiring food

safety certifications. Obtaining

these certifications remains a

barrier for many small- and midsized farmers who want to

participate in these markets.

America’s cooperatives are in a

unique position to help these

producers. 

Since 2003, USDA’s

Agricultural Marketing Service

(AMS) has offered growers and

buyers voluntary Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and

Good Handling Practices (GHP) audit programs. These

audits are performed through the Specialty Crops Inspection

Division. These programs verify that grower operations

follow industry-recognized food safety practices and

recommend-ations from the U.S. Food and Drug

Administration (FDA). 

However, some small- and mid-sized producers, food

hubs and cooperatives found the marketing advantages these

programs offer were not obtainable for their operations,

primarily because the certification costs and other resources

necessary for a single producer

to comply with the GAP

requirements were too much of

a barrier. 

GroupGAP role for co-ops

Agricultural co-ops are an

important outlet for produce

and other farm products. They

provide small farmers and others

the opportunity to join forces

and sell to larger markets in

order to share increased profits

and benefits. Now, co-ops can

help their members join

together to certify their products

through USDA’s GroupGAP

services. Expanding the number

of GAP-certified farmers also

may help retailers meet an

increasing demand for locally

sourced food.

In 2010, several produce

growers and organizations

approached USDA to discuss

developing a more cost-effective,

manageable on-farm food safety

verification program to aid

smaller producers. To find

solutions to this challenge, AMS

partnered with the nonprofit

Wallace Center at Winrock

International to develop and test

a GroupGAP pilot program to

help smaller growers and

cooperatives meet buyers’ on-farm food safety requirements. 

In the GroupGAP model, farmers can unite under a

central quality management system and undergo a system

audit that leads to a group certification. Group certification

allows members of the group to share resources and leverage

economies of scale. For example, groups can offer employee

training for all members of the group at once rather than

each individual producer training his/her own employees. 

Program to launch in April

After three years of field testing the new audit program,

Food safety certification hurdles can be lowered 

through use of USDA’s GroupGAP program 

Southwest Farm Fresh Cooperative produce is loaded for

transport to market. Co-ops can help their members attain food

safety certification through the GroupGAP program, offered

through USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service. Photos

courtesy Wallace Center at Winrock International

Safety in Numbers
Rural Cooperatives / January/February 2016 21

AMS will officially launch GroupGAP in April 2016, when

small produce farmers and other operations will be eligible

to apply for certification. GroupGAP food safety

certification will increase opportunities for the entire

industry to supply and purchase GAP-certified produce. 

This voluntary, fee-for-service auditing program may help

smaller producers and co-ops meet increasing consumer

demand for local food while maintaining strong food safety

standards. It will also demonstrate that small- and mid-sized

farmers, co-ops and food hubs can meet retailer food safety

requirements for institutional and retailer purchasing

programs. Members of the agricultural community, through

this cooperative group system, can take advantage of the

shared certification costs, improve quality management

systems and increase overall food safety. 

Ultimately, GroupGAP increases on-farm visits by

trained and certified auditors, increasing oversight of

grower’s practices.

The three-year pilot program included 22 projects that

helped groups of growers and cooperatives work together to

obtain GroupGAP certification. Food hubs and other

grower groups pooled their resources to establish food safety

best practices, conduct food safety trainings, develop quality

management systems and pay for certification costs. 

GroupGAP works 

for Amish co-op

Sunny Harvest is an Amish farmers’ cooperative in

Lancaster County, Pa., that participated in the GroupGAP

pilot program. The co-op is comprised of 16 diversified

produce growers who sell to local retailers and distributors. 

By working closely with Sunny Harvest leaders, the

GroupGAP pilot team developed an implementation plan

that enabled the growers to receive GAP certification

without compromising the cultural traditions of the 

Amish community. 

The pilot clearly laid the groundwork for a sustainable

culture of food safety by focusing on coaching and internal

auditing to deepen the co-op members’ understanding of

food safety best practices. 

Helps beginning farmers expand markets 

The Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association

(ALBA), a nonprofit in Salinas, Calif., also participated in

the GroupGAP pilot. ALBA provides farm business training

and opportunities to farm workers and limited-resource,

aspiring farmers in Monterey County. Members of ALBA’s

Small Farm Incubator Program sell their produce through

the organization’s food hub, ALBA Organics, focusing on

expanding sales to large retailers and colleges. 

During the pilot, ALBA identified the food safety

standard best suited to the needs of their buyers. Members

also worked together to develop relevant safety practices,

collect required documentation and provide their own

internal auditing services. This ultimately improved product

traceability and allowed for faster corrective actions.

PMA conference 

examines GroupGAP

AMS recently presented the details of the GroupGAP

program at the 2015 Produce Marketing Association (PMA)

Fresh Summit meeting in Atlanta, Ga. During the meeting,

USDA Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory

Programs Ed Avalos led two listening sessions where

representatives of the Wallace Center and GroupGAP pilot

participants explained the pilot project and outlined the

benefits of this new program for the industry. 

The bottom line: the GroupGAP Program can provide a

robust certification process that builds a culture of food

safety and allows producers to leverage resources. The

program also could increase the total number of growers in

the supply chain who are GAP-certified, a win for industry

and American consumers. 

GroupGAP is an innovative solution that enables smalland mid-sized farmers, co-ops and food hubs to share

certification costs, improve quality management systems and

reduce paperwork. It allows USDA to help producers reach

“food safety by the numbers.”

Visit the AMS website at www.ams.usda.gov/groupgap to

learn more about GroupGAP certification and upcoming

events as USDA prepares for the official launch. n

GroupGAP enables small- and midsized farmers, co-ops and food hubs to

share certification costs, improve quality

management systems and reduce

paperwork. 
22 January/February 2016 / Rural Cooperatives

By Heather Berry

Editor’s note: Berry is associate editor of

Rural Missouri Magazine, the statewide

member publication of the Missouri

Association of Electric Cooperatives. This

article is slightly adapted from one that

appeared in the September, 2015, issue of

that publication. If you know of a co-op, a

co-op employee or member who is helping to

make their community a better place to

live, please send a note to:

coopinfo@wdc.usda.gov.

She doesn’t complain

about the weather or

the fact that she gets

paid in kibble. She

never asks for time off.

She simply works like a dog — because

she is one.

Daisy May, a black Labrador/border

collie mix, is one of Lynn Ballard’s two

certified search-and-rescue dogs. The

trainer, from Fulton, Mo., and her fourfooted partners are members of

Missouri’s official urban search-andrescue group: Task Force 1.

For more than 20 years, Ballard has

worked canines to heed the call in times

of need. She read an article one day that

got her interested in training dogs for

search-and-rescue purposes.

“I worked at a press as a proofreader,

and they printed a variety of dog and

veterinary magazines. That’s where I

came across articles about people who

did search and rescue with dogs,” says

the Callaway Electric Cooperative

member. 

Immediately intrigued, Ballard and a

friend found a group called Missouri

Canines and began training with them.

“Honestly, I was addicted from the

start,” says the 43-year-old. “Getting to

spend time with your dog while hanging

out with friends was a lot of fun.”

While with the Versailles, Mo.-based

group, Ballard and her dogs did

wilderness work, searching for lost or

missing individuals and runaways. After

several years, she joined the Missouri

Region C Technical Rescue Team’s

canine division, based in St. Louis. The

team primarily worked with the FBI on

evidence recovery in cold cases. “That’s

where I got into cadaver work,” Ballard

adds.

For the past six years, Ballard’s been

part of Missouri’s Task Force 1 as a

member of the canine search-andrescue team. A Federal Emergency

Management Agency (FEMA) partner,

the team works through the Boone

County Fire Protection District and

trains at facilities in Columbia, Mo.

Finding the right partner

On average, canine search-andrescue training takes two to four years,

depending upon a dog’s age, ability and

skills. It takes a dog that’s smart,

trainable and easily rewarded with a toy.

And you don’t need to buy an expensive

purebred to have a search-and-rescue

canine.

“If your dog can be trained to take a

command, fetch the toy for you, it’s a

good start,” Ballard says. “But if your

dog runs to fetch the toy, gets distracted

by a dog walking past or a bird flying

overhead and stops, it may or may not

work.

“Searching is really a game of hideand-seek for the dogs,” adds the trainer.

“Getting them to hunt for something is

as much a mental game as it is a

physical one. When they find the

target, they’re happy, but what they

really want is a reward from you, their

owner. That usually means a toy and

some roughhousing with them. They

just want to know they did well and

you’re proud of them.”

In order to be certified for search

and rescue, the dogs must pass

numerous trials, such as directability,

control, agility and bark alerts. Some of

these tests, such as scent testing, are

Co-ops & Community

Ready for the Call: Missouri electric co-op member and her

canine search-and-rescue teams help in times of need
Rural Cooperatives / January/February 2016 23

held out of state. Dogs and trainers

must be recertified every three years to

remain deployable. 

But passing the tests doesn’t mean

the work is over. Trainers must drill

daily and be able to prove their dogs’

abilities at any time.

Passing or failing means the canine

and the trainer pass or fail together

because the two are a team. Both must

be able to go into a situation and ignore

distractions.

“There are days I come home from

my job and don’t feel like working the

dogs,” says Ballard, who works at the

Dollar General distribution warehouse

in Fulton, Mo. “But I do. The dogs are

dedicated, so I need to be, too.

“My first search dog was a German

shepherd named Zema, but she didn’t

work out,” Ballard says. “When a dog

doesn’t make the cut, they go on to

become a pet for someone else or the

owner keeps them. Personally, I keep

them, because I view it as my dog and

my responsibility. I love them as much

as the others.”

The trainer’s first certified dog was

her husband’s Doberman pinscher,

Gillis. The dog was wilderness and

cadaver trained but died at age 6 from

an enlarged heart. Ballard has had other

four-footed partners — a German

Shepherd named Tyler, a Belgian

malinois named Ali, and a Labrador,

Max, to name a few. Currently, Lynn’s

certified teammates are Daisy May,

trained for live finds, and Toby, a 4-

year-old Dutch shepherd trained to find

human remains.

The nose knows

Missouri’s Task Force 1 is broken

into teams — red, white and blue —

and those teams train together quarterly

to be ready for any call. 

On one recent Saturday, with the

temperatures hovering around 100

degrees, team members donned all their

gear and headed to a training site in

Boone County they call “the pile,” a

strategically engineered mountain of

wreckage which, to the casual eye, looks

a lot like an entire city block has fallen

down. Rusted metal pipes poke up from

chunks of broken concrete, and vehicles

are overturned. Today, the team

practices as if a tornado has hit a town. 

Well in advance of the canine team

arriving, Lee Turner, fire district

lieutenant and information technician

for the department, is hidden in a

crevasse under a massive pyramid of

concrete. Once the team is briefed,

everyone takes their posts. Ballard and

Daisy are up first, and Daisy must sniff

Lee out.

Up and down, over and under, the

dog runs, stopping briefly to sniff the

air. After only minutes, Daisy starts

barking rapidly, alerting Ballard and the

rescue team that a person has been

found alive in the debris. 

“The dogs are an important part of

our team’s success,” says Matthew

Schofield, Missouri Task Force 1 leader

and Jefferson City’s fire chief. “If we’re

going to be serious about finding

people in rubble, a canine unit must be

part of that solution.

“Their ability to identify so many

scents and quickly process one specific

smell out of all the others is something

we’ll never fully appreciate,” he says.

Ready for the call

Of the many calls to which Ballard

and her dogs have responded since

1994, some stick out more than others

— the abduction of an east-central

Missouri boy, the EF-5 tornado in May

2011 that nearly wiped Joplin off the

map, the call in October 2012 for

Hurricane Sandy in New York and the

September 2013 flooding in Colorado. 

“Unless we’re on a federal

deployment, we’re not usually

reimbursed for expenses,” says Ballard,

“but none of us do this for the money.

Like the dogs, we want a good

outcome, to help those who need help.

That’s our reward.” 

For information about the Missouri

Task Force 1 canine search-and-rescue

team, contact Doug Westhoff, assistant

chief for the Boone County Fire

Protection District, at 573-447-5000. n

As part of a training exercise, Lynn Ballard’s rescue dog, Daisy May, works to find a victim buried

in debris. The structurally engineered rubble simulates situations rescue dogs may work in

following a disaster. Opposite page: Lynn Ballard, second from right, and other Missouri Task

Force 1 members confer during a rescue exercise. Photos by Heather Berry, courtesy Rural

Missouri 
24 January/February 2016 / Rural Cooperatives

By Rich Myers, Editor

National Center for Appropriate

Technology

For many small-scale

poultry producers

around the country, the

lack of appropriately

scaled processing

facilities can be a serious barrier to

entering a market.

When Kevin Ellis —a poultry

specialist with the National Center for

Appropriate Technology (NCAT), who

works with NCAT’s ATTRA

(Appropriate Technology Transfer for

Rural Areas) program — began working

with producers in Iowa, that obstacle

was immediately clear.

“Everyone I talked to agreed that the

lack of small- or medium-sized

slaughter facilities was a huge hole in

the local food systems,” Ellis says.

“However, demand in the neighboring

Omaha market is strong for local,

pastured poultry.”

The effort isn’t completed yet, but

producers in the area have begun to

work on forming a cooperative that

would allow members to aggregate their

product, process their poultry, secure

federal inspection and transport

products to local markets.

Ellis is taking part in that effort. “My

hope is that a cooperative business

model will allow for operations that can

be sustainable and serve the needs of

local farmers for years to come.” 

ATTRA’s role 

ATTRA has plenty of such longterm experience under its belt — more

than a quarter century of assisting lowinput, sustainable and organic

production in the United States.

ATTRA’s work with cooperatives is

just one aspect of the prominent role it

has developed in sustainable agriculture.

It has been a pioneer in the field,

providing information and research

services to American farmers, ranchers,

educators, Extension personnel and

others involved in commercial

agriculture.

In recent years, ATTRA also has

offered expertise on marketing crops in

the regions where they’re grown,

including working on farm-to-school

and farm-to-institution initiatives that

have involved agriculture marketing

cooperatives in Montana and other

states.

NCAT, a nonprofit with offices in six

states, operates ATTRA through an

agreement with the USDA Rural

Business-Cooperative Service.

How ATTRA works 

NCAT employs specialists in

agronomy, horticulture, animal science

and health, soils, water, food systems,

agricultural energy, marketing and

economics. The specialists are the

backbone of ATTRA.

They research the latest

developments in sustainable agriculture

— including leading-edge research and

practical innovations from America’s

most creative farmers and ranchers.

Most ATRRA staff are farmers,

ranchers or market gardeners

themselves who bring years of practical

experience to the table.

That research and knowledge makes

its way into the resources offered by

ATTRA, including hundreds of

publications on sustainable agriculture,

along with a growing number of

webinars and videos. It also provides

resources for veterans interested in

agriculture; databases (including a

popular site where students can find

internships and producers can find

interns); online tutorials and the longrunning “Ask an Ag Expert” hotline.

Topics these resources cover include

horticultural crops, field crops, soils and

composts, pest management, irrigation

and other water-quality and water

conservation-issues. Others address

grass farming, marketing and business

Andy Pressman (far right), a sustainable agriculture specialist with NCAT,

talks about appropriate tools for small, sustainable farms at an “Armed to

Farm” workshop in Houghton, N.Y. Photos courtesy ATTRA 

ATTRA resources offer valuable assistance

to sustainable producers, cooperatives

Expertise to Share
Rural Cooperatives / January/February 2016 25

strategies, market gardening, risk

management and agricultural energy.

ATTRA’s print publications can be

ordered by mail and are also available as

PDF or HTML documents from

ATTRA’s website. The website is both

desktop and mobile friendly. ATTRA

materials also are available in digital

formats, including flash drives,

databases, webinars, videos and

PowerPoint slide shows.

The resources, with the exception of

a few publications, are free.

Ask an Ag Expert 

ATTRA’s toll-free telephone hotline

service and e-mail address are popular

with growers, educators and others who

call or send questions about sustainable

agriculture and related topics. ATTRA

specialists help them find answers using

ATTRA resources or, if necessary, other

research. Finding answers for clients

makes the specialists ever more

knowledgeable. 

• ATTRA’s Helpline is: 800-346-9140

• ATTRA’s Spanish Helpline is: 800-

411-3222

• The “Ask an Ag Expert” e-mail form

is posted at: www.attra.ncat.org

The best way to get an overview for

what ATTRA offers is to visit its

website: www.attra.ncat.org.

ATTRA translated

ATTRA is translating many of its

publications into Spanish and has

translated a number into Hmong

(spoken by many immigrants from

southeast Asia). In addition to its

publications and research, ATTRA can

provide speakers in English and Spanish

for conference and workshops, as well

as for research and project partnership. n

ATTRA office contacts

Contact your nearest ATTRA

office with questions, whether

you’re looking for information on

sustainable agriculture or a

possible partner for a co-op

project.

NCAT Headquarters

3040 Continental Drive

P.O. Box 3838

Butte, MT 59701

406-494-4572

800-275-6228

NCAT California Office

36355 Russell Boulevard.

P.O. Box 2218

Davis, CA 95617

530-792-7338

800-411-3222

NCAT Gulf States Office

510 George Street

Suite 212

Jackson, MS 39202

866-643-2767

NCAT Southwest Regional Office

118 Broadway

Suite 524

San Antonio, TX 78205

866-319-1669

NCAT Southeast Office

207 West Center Street

P.O. Box 3657

Fayetteville, AR 72701

1-866-442-6085

Northeast Office

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Forty Fort, PA 18704

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NCAT horticulture specialist Guy Ames discusses elderberry production with “Armed to Farm”

conference members in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

“My hope is that a cooperative business model will 

allow for operations that can be sustainable and serve

the needs of local farmers for years to come.”
26 January/February 2016 / Rural Cooperatives

By Meegan Reilly Moriarty, J.D.

USDA Cooperative Programs

Editor’s note: This article is not intended

to serve as legal advice, but rather as a

survey of several forms of business entities

that readers may want to further explore.

Individuals considering forming a Benefit

Corporation, a B-Corporation or a Social

Purpose Corporation should consult with an

attorney.

In the November/

December 2015 issue of

Rural Cooperatives, I

discussed L3C

businesses, a type of

LLC (limited liability corporation) that

must serve a charitable purpose and was

designed to attract foundation funds

(although it does not have to). 

This article focuses on another

“hybrid” form of business that serves a

dual for-profit and socially beneficial

purpose: the benefit corporation. The

benefit corporation was created to allow

for-profit companies to also pursue a

charitable purpose. Unlike the L3C,

this business is not limited in its pursuit

of income or capital appreciation (other

than by its obligation to also pursue a

social good). The benefit corporation

can be adapted to operate using

cooperative principals. 

Background

Businesses can operate in a variety of

ways and for a variety of lawful

purposes. Historically, an organization

that intended to serve a charitable

purpose logically would consider

operating as a nonprofit organization

under state law. While a nonprofit can

acquire earnings or get funding from

private donors and foundations, it

cannot distribute (or liquidate) those

earnings to the individuals that control

the organization. A nonprofit cannot

raise equity by issuing stock, since it

belongs to the public. 

A nonprofit can secure debt

financing, but it may not get the best

terms, since its difficulty in raising

capital makes it harder to pay down the

loan. Further, a nonprofit that is exempt

from tax under Internal Revenue Code

(IRC) Section 501(c)(3) is subject to the

stringent private benefit, private

inurement and excess benefit

transaction rules. Violation of these

rules can result in loss of exempt status

and/or high excise taxes. (See IRC

Sections 501(c)(3) and 4958.) 

The corporate form of business also

has significant limitations if operating

for a beneficial purpose. Directors and

officers of a corporation who wish to

operate the business for purposes

beyond solely generating profits run the

risk becoming targets of shareholder

lawsuits. Corporations are required by

state law to be operated for the benefit

of their shareholders. (See Dodge v.

Ford Motor Co., 204 Mich. 459, 507,

170 N.W. 668, 684 (1919); eBay

Domestic Holdings, Inc. v. Newmark,

16 A. 3d 1 (Del. Ch. 2010).) 

Corporate officers and directors owe

a fiduciary duty of loyalty and care. The

duty of loyalty mandates that fiduciaries

act for the best interest of the

corporation and put the corporation’s

interests ahead of their own when they

are in conflict. The duty of care

requires that fiduciaries pay attention

and make good business decisions.

Under the “business judgment rule,”

courts rebuttably presume that directors

are acting in good faith, with good

information, and that their actions will

benefit the corporation. (See e.g.

Aronson v. Lewis, 473 A.2d 805 (Del.

1984.))

Generally, the business judgment

rule gives directors and officers some

latitude to make decisions that promote

a social good as long as there is a

purported, believed, or actual

connection to the value of the

corporation. Many states (but not

Delaware, where many businesses are

incorporated) have laws that allow

fiduciaries to consider constituencies

other than shareholders when making

decisions; members of the

constituencies vary by state, but may

include employees, former employees,

suppliers, creditors, customers and the

community. (See Eric W. Orts, Beyond

Shareholders: Interpreting Corporate

Constituency Statutes, 61 Geo. Wash.

L. Rev. 14 (1992).)

However, courts continue to see the

shareholders’ interests to be paramount

even when acknowledging directors’

legitimate interest in considering other

constituencies. (See e.g. Baron v.

Strawbridge & Clothier, 646 F. Supp.

690 (E.D. Pa. 1986).) So even with the

latitude provided by the business

judgment rule and even in states with

constituency statutes, directors run the

risk of being liable in a suit for breach

of fiduciary duty.

Generally, when dealing with

unwanted takeovers, directors may take

reasonable actions to protect the

corporation’s policies, but defense of a

socially motivated policy that does not

enhance the value of the corporation is

not permissible. (See e.g. eBay

Domestic Holdings Inc. v. Newmark,

16 A. 3d 1 (Del. Ch. 2010)). When a

corporation’s ownership or control is

being transferred, the directors’ job

Legal Corner

Benefit corporations aim to promote public good;

easily adapted to co-op principles
Rural Cooperatives / January/February 2016 27

becomes getting the best stock price for

the shareholders. Accepting a bid for

the corporation that preserves the

corporation or its management when a

higher price is available is an actionable

breach of fiduciary duty. (See Revlon,

Inc. v. MacAndrews & Forbes

Holdings, Inc., 506 A.2d 173 (Del.

1986); In re The Topps Company

Shareholders Litigation, 926 A.2d 58

(Del. Ch. 2007)). 

Shareholders can sue if they think

directors or officers have engaged in

misconduct or wasted corporate assets.

Penalties for directors and officers can

include money damages, disgorgement

of profits from the director or officer,

removal of directors or officers,

rescission of the relevant transaction,

and payment of attorney’s fees. (See

Sections 8.31 and 7.46 of the Revised

Model Business Corporation Act Third

Edition Revised 2002.) 

Benefit corporations

Given the limitations of the

nonprofit and corporate business forms,

creative individuals have invented

several business entities that can operate

for a social benefit purpose, raise

capital, preserve an adopted social or

environmental purpose in the event of

merger and acquisition, and earn and

distribute profits. One of these entities

is the benefit corporation (or the public

benefit corporation, the name by which

an alternative form to the model benefit

corporation is known in some

jurisdictions). 

Benefit corporation legislation has

been adapted in 31 states and is being

considered by five more. The model

legislation, drafted by attorney Bill

Clark, with Drinker, Biddle and Reath

LLP, creates a new category of business

entity, but unless otherwise specified in

the benefit corporation legislation,

existing corporate law applies. All

references in this article are to the

model legislation; practitioners should

examine the specific state legislation

that they are considering because it may

differ from the model legislation. 

Unlike strictly profit-motivated

corporations, a benefit corporation’s

purpose is to have a general public

benefit, defined as a “material, positive

impact on society and the

environment.” Benefit corporation

fiduciaries are required under the model

legislation to consider the impact of

their decisions on shareholders, other

constituencies — including workers,

suppliers, customers, subsidiaries, and

the community — and on non-financial

objectives, including benefiting the

environment and society. Fiduciaries are

also required by the model legislation

to consider the short-term and longterm interests of the corporation (the

long-term interests of which may best

be served by not being acquired or

merged into another company). The

corporation may also name a specific

public benefit that it will pursue. 

According to the white paper by

Clark and Larry Vranka of Canonchet

Group LLC, the “general public

benefit” provision in the model statute

was included (rather than just allowing

the corporation to choose a specific

benefit) for two reasons: 1. to permit

corporations to pursue a broad social

mission without fiduciary liability, and

2. to prevent them from

“greenwashing” their organizations by

choosing and publicizing one benefit

and using other corporate resources to

engage in activities that are not

beneficial. 

The general public benefit provision

is intended to be flexible and to give a

positive orientation to the business. It is

drafted broadly to allow individual

corporations to creatively arrive at a

public benefit. While the requirement

that the corporation benefit society and

the environment seems onerous,

according to the white paper,

corporations are not necessarily always

required to benefit both. The benefit is

to be “taken as a whole” under the

statute and assessed as a whole.

Additionally, commentators have

complained (according to the white

paper) that the requirement for a

general public benefit that makes a

“material” difference is vague. The

drafters responded in the white paper

that the assessment against the

independent standard clarifies the

meaning of “material.” 

The model statue suggests several

specific public benefits that a benefit

corporation could include as part of its

mission: 

1. Providing beneficial products or

services to the low-income or

underserved; 

2. Promoting economic opportunities; 

3. Protecting the environment; 

4. Promoting health; 

5. Promoting the arts and sciences; 

6. Funding beneficial entities; 

7. “Conferring any other particular

benefit on society or the

environment.” 

As item 7 indicates, this list is not

intended exclude other beneficial

purposes.

Reporting standards

The model legislation drafters

avoided including statutory

performance standards or creating a

Benefit corporation legislation has been adapted in 31 states

and is being considered by five more.
28 January/February 2016 / Rural Cooperatives

new government body to evaluate the

corporations. Instead, they mandated

reporting using a private third-party

standard. The white paper lists a

number of third-party standards

organizations that would be acceptable

under the legislation. These include BLab, The Global Reporting Initiative

(GRI), GreenSeal, Underwriters

Laboratories, ISO2600, and Green

America. GRI and B Lab do not charge

for the use of certain of their standards. 

Except in Delaware, a benefit

corporation must promulgate an annual

report based on a private third-party

standard: 1. to its shareholders; 2. on its

website, and 3. with the state secretary. 

This report would not be required to

be audited, but some benefit

corporations may decide to have thirdparty audits conducted to enhance their

credibility. The model statute mandates

that the third-party standard be

independent, comprehensive, credible,

and transparent. 

The third-party organization is

independent of the benefit corporation

if it follows rules assuring that it is not

funded by the benefit corporation’s

industry and that most of the

organization’s governing body is not

associated with the industry. 

The standard is comprehensive if it

takes into account the benefit

corporation shareholders, workforce,

the workforce of its subsidiaries and

suppliers, its customers, the community,

the local and global environment,

societal factors, the short- and longterm interests of the corporation, and

the general and specific benefit being

pursued by the corporation. 

The standard is credible under the

model legislation if it is created using

expertise and a multi-stakeholder

approach including a public comment

period. 

Transparency is achieved: 1. By

mandating that criteria (and their

relative weightings) used by the

standard are publicly available, and 2.

By requiring the organization

developing the standard to identify its

members (as well as any conflicts of

interest) and to describe how

membership changes and standard

revision changes are made.

Fiduciary responsibilities

Importantly, the model legislation

uses language in several sections

intended to ensure that courts will not

hold fiduciaries liable for failing to

follow shareholder primacy rules. It

states that the general and public

benefits are “in the best interest of the

benefit corporation,” thus assuring that

benefit company directors and officers

who pursue public benefits (rather than

solely focusing on profit maximization)

will not be liable for fiduciary

violations. The model statute explicitly

states that directors do not need to give

priority to the interests of shareholders

or any other particular stakeholder or

group unless mandated by the bylaws of

the corporation.

Directors and officers have wide

authority to further the best interest of

the corporation, so long as they pursue

a public benefit; any specific benefit

mandated by the corporation; the

interests of community stakeholders

(the shareholders, employees, suppliers,

customers, and subsidiaries); the

environment; and the long- and shortterm interests of the corporation. 

Fiduciaries remain subject to and

protected by the business judgment

rule. A disinterested director who

makes a good-faith, informed decision

that the director rationally believes to

be in the best interest of the

corporation is protected from liability. 

Interestingly, directors and officers

are not liable for money damages if

they fail to pursue the general or

specific public benefit. And fiduciaries

have no duties toward third-party

beneficiaries of the general or specific

public benefit purpose of the

corporation unless the corporation

articles allow a specific class of

individuals to bring an enforcement

action. Generally, directors,

shareholders who own 2 percent of

outstanding shares, and 5-percent

owners of a parent company are the

only constituents with standing to bring

a derivative action on behalf of the

corporation to enforce the benefit

purpose. 

Derivative suits can move forward if:

a director or officer failed to pursue the

corporation’s general or specific benefit;

did not achieve a duty or standard of

conduct; or did not provide the public

with the annual benefit report (by

publishing it on a website, delivering it

to shareholders and providing it to the

secretary of the state) written in

accordance with a third-party standard. 

Remedies available under the statute

are equitable. The white paper

speculates that a good faith effort to

pursue the general or specific benefit

purpose might defeat a derivative suit;

but for meritorious actions, a court

might give an extended period of time

to demonstrate the achievement of a

benefit. Other remedies could include

putting in place procedures to consider

constituencies that had been neglected

and enforcing the requirement to

publish the benefit report. 

Directors are still required to pursue

the purpose of the benefit corporation

and consider community stakeholders

in a change of control, merger,

consolidation, or conversion. Any

change in the form of the entity is

Co-ops and other businesses can consider operating as one of the 

corporate entities that have been created to further a social purpose 

and avoid fiduciary liability for violation of the shareholder primacy rule.
Rural Cooperatives / January/February 2016 29

required to be approved by two-thirds

of the shareholders. The corporation’s

bylaws can be amended by a two-thirds

vote of the shareholders to terminate its

status as a benefit corporation. Sale of

all the benefit corporation’s assets also

effectively terminates the corporation

and must be approved by a two-thirds

vote.

Benefit director 

and benefit officer

Publicly traded benefit corporations

are required to designate a benefit

director whose duties include preparing

the annual benefit report. In preparing

the report, the benefit director is

required to address whether the

corporation pursued its general and

specific purpose and whether the

directors followed appropriate standards

of conduct including considering

community and environmental interests.

The benefit director also must

describe any compliance failure in the

report. Non-publicly traded

corporations may also designate a

benefit director. Benefit companies are

also permitted to designate a benefit

officer who can help the company

pursue its public benefit or prepare the

benefit report.

Converting to a 

benefit corporation

When an entity is planning to

change to a benefit corporation (or

cease to be a benefit corporation) as a

result of a merger, consolidation or

conversion, the model benefit

legislation requires that shareholders of

every class (and individuals entitled to

receive property distributions) approve

the plan by a two-thirds vote. This

method of approval is required

regardless of contrary voting or consent

rules in the entity’s articles of

incorporation, bylaws, or (in the case of

a limited liability company) operating

agreement. 

The corporation must amend its

articles of incorporation to include a

statement that the corporation is a

benefit corporation. In some states,

dissenting shareholders are entitled to

receive the fair market value of their

shares.

B-Corps and B-Lab

B-Lab provides third-party standards

for benefit companies and was the

organization behind the creation of the

model benefit company legislation. BLab was formed by Jay Cohen Gilbert,

Bart Houlahan and Andrew Kassoy, all

Stanford University alumni. Gilbert and

Houlahan previously ran a multimillion-dollar sports footwear and

apparel company while Kassoy was a

private equity investor. 

B-Corporations are corporations that

have received the seal of approval from

B-Lab. Companies earn the seal by

undergoing a B-impact assessment,

developed by an advisory board of

business people and academics. The

assessment quantifies the company’s

impact and describes how it is doing

compared with other similar companies.

The assessment measures the company’s

environmental practices, treatment of

workers, customers, and consumers, and

its governance practices particularly

with respect to accountability and

transparency.

Conclusion

Cooperatives and other businesses

can consider operating as one of the

corporate entities that have been

created to further a social purpose and

avoid fiduciary liability for violation of

the shareholder primacy rule. Some

businesses may want to operate as

benefit corporations, have a general and

specific purpose, and be publicly

recognized for adhering to a stringent

third-party standard. Some benefit

corporations may want the further

recognition of achieving B-corporation

status by being certified by B-Lab. And

other businesses may prefer a less

stringent alternative. 

Washington, California and Florida

have enacted legislation enabling “social

purpose corporations” or SPCs, another

corporate form intended to operate for

a beneficial purpose but having fewer

requirements than benefit corporations.

The Washington SPC operates for a

general purpose and can choose one or

more specific purposes. The California

SPC (also known as a Flexible Purpose

Corporation) generally operates for a

specific purpose but can elect to also

have a general purpose. These entities

may be a good choice for businesses

that do not want to go to the expense of

adhering to a third-party standard, or in

the case of the California SPC, want to

have just a specific social purpose.

However, the more stringent

requirements of the benefit corporation

provide more credibility for

organizations that want to avoid the

appearance of “greenwashing.” n

References

• IRC Section 501(c)(3)

• IRC Section 4958

• Cal. Corp. Code Sections 2500-3503

• Revised Code of Washington Sections

23B.25.005-23B.25.150

• Model Business Corporation Act

Even with the latitude provided by the business judgment rule...

directors run the risk of being liable for breach of fiduciary duty 

unless they operate as part of a benefit corporation.

continued on page 37
30 January/February 2016 / Rural Cooperatives

Newsline

Send co-op news items to: dan.campbell@wdc.USDA.gov

Co-op developments, coast to coast

TFC feed mill 

becomes movie set

A Tennessee Farmers Cooperative

feed mill in LaVergne, Tenn., was

transformed into a movie set in October

to film scenes for “Where the Fast

Lane Ends.” The movie features

Christopher Knight (best known for

playing Peter Brady in “The Brady

Bunch” television show) and Scott

Reeves (well known for his soap opera

roles on “General Hospital” and the

“Young and the Restless”). Some co-op

employees at the mill were given oncamera roles. Other scenes were filmed

in Franklin, Tenn., using Tennessee

FFA members. 

The movie is written and produced

by Mark Miller, singer with country

music band Sawyer Brown. The goal of

the movie is to help spread a positive

message about modern-day animal

agriculture. TFC’s Feed and Animal

Health Department helped support the

production of the movie, which is set to

debut next summer.

Last summer, TFC hosted an

exclusive premiere of “The Ivy League

Farmer,” another agriculture-oriented

movie written and produced by Miller.

The premiere, held at a cinema in

Smyrna, Tenn., helped to raise

awareness of food insecurity, to support

the Murfreesboro City Schools’

“backpack initiative” and to help

educate the public about modern-day

agriculture. TFC’s Feed and Animal

Health Department, along with several

other agriculture companies, helped

fund the production. 

“When one of our feed-industry

partners, NutraBlend, told us the story

about The Ivy League Farmer and how

it addresses the importance of

A scene from a new movie,

“Where the Fast Lane Ends,” is filmed at

the Tennessee Farmers Cooperative (TFC)

feedmill in LaVergne, Tenn. From left, actor

Chris Knight, TFC’s Mike Richardson and Bobby Brown,

along with actors Scott Reeves and Terri Minton, film a

scene near the bagging line.
Rural Cooperatives / January/February 2016 31

agriculture and feeding a hungry world,

we said, ‘This is something we want to

be a part of,’” says Paul Davis, TFC’s

director of feed and animal health.

“The film sends a positive message to

those who might have a limited

knowledge of the agricultural industry.” 

“This movie represents a different

kind of outlet to bring the message

about hunger here in America and to

show the heart of what the farming

industry is all about,” adds Miller. 

“The Ivy League Farmer” tells the

story of 23-year-old Joel Gilbert, a

recent Harvard graduate who returns to

the family dairy for the summer before

starting a new Wall Street job.

Realizing the dairy is in trouble, he

confronts his strong-willed father with

ideas of using modern technologies,

management practices and business

ethics to ensure the farm’s future.

Gilbert becomes reacquainted with a

former girlfriend, now a teacher, and

together they devise a plan to provide

food for undernourished students and

build awareness of world hunger. 

As part of the premiere, TFC made a

$5,000 donation to the Murfreesboro

City Schools’ backpack initiative, which

provides food for students who are

likely to go home to empty pantries. 

CDF to host home care 

worker co-op conference 

The Cooperative Development

Foundation (CDF) will host a Home

Care Worker Cooperative Conference

in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area this

fall. The two-day conference will bring

together home care worker cooperative

members, managers, technical

assistance providers and steering

committees to discuss the economics of

home care, organizing, expansion,

collaboration and best practices. To

ensure that the conference meets the

needs of the audience, CDF is

encouraging anyone interested in the

subject to complete a brief, six-question

survey. The results of this survey will

determine the date and content of the

conference. 

CDF has supported research and

development of home care cooperatives

for more than a decade through the

MSC Fund and USDA Rural

Cooperative Development and Socially

Disadvantaged Group Grants. 

Beall resigns as NCBA CEO;

Ziewacz iterim leader 

Michael Beall resigned in November

as the president and CEO of NCBA

CLUSA. Beall was hired to lead the coop business organization on Sept. 28,

2012. 

In a letter to

members, Board

Chairman

Andrew Jacob

said “I have

reluctantly

accepted the

resignation of

Michael Beall as

CEO/President

of the National Cooperative Business

Association CLUSA International. In

his three-year tenure as CEO/president,

Michael successfully made numerous

contributions to the financial and

business operations of NCBA CLUSA.

All of us here at NCBA CLUSA join in

wishing Michael well in his new

position as senior consultant at Credit

Union Strategic Planning Inc.” 

NCBA CLUSA has named Judy

Ziewacz as interim CEO. Beall has

agreed to assist the organization as a

consultant on an “as-needed” basis. 

“I am pleased to once again serve

NCBA CLUSA and the broader

cooperative community during this

transition period to ensure that the

initiatives and priorities of NCBA

CLUSA continue uninterrupted,”

Ziewacz said. “The work NCBA

CLUSA is engaged in, both

domestically and around the world,

promotes the resilience of the

cooperative business model, and I look

forward to working with our board,

leadership team and staff to contribute

to the ongoing success of the

organization.”

For more than 35 years, Ziewacz has

championed cooperative development.

In 1985, she was instrumental in

launching the nation’s first statewide

co-op development center: the

Wisconsin Cooperative Development

Council, now known as Cooperative

Development Services. She also played

a key role in establishing

CooperationWorks!, a national

cooperative development network

responsible for the creation of hundreds

of co-ops and thousands of jobs. 

For nearly 100 years, NCBA

CLUSA has sought to advance and

protect cooperative enterprises,

highlighting the impact of cooperatives

in bettering the lives of individuals and

families. In the past 60 years, it has

grown its international development

portfolio to more than $45 million of

active programs in 18 countries.

DFA acquires sole 

ownership of DariConcepts

Dairy Farmers of America (DFA)

announced in November that it would

acquire 100-percent ownership of

DairiConcepts, the cooperative’s joint

venture with Fonterra Co-operative

Group Ltd. (Fonterra). The two

businesses have partnered in

DairiConcepts as equal owners since

2000, when the joint venture was

formed. 

DairiConcepts plays a key role in

DFA’s strategy to further grow its

ingredients division and extend its

global marketing outreach, but it was

viewed as a non-core component of

Fonterra’s strategy. The decision was

made by both DFA and Fonterra to

consolidate ownership.

“Our relationship with Fonterra

remains strong,” says Rick Smith, DFA

president and CEO. “DairiConcepts

has historically generated strong returns

for our farmer-owners, and we look

forward to continuing to strengthen the

business and expand markets for our

members’ milk.”

Fonterra will remain a key customer

Judy Ziewacz

continued on page 34
32 January/February 2016 / Rural Cooperatives

T HREE OUTSTANDING COOPERATIVE LEADERS

will receive the cooperative community’s highest honor on

May 4, when they are inducted into the Cooperative Hall

of Fame. The inductees are Dennis Bolling, Dennis A.

Johnson and Jessica Gordon Nembhard. These

cooperative leaders will be recognized at the annual

Cooperative Hall of Fame dinner and induction ceremony

at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. In

conjunction with the ceremony, a public forum on

cooperative development and leadership will be held in

the afternoon. 

“Induction into the Cooperative Hall of Fame is

reserved for those who have made genuinely heroic

contributions to the cooperative community,” says Gasper

Kovach Jr., board chair of the Cooperative Development

Foundation, which administers the Hall of Fame. 

n Dennis Bolling — Outgoing president and CEO of

United Producers Inc. (UPI), Bolling is a champion of the

co-op business model and a visionary cooperative

educator. He spent nearly four

decades serving the cooperative

sector. 

Bolling’s co-op career began in

1980 at the Louisville Bank of

Cooperatives, a predecessor to

CoBank. One of his accounts was

Producers Livestock Association,

which later became United

Producers Inc., an Ohio-based

livestock marketing, finance and

member services co-op serving

farmers in the Midwest. 

Bolling helped Producers Livestock emerge from the

economic downturn that plagued the ag sector throughout

much of the 1980s. In 1999, he oversaw a series of

mergers that doubled the co-op’s size and expanded its

services to producers in 10 states. In late 2001, Bolling

steered UPI through a complex, eight-year legal and

financial labyrinth in the wake of what has been described

as a “ponzi scheme” that left it bankrupt and $80 million

in debt. Under his leadership, UPI not only survived what

was widely seen as a crippling setback, but its members

emerged protected and its operations undamaged.

Today, UPI is the largest livestock marketing

cooperative in the U.S., serving 45,000 members,

marketing 3 million head of livestock and recording

annual sales of $1.2 billion last year. 

Once UPI was stabilized, Bolling turned his attention

to his lifelong passion: cooperative education and

development. An advocate of strong board governance, he

developed a board certification program and used the

Farm Credit Services’ leadership modules to provide

advanced governance training to co-op boards. At a time

when the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives’

(NCFC) director education program was on the brink of

disappearing, Bolling helped reinvent it and ensure its

broad support. 

At CoBank, Bolling led the committee that developed

its director education program, writing and presenting

much of it himself. 

Bolling was instrumental in creating numerous

cooperative education organizations, including the Center

for Cooperatives, Business and Community Education and

Development at Ohio State University and the Mid

America Cooperative Council. He serves on the Executive

Committee and as chair of the Education Committee at

NCFC, where his goal is to help cooperative directors

understand the scope and complexity of their role. Bolling

also chairs the board of the NCFC Foundation, where he

has set fundraising strategies and expanded the

organization’s scope of work. 

n Dennis Johnson — is former president and CEO of

the St. Paul Bank for Cooperatives, an early investor

behind a new generation of Midwestern co-ops in the 80s

and 90s. Also a key figure in the

development of senior housing

co-ops, Johnson holds a pivotal

place in cross-sector cooperative

history. 

His career at the St. Paul Bank

for Cooperatives saw him advance

from credit analyst in 1973 to

president and CEO in 1989, a

position he held until the bank

merged with CoBank in 1999.

Early on, Johnson recognized the

integral role the cooperative business model could play in

improving life in rural America. Under his leadership, the

St. Paul Bank became a leader in supporting new venture

co-op formation and finance. 

Johnson also oversaw the bank’s most significant change

during its 55-year history when, in 1989, it transitioned

from a lender with a four-state charter to one with a

national charter under the Agriculture Credit Act of 1987.

2016 INDUCTEES TO COOPERATIVE HALL OF FAME ANNOUNCED
Rural Cooperatives / January/February 2016 33

The expansion enabled the bank to support application

of the co-op business model to spur rural economic

development. 

Working alongside Rod Nilsestuen in the mid-80s,

Johnson was an early supporter of a co-op development

center that would provide technical assistance to both

existing co-ops and startups. He and the St. Paul Bank

were a reliable source of funding for what is today

known as Cooperative Development Services. 

Starting with the Homestead Housing Cooperative

program in the 1990s, Johnson has played a leading role

in the senior co-op housing sector. After retiring from

the St. Paul Bank in 1999, Johnson devoted the next 15

years to finding a new approach to developing and

financing senior housing co-ops. 

In 2002, Johnson helped organize the Senior

Cooperative Foundation and, in 2006, he joined

Cooperative Housing Resources (CHR) as executive vice

president, strengthening the organization as the nation’s

only lender focused solely on financing senior housing

co-ops. Johnson was the lead organizer of the annual

Senior Cooperative Housing Conference, for which he

continues to shape content. 

Recognizing the need for members to understand the

cooperative model, Johnson created the Senior Co-op

Housing Education Program, which has benefited more

than 6,000 member-owners. In 2009, he incorporated a

purchasing co-op to leverage the buying power of senior

housing co-ops. 

In 2013, he was a key part of a group that convinced

the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban

Development not to shutter its Minneapolis office.

Instead, staff grew from 11 to 50 people, and it continues

to provide services to senior housing co-ops nationally. 

As board member and chair of the Cooperative

Development Foundation, Johnson served as finance

chair of the National Rural Development Task Force. In

that role, he helped secure the congressional

authorization and appropriations for the USDA Rural

Cooperative Development Grant (RCDG) program.

Today, this program remains the primary source of

federal funding for cooperative development. 

n Jessica Gordon Nembhard — A cooperative

ambassador, economist and community economic

development expert, Gordon Nembhard is author of the

recently published book, “Collective Courage: A History

of African American Cooperative Economic Thought

and Practice” (Pennsylvania State University Press,

2014). The result of 15 years of research, the book

solidifies Gordon Nembhard as a historian of

cooperative empowerment and transformation within

low-income and minority communities. 

Gordon Nembhard is professor of community justice

and social economic development in the Department of

Africana Studies at John Jay

College, of the City University

of New York (CUNY). In the

early 2000s, she was an

assistant professor in the

African American Studies

Department at the University

of Maryland, College Park, and

a co-founder of the Democracy

Collaborative there. She was

also a founding board member

of the Political Economy

Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts,

Amherst. 

In 2008-09 she was a visiting scholar at the Centre for

the Study of Cooperatives at the University of

Saskatchewan (Canada) and continues to be an affiliate

scholar there. Since 2007, Nembhard has served on the

Association of Cooperative Educators (ACE) board of

directors, where she contributes to research and

education programs.

Her leadership has helped to position worker co-ops

as tools for economic and racial justice in the 21st

century. She co-founded the U.S. Federation of Worker

Co-ops and helped that organization build lasting ties

with prominent civil rights and cooperative organizations.

She is also a member of the Grassroots Economic

Organizing Newsletter collective and recently joined the

board of directors of Green Worker Cooperatives. In

2001, she received the Cooperative Advocacy and

Research Award from the Eastern Conference for

Workplace Democracy.

She is an integral supporter of the Federation of

Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund, and is

currently working with a Federation committee to draft

a pilot co-op curriculum for Tuskegee University, which

it is hoped will prompt other universities to add co-ops

to their business courses. 

Gordon Nembhard also worked with the Coalition for

a Prosperous Mississippi and is a member of the

Southern Grassroots Economies Project (SGEP), a

regional network dedicated to building a robust co-op

economy in the South among marginalized communities.

Gordon Nembhard is president of the board of

directors/shared leadership team of Organizing

Neighborhood Equity (ONE) D.C. 

For more information about CDF and the

Cooperative Hall of Fame, visit www.CDF.coop and

www.Heroes.coop .
34 January/February 2016 / Rural Cooperatives

of DairiConcepts, which will operate as

a wholly owned subsidiary of DFA.

DairiConcepts is a manufacturer of

cheese, dairy ingredients and dairy

flavor systems with eight facilities across

the United States. It works with

customers both in the United States

and around the world. 

In other DFA news, the co-op has

agreed to purchase the Muller Quaker

Dairy in Batavia, N.Y., from Pepsico.

The cooperative says it is exploring

several milk handling and

manufacturing options for the plant.

The $208 million yogurt plant was

opened in the spring of 2013 with about

$14 million in state tax credits as a key

player in the yogurt boom that has seen

New York become the top U.S. yogurt

producer because of the booming

Greek yogurt sector. 

Partnership to finance 

resident-owned communities

ROC USA Capital, National

Cooperative Bank (NCB) and MetLife

insurance company have forged a $40

million financing partnership to

structure a groundbreaking first

mortgage acquisition/permanent loan

product to finance resident-owned

manufactured home communities

(ROCs) at scale. NCB and MetLife will

each invest $15 million, and ROC USA

Capital $10 million, over two years to

finance ROCs in 20 states.

“We launched ROC USA Capital to

build a robust national market to

finance the acquisition, long-term

ownership, operation and improvement

of manufactured home communities by

the lower income homeowners who call

these neighborhoods home,” says ROC

USA Capital Managing Director

Michael Sloss. 

Since its inception in 2008, ROC

USA Capital has built a $100 million

portfolio of first mortgage community

acquisition/permanent loans to 42

ROCs in 11 states, enabling more than

3,400 low- and moderate-income

homeowners to buy, preserve and

improve their neighborhoods. ROC

USA Capital has carried out this work

on a retail basis, partnering with 20

statewide and regional financial

institutions to deliver this critical

community acquisition/improvement

financing. 

The partnership with NCB and

MetLife opens the door for other

national banks, insurance companies

and pension funds to finance residentowned communities.

This is a key development in ROC

USA LLC’s national strategy to

implement its resident-ownership

model at scale. National institutional

investors have financed manufactured

home community (MHC) acquisitions

by commercial owners for years,

committing close to $1 billion annually

in the MHC sector. Bringing such

institutional investors to the residentownership segment of the MHC sector

will enable ROC USA Capital to grow

and diversify its lending and set the

stage for developing an active secondary

market for ROC USA Capital’s loans.

“We’ve been very successful creating

resident ownership opportunities on a

relatively small scale, more than

doubling our portfolio to 10,000 homes

in eight years,” says Paul Bradley, ROC

USA president. “We built ROC USA to

scale resident ownership and transform

communities by bringing security and

economic gain to the often-ignored

homeowners in the country’s 50,000

manufactured home communities. This

loan product makes ROC USA Capital

a more nimble and competitive force in

that field.” 

“As a socially responsible,

cooperatively owned financial

institution, National Cooperative Bank

is the ideal partner for ROC USA and

MetLife to bring affordable housing to

residents across the country,” says Ann

Fedorchak, managing director at NCB. 

“ROC USA’s model of resident

ownership ties to MetLife’s financial

inclusion work supporting skills and

financial products to manage life’s risks

and seizing its opportunities,” says

Matthew Sheedy, director and head of

community investments at MetLife. 

ROC USA is a nonprofit social

venture with a national network of eight

affiliates working to make resident

ownership viable nationwide. 

USDA awards $34 million in

Value-Added Producer Grants 

USDA is investing nearly $34

Residents of Meadow Valley Park, Unadilla, N.Y., celebrate the conversion of their manufactured

housing community into a resident-owned co-op. Photo courtesy ROC USA
Rural Cooperatives / January/February 2016 35

million in Value-Added Producer

Grants (VAPG) to help 258 businesses

nationwide. These grants can be used to

develop new agricultural products or

additional markets for existing ones.

Military veterans, socially disadvantaged

and beginning farmers and ranchers,

operators of small- and medium-sized

family farms and ranches, and farmer

and rancher cooperatives are given

priority when applying for these grants.

“This funding will enable farmers

and ranchers to develop new products,

improve the bottom line for their

operations and help create a robust

local and regional food system,” says

Rural Development Deputy Under

Secretary Vernita F. Dore. “ValueAdded Producer Grants provide capital

to enable ag producers to grow their

business through diversification.”

Examples of companies receiving

awards include EarthDance, a farm in

Ferguson, Mo., that also operates an

organic farm school. EarthDance is

receiving a $19,000 grant to conduct a

feasibility study and develop a business

plan for marketing organic local

produce.

In Sebastopol, Calif., Bohemian

Creamery is receiving a $100,000 grant

to produce, sell and market goat whey

sodas and soft-serve frozen yogurt. In

Madison County, Va., North Cove

Mushroom has been selected for a

$250,000 grant that will help the

company market and process locally

produced mushrooms into prepared

foods and medicinal products.

Since 2009, USDA has awarded

1,115 VAPGs worth $154 million.

About 18 percent of the grants and 14

percent of total funding has been

awarded to beginning farmers and

ranchers. During 2015, more than onethird of VAPGs went to farmers and

ranchers developing products for the

local foods sector.

USDA Rural Development helped

84 agricultural producers carry out local

foods projects in 2014 through almost

$8.9 million in VAPG awards. In

Arizona, North Leupp Family Farms

received a $26,000 grant to determine

the feasibility of producing blue

cornmeal from Navajo corn and

starting a mobile market to sell

products on the Navajo Nation. In

Georgia, the owners of B.J. Reese

Orchards LLC are using a $200,000

grant to process their apples into homemade apple pies and other value-added

apple products.

Lamb co-op purchases

Colorado plant

Mountain States Lamb Cooperative

(MSLC) is purchasing the JBS Greeley

Lamb Plant, in Greeley, Colo. All 120

JBS workers will continue with their

current positions, according to a report

in the Prairie Star. 

The co-op has been renting the plant

and paying for lamb harvest, so MSLC

had no control over that portion of the

process, Becky Gitthens, the co-op’s

director of finance and operations, told

the Prairie Star. Owning the plant will

provide producer-members with “more

opportunities for their economic

future,” Gitthens said, adding that coop members will now be better able to

earn “maximum return on their

investment.”

MSLC is the nation’s largest lamb

producer cooperative, with 140 sheep

producers-members in 17 states. MSLC

markets lamb under the labels Cedar

Springs Natural Lamb and Mountain

States Rosen Lamb. The co-op harvests

260,000 lambs annually, with producer

families raising them either

conventionally or naturally.

N. Dakota co-ops to merge 

Members of United Prairie

Cooperative of New Town and Dakota

Quality Grain Cooperative of Parshall

have voted to consolidate their

operations. The new company will

begin operations as United Quality

Cooperative in April, providing services

and products for the grain and energy

industries.

United Prairie CEO and General

Manager John Reese says the two coops share a bulk fuel partnership and

have overlapping trade territories, and

it made sense to combine.

The new United Quality Co-op will

have more than 6,000 patrons and 170

employees. Reese and Dakota Quality

Grain General Manager Daryl Stevens

both are retiring, and the search is

underway for a CEO for the new co-op.

Elburn Co-op 

to merge with CHS

Members of Elburn Cooperative, a

diversified agricultural retailer based in

Sycamore, Ill., have voted to merge

with CHS Inc. With 81 percent of

eligible producers voting, 94 percent

cast ballots favoring the merger, which

will become effective in March, pending

due diligence by both co-ops and

approval by the CHS board.

“Merging with CHS offers us a more

competitive size and scale than we've

had in the past on our own,” says Tracy

Jones, chairman of Elburn Cooperative.

“This merger positions us to return the

CCA conference 

in Omaha, June 4–7

“Get up and GROW in the Big

O!” is the theme for the 2016

Cooperative Communicators

Association (CCA) annual

Communications Institute, June

4–7 in Omaha, Neb. The CCA

conference usually attracts about

125 co-op communicators from all

types of co-ops.

The three-day program will

include a wide range of

professional development

sessions ranging from hands-on

skill building to exploration of

strategic management issues. In

addition, CCA will recognize the

best in writing, photography,

publications and special projects

during its annual communications

awards program.

Program details and

registration materials will soon be

available at:

www.communicators.coop.
36 January/February 2016 / Rural Cooperatives

greatest value to our patrons and for

future generations. We look forward to

enhancing and building upon the

already strong local cooperative

expertise available to producers in the

region,” says Lynden Johnson, CHS

executive vice president. Phil Farrell

will continue to serve as general manager.

Michigan dairy co-ops 

promote food safety

Michigan Milk Producers

Association (MMPA) and Continental

Dairy Facilities LLC hosted 57 food

safety professionals from around North

America at a dairy plant food safety

workshop Oct. 13-14 in Coopersville,

Mich. The workshop — designed by

the International Dairy Foods

Association and the Innovation Center

for U.S. Dairy — emphasizes the

importance of strengthening

manufacturing practices in all dairy

processing facilities to diminish food

safety risk and protect the reputation of

the dairy industry. 

“We believe food safety is not a trade

secret, and we openly share our best

practices for the good of the dairy

industry,” says MMPA General

Manager Joe Diglio. “This food safety

workshop is the right forum for

companies like MMPA to share our

expertise and to build cooperation

among industry leaders.” 

Industry experts taught the

participants procedures related to

achieving and maintaining superior

food safety standards in their processing

plant. The training — one of more than

20 workshops held nationwide —

involved hands-on activities related to

food safety in dairy plants, with a

special emphasis on dry powder. 

CDI completes 

Visalia plant expansion

California Dairies Inc. (CDI), the

largest dairy processing cooperative in

California, has commissioned a new

evaporator at its Visalia, Calif., plant.

The addition of a third evaporator at

the plant moves CDI’s export powder

portfolio up the value chain in to higher

specification powders.

The additional evaporator provides

CDI the ability to produce low-spore,

nonfat dry milk and skim milk powder,

in addition to high-heat, heat-stable and

low-spore milk powders. The expansion

and enhancement of its assets and

product offerings not only enables CDI

to meet its customer needs for valueadded milk powders, but also increases

CDI presence in the global

marketplace.

“Striving to be a global market

leader that produces the value-added

and specialty dairy products the world

prefers, CDI has positioned itself so

that its assets and its capabilities align to

produce the products the world market

demands,” says Andrei Mikhalevsky, the

co-op president and CEO.

Co-op to build 

Idaho fertilizer facility 

Valley Agronomics LLC plans to

build a fertilizer distribution and retail

center on a portion of the former FMC

site west of Pocatello, Idaho. The plan

is pending an agreement between the

Power County Development Authority

(PCDA), FMC Corporation and Valley

Agronomics that will allow

redevelopment to proceed, according to

a report by NPG of Idaho. 

The project reflects a capital

investment of $12 million and, at full

scale, will employ 60 to 70 people. The

initial phase of the operation will

encompass about five acres with rail

service from Union Pacific Railroad. A

second phase of development will

encompass an additional area of 12

acres of warehousing and retail

operations. 

Valley Agronomics is a partnership

between Valley Wide Cooperative and

WinField Solutions LLC, a Land

O’Lakes company. 

Co-op Summit slated 

for in October in Quebec 

The International Summit of

Cooperatives will be held Oct. 11-13 in

Quebec City, Canada. Theme for the

event is “Cooperatives: The Power to

Act.” The summit will show the real

impact of cooperatives and mutuals at

the local, national and international

levels, and the pivotal role they play in

the key global issues listed in the

United Nations’ post-2015

development agenda.

The program will examine new

socio-economic and geopolitical

realities around the world and address

the challenges and opportunities faced

by cooperatives and mutuals in a

constantly changing economy. The

summit will help cooperative leaders

identify actions that could provide

solutions to the development issues

listed by the U.N. The program will

include world-renowned speakers and

will draw on cross-sector studies.

The Summit is the world’s leading

event for co-op and mutual business

development, and should be of interest

to co-ops of all sizes and types. The

event is expected to attract more than

3,000 participants from 93 countries.

For additional information, visit:

www.intlsummit.coop. n

ACE-CASC

conference 

in Calgary, June 1–3

“Energizing Communities:

Cooperatives Nurturing

Democratic Practice!” is the

theme for the combined

conference of the Association of

Cooperative Educators (ACE) and

the Canadian Association for the

Studies of Cooperation (CASC).

The joint conference will be held

June 1–3 at the University of

Calgary in Alberta, Canada. 

This joint cooperative

education and

research conference is part of

the 2016 Congress of the

Canadian Federation of the

Humanities and Social Sciences.

For more information, contact

Sarah Pike at pike@ace.coop or

(763) 432-2032.
Rural Cooperatives / January/February 2016 37

Key help from USDA, VA FAIRS

Heatwole received key assistance

from the Virginia Foundation for

Agriculture, Innovation and Rural

Sustainability (VA FAIRS) and USDA’s

Value-Added Producer Grant (VAPG)

program. 

Agricultural development is closely

tied with rural community growth. As a

rural development center that works

with cooperatives, other producer

groups and rural businesses to support

agricultural and rural initiatives, VA

FAIRS was in an excellent position to

help Heatwole realize his dream. The

project has brought local producer

groups and consumers together to

promote community growth and to

strengthen ties between residents and

agriculture. 

The VAPG funding from USDA

Rural Development helped pay for a

business plan. With that in hand,

Shenandoah Processing was soon

looking for a plant location and the

necessary equipment to begin operations.

A building in Harrisonburg, in the

heart of the state’s Shenandoah Valley,

was chosen for the plant. It had

previously been owned by a commercial

poultry operation, and it took only a

few months to renovate the building

and bring it up to meet USDA

standards, with operations beginning in

2013. Its central location in

Harrisonburg is easily accessible to a

number of large and small farmers. 

As Shenandoah’s business has grown,

it has added many new customers,

including local and regional grocery

stores. Receiving USDA’s Organic and

Certified Humane certifications has

helped increase demand for its products.

The Harrisonburg area is designated

as a food desert, based on the number

of people with low incomes and their

lack of access to fresh, local foods.

Shenandoah Processing’s efforts to

bring accessible, organic poultry to the

community is helping to improve that

picture. 

Opening new markets 

for small growers

Shenandoah Processing’s growth has

had a significant impact on producers in

the area. It currently processes flocks

from 30 farms in Virginia and West

Virginia, enabling producers —

especially organic and small-scale

growers — to reach larger markets than

they could on their own. The business

also has a strong focus on farmer

education and is helping new farmers

get started.

It holds monthly luncheons for its

farmers, during which changes in food

regulations and policy changes are

discussed, along with general business

updates. The Virginia Small Farm

Outreach Program has visited the

facility, bringing almost 50 program

members, including economic

development program directors and

extension agents, to tour Shenandoah’s

processing operations and member farms.

The positive economic impact of the

operation has been felt not only among

farmers, but also in the community at

large. The processing facility is credited

for helping to create more than 200

jobs to date. With more local producers

getting their products in stores and

more local people finding employment,

Shenandoah Processing is

accomplishing its mission. n

• Model Benefit Corporation

Legislation

• Dodge v. Ford Motor Co., 204 Mich.

459, 507, 170 N.W. 668, 684 (1919). 

• eBay Domestic Holdings, Inc. v.

Newmark, 16 A. 3d 1 (Del. Ch.

2010).

• Enterra Corp. v. SGS Associates, 600

F. Supp. 678, 686 (E.D.Pa.1985).

• Aronson v. Lewis, 473 A.2d 805, (Del.

1984). 

• Unocal Corp. v. Mesa Petroleum Co.,

493 A.2d 946 (Del. 1985).

• Revlon, Inc. v. MacAndrews & Forbes

Holdings, Inc., 506 A.2d 173 (Del.

1986).

• In re. The Topps Company

Shareholders Litigation, 926 A.2d 58

(Del. Ch. 2007).

• White Paper: The Need and

Rationale for the Benefit

Corporation: Why It Is the Legal

Form That Best Addresses the Needs

of Social Entrepreneurs, Investors,

and, Ultimately, the Public.

• Eric W. Orts, Beyond Shareholders:

Interpreting Corporate Constituency

Statutes, 61 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 14

(1992).

Legal Corner

continued from page 29

New poultry processing plant

continued from page 13

prisoners, as well as creative business

developers, academics and professionals

with the ability to provide social

supports to the members, she adds. 

It is also critical to repeal laws that

prevent prisoner cooperatives from

forming. In Puerto Rico, laws

obstructed prisoners’ attempts to form a

cooperative, and ex-prisoners are not

allowed to form a cooperative because

they are prohibited from fraternizing. 

Further study of the application of

the cooperative model for prisoners and

ex-prisoners and a commitment to

rehabilitation could make a difference

for the 2.2 million people currently in

U.S. prisons, not to mention the 9

million incarcerated worldwide.

Sources for this article are available

on request from the author:

meegan.moriarty@wdc.usda.gov, or

coopinto@wdc.usda.gov.. n

From Bars to Freedom

continued from page 18
38 January/February 2016 / Rural Cooperatives

Now available from

Co-ops 101: An Introduction 

to Cooperatives (CIR 55)

Probably the most widely read co-op primer

in the nation, this report provides a bird’seye view of the cooperative way of

organizing and operating a business. Now

in an attractive new, full-color format. Ideal

for classroom use and member organization

meetings.

Co-op Essentials (CIR 11)

A companionship volume to Co-ops 101, this

is an educational guide that teaches further

basic information about cooperatives. It

explains what cooperatives are, including

their organizational and structural traits. It

examines co-op business principles and the

responsibilities and roles of cooperative

members, directors, managers and

employees.

How to Start a Cooperative (CIR 7)

This long-time favorite has been freshened

with updated editorial content and a new

design. This guide outlines the process of

organizing a cooperative business,

including the necessary steps involved in

taking the co-op from idea to launching pad. 

The Role of Food Hubs in 

Local Food Marketing (SR-73)

Consumers are willing to pay a premium for

locally-produced foods. But producers are

often handicapped by the lack of a locally

based distribution system. The food hub is

one collaborative distribution system for

local and regional food that shows great

promise. This report presents an overview

of the myriad issues facing food hubs

across the United States.

Cooperative Statistics 2014 (SR-78)

Provides a vital window on the agricultural

cooperative economy, based on a survey of

2,186 U.S. farmer, rancher and fishery

cooperatives during calendar year 2014. It

shows another record year for ag co-op

business volume and net income (before

taxes). It also includes a wealth of

information about financial ratios and other

performance data that co-ops can use as a

yardstick to examine their own

performance.

Performance of the Top 18 Dairy 

Co-ops, 1992-2012 (RR 232)

The equity retained by dairy cooperatives

represents a substantial sum of the

members’ money and competes with the

capital needed for financing their farm

operations. That’s why good financial

performance is vital to the well-being of

dairy co-op members. Learn how well the

largest U.S. dairy cooperatives are doing.

USDA To order: USDA co-op publications

are free, and available both in hard

copy and on the Internet, unless “Web

only” is indicated. 

NEW!
Rural Cooperatives / January/February 2016 39

The Nature of the Cooperative (CIR 65)

These collected articles, written by USDA

ag economist Charles Ling, were originally

printed in Rural Cooperatives magazine to

examine the nature of cooperatives and

their place in our free-market economy.

Now expanded to 10 articles from the

original 5. Especially suited to college-level

courses that examine the cooperative

business model.

Nominating Electing and Compen-sating

Cooperatives Directors (CIR 63)

This report examines the various methods

co-ops use for nominating board

candidates, voting policies and

compensation practices for co-op directors.

It also includes a look at the types of

leadership skills needed by co-op board

members. This collection of articles by

USDA economist Bruce Reynolds originally

appeared in USDA’s Rural Cooperatives

magazine.

Member Satisfaction with Their

Cooperatives (RR 229) (Web Only)

Dairy cooperatives have adopted a wide

range of organizational structures. In some

cases, this resulted in fairly bureaucratic,

complex business organizations that require

high levels of management expertise. This

study looks at how such organization

affects the satisfaction members have with

their cooperatives.

Comparing Cooperative Principles of the

U.S. Department of Agriculture and the

International Cooperative Alliance (RR 231)

(Web Only)

The cooperative principles of the U.S.

Department of Agriculture and those of the

International Cooperative Alliance (ICA)

have evolved in slightly different directions

since the drafting of the Rochedale

statement of 1860. This report compares the

two sets of cooperative principles, including

how they distinguish that form of

organization from other forms of business.

Running a Food Hub. Volume I:

Lessons Learned From the Field (SR 77)

This report is part of multi-volume, technical

report series: Running a Food Hub. This first

volume compiles a number of best business

practices for starting or expanding a food

hub enterprise. It includes operational

profiles of the food hubs profiled in the

report.

Running a Food Hub. Volume II: 

A Business Operations Guide (SR 77)

The report’s main focus is on the

operational issues faced by food hubs,

including choosing a location, deciding on

infrastructure and equipment, logistics and

transportation, human resources and risk. It

explores the different decision points

associated with the organizational steps for

starting and implementing a food hub.

For hard copies: Please include the

publication title and number, as well as

the quantity needed. Send e-mail to:

coopinfo@wdc.usda.gov, or call (202)

720-7395. 

Send mail requests to: USDA Co-op

Info., Stop 3254, 1400 Independence

Ave. SW, Washington, D.C. 20250. 

To download from the Web: Visit

www.rd.usda.gov/publications/publicati

ons-cooperatives. 

NEW!
Periodicals Postage Paid

U.S. Department of Agriculture

United States

Department of Agriculture

Washington, DC 20250

OFFICIAL BUSINESS

Penalty for private use, $300

NOTICE:

q Check here to stop receiving this publication and mail this

sheet to the address below.

q NEW ADDRESS. Send mailing label on this page and changes

to:

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For Forum information, visit: 

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