The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1918-12-13
COOPERATIVE MARKETING
OFTHFPRODUCTSO THEFARM
What Makes for Success and What
Most Often Leads to Failure

reau of Markets, U. ,. u. A. cooper
ating, recently sent out the following
circular which will help communities
contemplating the formation of CO.
operative selling organizations:
For the last half century, at least,
the farmers of the United States have
turned to collective bargaining as
solution of many of their problems.
They have associated themselves CO.
operatively for the purpose of doing
collective bargaining along many diff
ferent lines. Some of the more i'm
portant of these activities are: live
stock improvement, community devel-
opment, legislative promotion, manu-
facture of dairy products, buying sup
plies, and the sale of farm products.
In fact, collective bargaining has been
an applied means to many an end.
Unfortunately, collective bargaining
in the sale of farm products has not
fulfilled the highest expectations of
its adherents. If the history of CO.
operative marketing associations in
the United States were written, the
failures would fill many, many more
pages than the successes. These fail
ures, however, have not lessened the
belief of the farmer as a class, in the
principles of cooperation. They have
merely convinced him that the bring
ing about Of successful cooperative
effort is a rather difficult and COM
plex matter.
Two Essentials of Cooperative Mar
keting Organizations
Altho there are numerous factors
which contribute to the success or fall
ure of cooperative undertakings, two
of these factors have proven them
selves to be of primary Importance.
Management
It has been found, in the light of
past experiences, that too often boards
of directors of cooperative concerns
have not been willing to pay the nee
essary salaries in order to attract
managerial ability equal to that en-
ployed by competitors. Cooperative
marketing organizations by no means
manage themselves. Every associa-
ton must meet competition of some
sort. In order to meet this competi-
tion successfully its activities must be
supervised by managers as highly eff
ficient as are the managers of the con-
Germs competing against it. Many as
sociations follow the policy that one
way to cut down marketing expenses
is to eliminate the high salaried en-
ployes. This practice often proves a
costly one, in that cheap concerns may
be cheap in more ways than one-by
rendering an unsatisfactory service.
A marked improvement among CO.
operatiev marketing concerns has been
noticeable during the past few years
in respect to their attitude toward
managerial ability. At present one is
able to find as highly paid managers
at the head of cooperative undertak-
ings as are found among many private
companies following the same line of
business. It is to be hoped that this
policy will continue to spread among
co-operators.
Volume of business
A majority of associations follow
the capital stock plan of organization.
In following this plan capital stock is
generally made the primary consider
alton in determining whether or not
an organization should be effected.
The general procedure is to bend all
efforts in the sale of stock until suf-
ficient funds are secured to begin op-
GRAFTON. Then the association is de-
clared to be going concern. BY this
method capital is given the prime con-
sideration. Experience has shown,
however, that capital, altho necessary
in most cases, is only of secondary
Importance to the success of the en-
terprise. The item that is far more
essential is patronage-volume of bus
mess. For instance, if a cooperative
creamery is to be a successful under
taking it must have butter fat. No
matter how much capital a creamery
may command, if it handled no butter
fat it would be failure as a cream
cry. But if it received a sufficient
amount of butterat to run it at full
capacity, there is little doubt that it
could command the credit with which
to borrow the required capital, even
tho it had sold not one share of cap
ital stock.
In any commercial enterprise there
is a limit to the volume of business
below which the undertaking ceases to
be successful one.' The first consid-
GRAFTON of a prosperous cooperative
association is to assure itself that its