Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1921-09-16
FEDERATION WARNS
FARMERS AGAINST
GRAIN SALES DEAL
Proposed Contract Would Cripple Ma
tional Marketing Movement, 50
Says Farm Bureau.
MINNESOTA Farm BUREAU
FEDERATION NEWS SERVICE
BY NEIL H. SWANSON
E5i+or News Service

Minnesota Farm Bureau Federatlon
Pronosed arrangements for concen-
trating the marketing of the grain or
Minnesota. South Dakota, Montana,
and Wisconsin in the hands OF the
Faulty exchange as the exclusive
sales agency of the U. S. Grain Grow
ers. Inc. endanger the success of the
whole cooperative marketing move
ment in the northwest, the Minnesota
Farm Bureau federation says in an
official statement sent to the county
farm bureau today.
The statement was Sent out 10
every county bureau in the state ana
also to 10000 individual farmers, as
warning that in the opinion of the
farm bureau federation, which helped
to launch and to finance the lnVestl-
cations of the Committee of Seven
teen. a proposed contract designed to
put the marketing plans OF this COM
mittee into operation in Minnesota
"does not merit the support of the
farmers nor warrant their invest
ment at the present time"
The decision to issue the warning
was reached at a meeting OF 1arm
bureau federation directors from the
county farm bureaus, in st. Paul.
The statement received here declares
that a contract, drawn up between
the U. S. Grain Growers, Inc, and
the Equity Cooperative exchange,
but not yet signed, complexities the
process of grain marketing instead
of offering "the slightest improve
ment over present methods"
'The Minnesota Farm Bureau fed
Grafton is absolutely back OF the U.
s. Grain Growers, Inc, and the plan
of the Committee of Seventeen" the
statement says. 1.-THE plan is sound.
The farm bureau will not rest until
if is put into successful operation.
The federation has been ready for
four months to organize the q. S.
Grain Growers in Minnesota, in CO.
operatiOn with other farm organlza-
tions, as soon as practical arrange
ments could be made for marketing
the farmers grain under control or
the U. S. Grain Growers, Inc. 1t is
ready to do so now as soon as mod1-
fcations can be made in the proposed
contract, so that the individual farm
er's interests will be properly pro-
tected. The objections of the fedora
ton to the proposed contract do not
apply in any way to the U. S. Grain
Growers or the plan of the Commit
tee of Seventeen. We are asking
changes in the contract in the inter-
ests of the grain producers.
THE plan of the Committee OF
Seventeen calls for an Organization
equipped to handle enough Of the
grain of the United States through a
single cooperative system, to exert
a stabilizing effect on the market, to
put grain on the market in and or
derby manner, and to prevent gluts
and violent price fluctuations. This
purpose can be accomplished only
through one centralized, controlling
sales agency. But the proposed con-
tract would make the Equity, a local
organization, the exclusive selling
and warehousing agency for all grain
marketed comparatively in the whole
spring wheat district. We can come
to no other conclusion than that the
U. S. Grain Growers, Inc, contem-
plates signing similar contracts with
the several other cooperative selling
organizations represented on the
board of directors of the national
corporation.
This will give the farmers OF
America four or more selling agen-
Il h II
place the farmer back in the same
position he was before cooperative
marketing at the primary terminals
was attempted. 1t will prevent the
U. S. Ggain Growers from doing the
farmers any real good. It will pile
one commission charge on top Of an
other, instead of shortening the roaC
from producer to consumer anC
cheapening the process of distribu
ton.
I'm effect, the proposed contract
means that the U. S. Grain Growers
Inc, would ask every grain produces
to give it $40, and it would then de-
vote it's efforts to drumming up bust
ness for the Equity exchange anG
O(1l0I 1OCdA oISdn1LdC1OuS, 1uSledu "
marketing the farmers grain on {
national scale through one agency.
The farm bureau federation listet
other objections to establishment o
the Equity exchange as sole selling
agency of the cooperative grain mar
keting system in the northwest, a
follows:
THE proposed contract permits tn
Equity exchange to carry on it's owl
business at the same time it acts a
agent for the U. S. Grain Growers
We do not believe that any market
ing agency can carry on it's own bust
ness and at the same time give
competing agency efficient servic
and satisfactory results, when thei