The producers news. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1918-1937, 1923-01-05
SlPRO TRACES sue
GCIF RS CALF. CO-OPS
Ia system Is Highly Technical
o oe.-.,izatiOn Developed Through
Ulss Of Old World Success and
failure, he Points Out.

,s.od Tor JIG AiASS-
- farm products in the interest
ps - member farmers, and for moth
slse. It bears slight resemblance
:. y .rv other form Of American bust
- termination, and has nothing to
I.'S Nth consumer cooperation" or
.'onerative buying, which is cat Of
entirely different color.
IN the next article I propose to give
t,of outline of the fundamental
.snciDIes Of such an Organization.
T.artme, let US have a look at the
.rocess of their evolution.
M more ridiculous idea can be con-
..irsd than that the highest type of
lucrative marketing organization,
: + exists today, has sprung full
ssJoed within the past two or three
r..rs from the brain of any one man
- group Of men. It is the fruit of
lorg and infinitely carried experience
and the evolution of a successful form
has been gradual.
Cooperation, very close to our
newest type, while practiced on less
y scale, has been practiced in various
countries in Europe for the past half
century. Cooperation of a less eff
eisnt character has been gradually
growing among American farmers for
fully that period Of time.
For centuries, the farmers Of the
world have been organizing, in one
way or another, with the end in view
Of acquiring for themselves middle
msh's profits" This is only part of
the aim Of modern cooperative mar
ketng, whose fundamental purpose of
eliminating the dumping process has
only been understood and evolved
within the past few years. Further
more, we now recognize the usefulness
Of the distributive, as distinguished
from the speculative, middleman.
Therefore past efforts have been most
" efficient, but they have tended in
the right direction.
The dairy farmers of Switzerland
have been cooperating for the past
300 years.
40 Viewers Recalled.
All over Europe, during the first
half Of the last century, there sprung
up among farmers various forms Of
cooperative banks and cooperative
stores The success of the famous
cooperative stores of the 40 weavers
Of ROchedale, in England, which was
instituted about 1910, rapidly spread
its story all over the world and re-
suited in innumerable efforts at Co
operative selling upon the Rochedale
plan, which, being a plan of consum-
er cooperation and not a plan of pro-
Queer cooperation, has produced as
many failures as successes.
The older farm organizations IN
this country began, shortly after the
Civil war, to set up local co-opera-
i've wheat elevators and cooperative
creameries based upon the Rochedale
plan. These now dot the Middle West
Of the United States by the thousands.
Many Failures.
Sometimes they have been success
iu and more frequently they have
been complete failures. In the ma
lonty Of cases they have been neither
successes nor failures. That is to say,
uey have managed TO operate without
either marked profit or loss to their
member faremrs. In all cases they
nave had no effect whatsoever upon
zen general market conditions, for these
mule Isolated locals, acting independ-
snuy' have no way of making any
whatsoever against the
= jumping process referred to in my
init.
meantime, an event of world inn
p0''anee, then unrecognized, was TAX
ing place in the little European coun-
ny Of Denmark. When about 1866,
russia I took Schleswig-Holstein from
denmark, she deprived that little
country Of the wheat fields that had
=. cen the main source of income from
export for her people.
Danes Evolve Plan.
Inc Danes were thrown back for
s support almost solely upon their dairy
ss :, which were also
Iessu IN practically every country in
Europe. It was up to the Danish
ARM ,ali1er then, to devise a means of
~, Ae'ing his dairy products so that
M. y 'Ould compete with foreign dairy
H. .uO'S IN foreign lands. He did it
mol impact large scale cooperative
eba ,1s'lng organization, with mer-
81 ''slSlng as its aim. And the Dam
par.. liner receives, today, a larger
than ''se OF The consumers dollar
an any other farmer in Furone