Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-07-31
FARMERS CO-OPS
TO Be RELIEF BASE
Board Hopes to Avoid Open
Market Operations Through
Large Associations.
By the Associated Press.

By the Associated Press.
The evolvement of perhaps half
dozen gigantic farmer -owned co-opera-
tive organizations to conduct orderly
mass marketing of the principal agri-
cultural commodities is under considera
ton by the now completed Federal Farm
Board as the foundation for its attempt
to bring prosperity to the farming
industry.
Once the program is brought to full
fillnent. farm leaders expect it to make
the United States the arena for the
greatest experiment in cooperative
marketing the world ever has known.
AS now contemplated, it will be based
on demonstrated needs in each branch
Of agriculture affected and on con-
sideration of special crop conditions.
Under the guidance OF President
Hoover and the members of the farm
board, all avowed advocates of the CO.
operative movement Sterilization opera
lions by the Government on the open
market will be avoided, If possible.
Large marketing associations, they be-
lieve, will be able to produce results as
beneficial as the Government could ob-
tain by employing the sterilization pro-
Much Time to Be Required.
The cooperative program, involving
an enormous amount of work, is recog-
nized as requiring considerable time,
but its development is believed to nave
been greatly facilitated by the COM
pletion of the boards membership with
the appointment of Sam r. McKelvie.
former Governor of Nebraska, as the
spokesman for the wheat and coarse
grain industry. Because of differences
between the cooperative and pool
groups in the grain industry, President
Hoover had much difficulty in filling
the place, and McKelvie accepted only
on condition that he would be free to
retire at the end of a year.
Information made available by MEM
bers of the board indicates that the
formation of the $20000000 Farmers
National Grain Corporation in Chicago
last week to market wheat and ther
course grains which preceded McKelvie'S
appointment, was the first step in the
plan to set up such organizations for
each of the principle commodities in
need of attention. The first formal
forecast of this program was given by
Chairman Legge, in his speech in Baton
Rouge, La, before the American Insti-
tute of Cooperation, when he said:
THE board believes that it can be OF
great assistance to the American farmer
by encouraging the development of
iarge-scaled, central cooperative organ
izationS. Such an agency would be in
itself, because of its prestige and in
fluence, a stabilizing element in market
ing. 1t would be able to exert a meas
urable decree of control over the flow
of its products to market. 1t would
avoid temporary SURPRISES which so
often result in unduly depressing the
price of farm products much below their
real value. In other words it would be
strong merchandising agency, virtually
in control of the conditions under which
the products of its members are sold"
Will Use Present Groups as Base.
He made it clear that. in setting out
to strengthen the cooperative market
ing machinery, the board expects to
build on the foundation of the present
private co-operatives, of which 1880
are already in existence with member
ships totaling 100000, or practically
one-third of the American farmers.
Most of these are struggling organiza-
lions with many of them considered to
have memberships only lukewarm to the
benefits OF cooperation, and one of the
boards first efforts will be to strengthen
them.
Another field of farm aid endeavor to
Wnlcn is attaching great Importance to
the study of land utilization problems,
regarded by many as the hub of agri-
cultures difficulties. Some members
also have indicated that they favor the
creation of a national educative organi-
zat1on, such as was proposed before the
American Institute of Cooperation, to
be known perhaps as the National
Chamber of Agricultural Co-operatives,
which would be analogous to the United
States Chamber of Commerce or the
American Federation of Labor.