Agricultural cooperative

“ The war has shown us that our national agricultural program can best be done on a coöperative neighborhood basis: through the establishment of community agricultural conferences, community labor, seed and implement exchanges, community canning centres, community markets, etc. ”

“ America's farmers and ranchers work hard, and they provide a healthy, safe, and abundant food supply for our citizens and for countless individuals abroad. In order to make their goods available to the public, they depend on partnerships with processors, transporters, marketers, distributors, and many others. These cooperative networks make up America's robust agricultural industry and account for about one-sixth of all jobs in the United States. ”

“ In many places the small farmers had never known freedom from oppressive creditors until the founding of rural coöperative institutions. By capitalizing the common honesty of the poor, coöperation has secured for the small farmer, at the lowest rates of interest, money to be used by him in his necessary operations. Agricultural coöperation in distribution has enabled the farmer to work for his own support instead of for the support of a large number of superfluous distributors. ”

“ Without prejudice to the right of ownership and as laid down by law, the state shall promote the resizing of farming units that are smaller than that which is suitable from the point of view of the agricultural policy objectives, particularly by means of legal, fiscal and credit incentives for their structural or merely economic integration, particularly in a cooperative form, or by measures designed to join parcels of land together. ”

“ The agricultural production cooperatives are voluntary associations of farmers for the purpose of joint socialist production, for the ever-better satisfaction of their material and cultural needs, and for supplies to the population and the national economy. They are themselves responsible, on the basis of the law, for shaping their working and living conditions. ”

“ In pursuit of the agricultural policy objectives the state shall provide preferential support to small and medium-sized farmers, particularly when they are integrated into family farming units, are sole farmers or are associated in cooperatives, as well as to agricultural workers' cooperatives and other forms of worker operation. ”

“ I urge the establishment of a nationwide system of cooperative fanning under which lands acquired under the Land Reform Program shall be organized into large-scale farms owned communally or jointly by actual farmer-occupants. ”

“ It has demonstrated the necessity for the evolution of the co-operative farm. It has prepared the way for it.
"With the advent of the co-operative farm, will come the beginning of a new agricultural era. The co-operative farm village, with its well organized, allied industries, will again unite agriculture with manufacture. The village will represent the new unit of rural society. This unit will be free, independent and self-sustaining. The occupation of farming, will be lifted into a new realm. It will become the occupation of the noble, the cultured and the progressive. ”

“ It is important to say agricultural co-operation and not co-operative agriculture, for in spite of some customary mutual help in farm work, in spite of several attempts, and some small successes, in co-operative farming, the actual cultivation is almost everywhere individualistic. The farmer or peasant cultivates alone, or with his family, or servants; when he co-operates with his fellows, it is to manufacture, or to market, the products of his farm, or more often to obtain the things he needs for his farming, to raise stock, to own expensive machinery in common, or insure against risks. ”

“ I wish now, to call your attention to the following facts regarding the farms and farmers of our Republic, which altogether offer additional incentives for the speedy adoption of co-operative farming on a scale large enough to admit of timber culture, as the only available source of relief. The significance of these facts has scarcely been considered, by those most deeply interested. The farming lands now owned or controlled by our agricultural people, represent the accumulated capital or savings of a life time ”

“ We have moved on agrarian reform, and I need not go into this I will make a more detailed presentation of agrarian reforms when we inaugurate the proclamation of land reform sometime in the later part of this month.
But now, I would like to move into what I consider one of the most important pillars of agricultural development, which is the Cooperatives Development Program. Our agrarian reform program, to be faithful to our hopes, and to liberate our farmers from bondage rather than imprison them in failed expectations, must now move swiftly in rural areas. ”

“ The large farmers did not feel the need of coöperation, and where the natural leader of the rural community will not lead, the small cultivator cannot follow. Whether the same difficulties have prevented any considerable adoption of agricultural coöperation in the United States, it is not necessary to inquire. It is certain that the underlying principles [Pg 109] approved by every progressive rural, community in Europe have not so far exercised more than an occasional and fitful influence upon the rural economy of the American Republic. ”

“ This type of co-operation presents itself to me as socially the best arrangement for productive agriculture and horticulture, but such enterprises as stock breeding, seed farming and the stocking and loan of agricultural implements are probably, and agricultural research and experiment certainly, best handled directly by large companies or the municipality or the State. ”

“ Intercooperative councils are charged with responsibility for improving collective farm management by initiating and coordinating cooperation on various levels among neighboring farms for better use of their physical and human resources. Collective farms are subordinated to the National Union of Agricultural Production Cooperatives and are also subject to the direction of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Industry, and Waters (referred to as the Ministry of Agriculture) and of county authorities. Collective farm associations are organized for various types of specialized production. ”

“ But you and I know agrarian reform is more than just the redistribution of land. We have therefore taken decisive steps also to ensure that the land remains productive for farmers. We increased agricultural support services and livelihood assistance to CARP beneficiaries. We encouraged them to organize cooperatives and to take advantage of economies of scale to enhance their productivity. ”

“ The village dairies are united in federations to export their produce.
Side by side with the dairies are other co-operative societies, quite independent but largely composed of the same members, for buying collectively fodder, manures and other agricultural or household requisites, for collecting and exporting eggs, slaughtering hogs and curing bacon, improving the breed of stock, for bee-keeping, fruit-growing and so forth. By means of these societies the country has been greatly enriched. The farmer not uncommonly belongs to ten co-operative societies, besides probably a farmers’ club. ”

“ Co-operatives must, ultimately, play a highly important role in the growth of our economy, and no time can be lost in availing ourselves of the benefits to be derived from them During the past year, we decided upon a programme designed to provide specific encouragement to the creation of agricultural co-operatives, and a number of Government-sponsored co-operatives, farms have been established by Our Ministry of National Community Development. ”

“ His customer with whom he exchanges products o he farm for those of industry is organized, labor is organized, business is organized, and there is no way for agriculture to meet this unless it, too, is organized. The acreage of wheat is too large. Unless we can meet the world market at a profit, we must stop raising for export. Organization would help to reduce acreage. Systems of cooperative marketing created by the farmers themselves, supervised by competent management, without doubt would be of assistance, but, the can not wholly solve the problem. ”

“ The farm is run under the direction of experts; the soils are treated with exactly the right fertilizers for each crop, the best paying crops are raised, the best seed is used, and the best machinery. The workers of this new agricultural co-operative receive the standard wage, and they live in homes specially built for them, with all the conveniences made possible by wholesale production. Also, these co-operators live in a democratic community; they determine their own conditions of labor, being represented on the governing board, along with the experts appointed by the state. ”

“ These are managed on an interesting plan of co-operation, the government supplying the young trees and the expert knowledge, and the farmer supplying the labour and the land and reaping the fruit, on condition that for ten years “he will cultivate and care for the orchard in accordance with the directions of the Department of Agriculture.” The newcomer may also gain much help from his neighbours, especially if he joins the Agricultural Association of his district and shows willingness to make himself one with them generally. ”

“ The co-operative society, started for whatever purpose originally, is an omnivorous feeder, and it exercises a magnetic influence on all agricultural activities; so that we now have societies which buy milk, manufacture and sell butter, deal in poultry and eggs, cure bacon, provide fertilizers, feeding-stuffs, seeds, and machinery for their members, and even cater for every requirement of the farmer's household. ”

“ The institute cannot supplant the Grange. The college course cannot reach the adult farmer. The experiment station cannot instruct the young. The church cannot secure reforms in taxation.
These agencies may however co-operate. Indeed the most rapid and most secure rural progress, the broadest and soundest agricultural growth, can not take place unless there be this form of co-operation. There will come added interest, increased efficiency, larger views, greater ambitions in our agricultural development, if, in each state, all of these forces work together. ”

“ And the private sector would take over an ever-growing proportion of industry and commerce. In the rural economy, the basis would be privately owned farms, but this would not preclude certain modern agricultural enterprises run by local or State authorities, nor the encouragement of farmers' cooperatives. ”

“ In the conditions of co-operativized agriculture, the State guarantees the peasants who cannot associate themselves with agricultural production co-operatives, ownership of the land which they work themselves and with their families, of the implements used for this purpose, as well as ownership of the animals they use for work and production. ”

“ There is much coöperation of this kind among American farmers, more than most persons are aware. Some of it is very effective, but much of it is coöperative only in name. It takes the form of milk organizations, creameries, fruit associations, poultry societies, farmers' grain elevators, unions for buying and selling, and the like, some of which are of great extent.
A really coöperating association is one in which all members take active part in government and control, and share in their just proportions in the results. It is properly a society, rather than a company. ”

“ Even those who maintain that the ultimate solution of those agrarian difficulties which we may ere long have to face is to be found in the principle of agricultural co-operative association, must admit that the mir is a rude, primitive instrument for the exercise of co-operative effort. ”

“ Often it fails because the mental and moral preparation for successful working together is lacking. This is not strange, for rural life in the past has done little to build up a social viewpoint and the strain placed upon individual purposes in any cooperative effort is necessarily great. Cooperation is never so easy as it sounds in theory, but economic conditions are making it necessary in many rural localities if farming is to continue a profitable industry. Under pressure the farmers will develop the ability to cooperate. ”

“ Dairying and large orchards on land suitable and not of use in the general farming plan could be conducted by the community, each farmer being a stockholder. The labor performed on these cooperative undertakings should be paid for and charged to cost of production, each one who performs a share of the labor participating in the profits as near as may be. ”

“ In an age of trust consolidation, in which manufacturing and commercial interests have attained wonderful development [Pg 140] and success by merging their resources and their operations under united management, the spirit of cooperation has slowly but inevitably made its way in rural life. But “rampant individualism” dies hard; and most farm communities are still competitive rather than cooperative. ”

“ It is no answer to say that the farmers should co-operate. They are already co-operating in a Government that should look after their interests. What is the use of telling farmers that they should feed only the best stock when they know that, taking things year in and year out, about all they can hope to get by feeding the best stock is [Pg 16] more fertiliser to enrich their land? Once do away with the restrictions that keep Supply and Demand apart, and you will solve both the problem of cheap living and the spread of agricultural education. ”