A sense of community ? Do you mean that a 50 cow farmer in Wisconsin
belongs to the same community as a 10000 cow farmer in California ? I
dont think so. What a sense of community does is generate attitudes that
are local and parochial. Those attitudes are what prevent co-ops getting
the mass they need to influence a market through commercial power. You
are extremely fortunate to have Capper-Volstad and equally stupid not
to use that advantage. Instead of taking control of your own future you
seem happy to use the vagaries of your political system which gives
power in the senate to rural America way out of proportion to its
population base.
Agricultural co-ops are hindered Internationally by the doctrine that
comes out of the ICA, an organisation dominated by people who see
co-operatives as a means to achieve social and political ideals whereas
farmers need a co-op that delivers financial performance. Don't blame a
lack of leadership in your co-ops, you get the leaders you deserve, the
problem is the outdated attitudes of the members.
Tom Mason
Canterbury
NZ
Dave Gneiser wrote:
>
> I have a somewhat different view. I'm pretty sure desperation has
> little to
> do with cooperation among farmers, nor does presence of price supports.
>
> I have some personal experience with this.
>
> I 'm pretty sure that farmers will not co-operate unless they have a
> sense of
> community. And not just a community existing at one point in time, but a
> community coherent over at least several generations.
>
> In other words, if they "KNOW" that "we are all in this
together" and
> that
> "the children are going to be farming", then for the good of
that
> community,
> they will make costly sacrifices, such as paying coop dues and capital
> retains (at the milk coop). or investing personal time and effort (at the
> produce auction).
>
> F. W. Owen
>
>
> I think you're on target. Farmers were conditioned to believe that
> other farmers were competitors instead of members of the same
> profession with common goals. The farmer in any of the other 49
> states is a fellow farmer, not a competitor.
>
> There was a period of time where neighborhood farmers banded together
> for threshing crews, building construction, not unlike the Amish still
> do. Then along came the machinery where each farmer could farm
> independent of his neighbors. Big mistake. But we're moving out of
> that era. Custom planting, custom harvesting is more widely
> available. There are dairymen who buy all feed in, rather than grow
> crops. Many of the grazers have moved in this direction.
>
> And eventually, US co-ops will either change to serve the members or
> the members will form co-ops that will.
>
> Dave G.
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