During this year that the United Nations has declared the “International Year of Cooperatives,” GROWMARK has a number of projects going on to participate. To learn about them I spoke with Amy Bradford, Corporate Communications Manager.
Amy says GROWMARK has several programs underway. One of them works with their local cooperatives called, “You’re on the World Stage.” It allows them to pick ways that they would like to “recognize their own contribution to the socioeconomic world through the cooperative enterprise structure.” The basic level is doing local publicity in their community. A more unique program is helping local cooperatives select a “sister” cooperative in another part of the world to learn more about them and bring that information back into the community.
Learn more about what GROWMARK is doing during this historic year in my interview with Amy: Amy Bradford Interview
Dan Kelley, President of the GROWMARK Board of Directors, talks about the importance of cooperatives in the agriculture industry today and how the GROWMARK System ties into the cooperative form of business in this video created for this year’s celebration.
On the same day the world was officially proclaimed home of seven billion souls, the United Nations General Assembly officially declared 2012 as the International Year of Cooperatives with the theme of “Cooperative Enterprises Build a Better World”.
“This Day of 7 Billion – is not about one newborn, or even one generation,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said. “This is a day about our entire human family.”
According to the U.N., one billion of the seven billion souls on the planet belongs to a cooperative and such cooperatives, especially in agriculture, are important to alleviating poverty and increasing economic opportunities in less developed countries.
According to the latest Global300 report, released today and prepared by the International Co-operative Alliance, the world’s largest 300 co-operatives generate revenues of $1.6 trillion—equal to the GDP of the world’s ninth largest economy. Most of the 300 largest cooperatives are found in the developed economies of France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands and the United States, with 30 per cent engaged in the agriculture and food sectors, 23 per cent in retailing, 22 per cent in insurance and 19 per cent in banking.
Among the successful cooperatives that will be participating in the yearlong cooperative celebration is GROWMARK. More than 150 representatives of the world’s largest co-operatives are in New York City for the official launch and side events this week.
GROWMARK is a member of the National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA) and the Canadian Cooperative Association (CCA) – both of which are supporting the campaign – and member cooperatives are being encouraged to participate on a local level with promotional materials, such as window clings, posters and other graphic pieces. GROWMARK will publish a 2012 calendar with photos that exemplify the cooperative spirit.
Once again this year, the GROWMARK cooperative system is among the nation’s top ten co-ops.
The GROWMARK System of cooperatives, headquartered in Bloomington, Ill., was ranked seventh on the NCB Co-op 100 listing of the nation’s 100 highest revenue-earning cooperative businesses. GROWMARK was ranked sixth on the 2010 list.
“The boom of cooperative organizations and the key role they play in both our national and global economy, is clearly evidenced in the growth and expansion highlighted in this year’s report,” said Charles E. Snyder, President and CEO of NCB. “As a cooperative business ourselves, we are proud to support these efforts and participate in the United Nations General Assembly declaration of 2012 as the International Year of the Cooperative, to educate the public on the benefits of cooperatives. Our report is just one of the many ways we work to inform the public on the advantages of cooperatives in all fields of enterprise.”
The NCB Co-op 100 debuted in 1991 and is the only yearly report of its kind to track cooperative revenues in the United States. Cooperatives in this year’s top 100 account for a combined revenue of more than $193 billion in 2010.
Each October since 1964, cooperatives across the United States have been celebrating the cooperative difference, business model and the contributions of cooperatives to their communities, during National Cooperative Month.
One of the best examples of an agricultural cooperative that makes a difference is GROWMARK, based in Bloomington, Illinois, and chairman of the board Dan Kelley says cooperatives touch our lives in many ways.
“Cooperatives have a long history going back to England in the mid-1800s when producers would get together to help market their products and that has resulted in the cooperative system here in the United States,” he said. “If you think of products like Welch’s grape juice, Florida’s Natural, SunMaid Raisins – those are cooperatives that have a national brand and market in some cases world wide.”
Dan says cooperatives in general are important to not only the economy of the United States, but the entire global economy, which is why they are looking forward to being a part of the United Nations International Year of Cooperatives, which officially begins on October 31. “What we intend to do is participate with other cooperatives here in the United States through the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives,” Dan says, adding that they will be focused on telling the cooperative story to a broader audience.
Dan says cooperatives are especially important to developing countries and some GROWMARK board members and managers were able to go to Ghana earlier this year to offer some advice to producers there. “It was an eye-opening experience to see people who are getting by on a subsistence standard of living and with some minor improvements could really improve their lives,” he said.
Hensall District Co-operative welcomed IFAJ members last week. Here’s CEO, Earl Wagner, who gave us an overview of the various business units of the co-operative. Before we settled in for his presentation and a tour of the facilities in Hensall, ON, we were treated to a variety of foods made with their products. They are known for their dry beans and edible soybeans and almost all of the products they grow are GMO free which has been important to their customers in Japan. One of the products we sampled was carrot cake made with bean and corn flour. I ate way more than I should but it was incredibly good!
HDC is a diversified farmer-owned Ontario Agricultural Co-operative. Established in 1937, HDC is the largest independent agricultural co-operative in Ontario with 4000 members who elect 10 Board of Directors. HDC employs 300 staff members with annual sales of 328 million.
I interviewed Earl after his presentation. He told me they have a very diversified business. Besides dry beans and edible soybeans they also produce a lot of corn and wheat. Last year they had a record crop but this year is down significantly. However, this year’s lower yields were a lot higher than just a few years ago.
Here’s a short video clip showing the gravity separator that “cleans the edible beans” as part of the preparation for shipping. We toured through the whole facility and around a growing collection of storage bins. There are a number of pictures in the photo album.
Implementing legislation aimed a reforming Wall Street could have an impact on farmer cooperatives.
As the Commodities Futures Trading Corporation (CFTC) implements provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act involving over the counter (OTC) derivatives, the Commission must ensure that farmer co-ops can continue to effectively manage risk and offer hedging tools to their farmer-owners, a representative of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives (NCFC) said during a hearing in Washington this week.
The comments were made by Ed Gallagher, president of Dairy Risk Management Services, a division of Dairy Farmers of America, and vice president of risk management for Dairylea Cooperative, at a House Committee on Agriculture hearing looking at implementation of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
“Due to market volatility in recent years, cooperatives are increasingly using OTC products to help them diversify their exposure by customizing their hedges,” Gallagher testified. “In addition, OTC derivatives offer cooperatives the ability to provide specialized products to farmers and ranchers to help them better manage their risk and returns. A co-op can aggregate its owner-members’ small volume hedges or forward contracts and offset that risk with a futures contract or by entering into another customized hedge via the swaps market.”
For an example, Gallagher discussed the ways in which his co-op helps their dairy farmer members hedge against increases in feed prices. Without the co-op involvement, he emphasized, individual producers would be unable to mitigate this risk effectively.
“Many producers are not able to use the futures markets to hedge input risk because of the larger volumes underlying the relevant futures contracts,” Gallagher said in his written testimony. “Furthermore, corn and soybean contracts do not trade on a monthly basis—while most of our members purchase feed on a monthly basis.”
A wide variety of farmer co-ops, including those in the grain and livestock sectors, use OTC derivatives to offer similar products.
Mark Fenner, CHS Energy (not pictured), was one of the people working during the NAFB Trade Talk session. He says that they market under the Cenex brand. They’ve been selling a lot of diesel fuel products and the new Tier 4 engines are a real focus for them. Trends in the renewable fuels area have a definite effect on them. An example is the flat price of biodiesel which has really hindered growth in the use of the fuel. They are extremely bullish on ethanol though.
You can listen to my interview with Mark here: CHS Interview
The President of the Cooperative Communicators Association is Brian Delgado, seen here welcoming first timers at their recent convention where I conducted a presentation on social media. I recorded a conversation with Brian while I was there to learn more about CCA.
He says CCA is an organization designed to help educate cooperative communicators and those working with cooperatives. Membership has declined a little in recent years due to the economy and communication departments having to double up on duties. Additionally, there has been some consolidation of cooperatives. Membership is still about 300. About 25 percent of the attendees at the conference were first timers btw. Brian encourages membership which you can take care of online.
The Cooperative Communicators Association 2010 Institute is in full swing. I arrived this afternoon and met a number of the very important persons who are leading the organization like those pictured here.
For those of you who are not familiar with CCA check out my interview with Teri Ditsch, TJD Design, , Amber DuMont, Milk Producers Cooperative Association, Inc. and Allison Morgan, Tennessee Farmers Cooperative. They are all involved in the leadership of CCA and took a few moments to talk with me when I got checked in.
They told me that CCA is a group of communicators from across the county who work for or with cooperatives. Basically any type of communications work that you might do dealing with cooperatives would qualify you to belong. There are about 300 members and this is a professional improvement association with a regular publication, awards, webinars and this annual institute.
You can listen to my interview with these CCA leaders here.
Workshops on competition in agriculture, like the one held last week in Iowa, can allow farmer-owned co-ops to tell their story.
According to the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives (NCFC), Friday’s joint workshop between the Department of Justice (DOJ) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) set the stage for farmer-owned co-ops to show how they promote a more competitive agricultural sector.
“Family farmers across America have built farmer cooperatives that promote competition, bolster farm income and the rural economy, and help to bring transparency to the marketplace,” said NCFC President Chuck Conner. “While farmer cooperatives were touched on only briefly in this workshop, I hope that DOJ and USDA will use the future workshops to look more closely at how producers can use co-ops as a tool to level the playing field.
“In addition, we continue to be concerned about rhetoric from some that equates being large in size with stifling competition. A large farmer co-op simply has more member-owners—many of whom have medium to small-sized operations—than a smaller cooperative,” Conner continued. “At the same time, the statement made by Christine Varney, the assistant attorney general for the Antitrust Division, that ‘with [being] big comes a lot of responsibility’ is true and a standard that, we believe, large farmer co-ops in this country meet.”
Friday’s workshop in Ames focused on competition issues for crop farmers, especially the issues of seed technology and livestock marketing. As the kick off event for the first of several workshops to be held this year, it featured opening comments from Attorney General of the United States Eric Holder and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. Future workshops around the countrywill focus on the poultry, dairy and livestock industry.
NCFC launched the new campaign at its 81st Annual Meeting in Santa Barbara, California last week to tell the story of this country’s 2500 farmer cooperatives to policy makers, government officials, and the American public. The campaign will emphasize the central role that co-ops play in preserving the family farm, supporting the rural economy, and bringing innovative products to consumers in the U.S. and around the world.
“From corner groceries, to superstores, to school lunch programs, farmer cooperatives provide the affordable, abundant food, fiber and fuel that America needs,” said NCFC President & CEO Chuck Conner in his speech to attendees. “Through our ‘Farmer Co-ops: Providing for America’ campaign, NCFC will be carrying these messages and more to policy makers, government officials and the American public.”
NCFC launches the campaign as the first Department of Justice (DOJ)/U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) workshop on antitrust issues in agriculture is approaching on March 12 in Ankeny, Iowa.
NCFC and its members maintain that the officials holding the workshops must realize that the Capper-Volstead Act, which provides limited antitrust immunity to farmers forming co-ops, is a cornerstone to ensuring competition in agriculture and a vibrant rural economy. Without Capper-Volstead, farmer co-ops could not exist, and any two farmers coming together to talk about price would face harsh civil and criminal antitrust penalties.
“The DOJ/USDA hearings on antitrust in agriculture may seem harmless, but I can tell you this—the officials with DOJ are questioning the very foundation of farmer cooperatives—the Capper-Volstead Act,” Conner continued. “Our job is to tell the true stories of co-ops, and the benefits that they provide to their farmer-owners, to their local rural communities, and to consumers in the U.S. and around the world. In doing this, we aim to ensure that our children and grandchildren can continue farming in partnership with their co-ops.”
Read more here.
A big announcement from MFA Oil and Mid Missouri Energy was made this morning. Pictured are members of the Columbia Chamber of Commerce, along with Phil Lampert (NEVC), Ryland Utlaut (Mid-Missouri Energy) and Jerry Taylor (MFA Oil) in a ribbon-cutting ceremony signifying the launch of the partnership. Basically the two farmer-owned cooperatives are working together to bring more E85 fuel to consumers.
Thanks to the folks at the Missouri Corn Growers Association we’ve got some audio for you. Tyne Morgan interviewed MME President, Ryland Utlaut. He talks about what the company is doing to increase the availability and accessability of E85 fuel around the state of Missouri. You can listen to that interview here: Ryland Utlaut Interview (9 min MP3)
Representatives from two farmer-owner cooperatives have announced a partnership created to make E85 fuel more readily available and affordable to Missourians by offering it at 20 percent less than regular unleaded gasoline. E85 is a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline and is used in flexible fuel vehicles (FFVs).(more…)
The Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida just appointed Roger Hatton, a lifelong resident of the Glades, to their board of directors at its May board meeting. He will fill the un-expired term of John Schlechter ending January 2008 following Schlechter’s announced resignation from the Board this month.
They also announced the naming of George H. Wedgworth, the President of the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida, as the “Sugar Man of the Year – 2005.” (more…)
In this week's program Chuck talks with Mike Adams, AgriTalk.
Chuck and Mike often wind up at the same events all over the country so it seemed like a good idea to do a little AgriTalking about the changes they've seen in the ag media landscape.
During this year that the United Nations has declared the “International Year of Cooperatives,” GROWMARK has a number of projects going on to participate. To learn about them I spoke with Amy Bradford, Corporate Communications Manager. 
Amy says GROWMARK has several programs underway. One of them works with their local cooperatives called, “You’re on the World Stage.” It allows them to pick ways that they would like to “recognize their own contribution to the socioeconomic world through the cooperative enterprise structure.” The basic level is doing local publicity in their community. A more unique program is helping local cooperatives select a “sister” cooperative in another part of the world to learn more about them and bring that information back into the community.
Each October since 1964, cooperatives across the United States have been celebrating the cooperative difference, business model and the contributions of cooperatives to their communities, during 
“Cooperatives have a long history going back to England in the mid-1800s when producers would get together to help market their products and that has resulted in the cooperative system here in the United States,” he said. “If you think of products like Welch’s grape juice, Florida’s Natural, SunMaid Raisins – those are cooperatives that have a national brand and market in some cases world wide.”
As the Commodities Futures Trading Corporation (CFTC) implements provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act involving over the counter (OTC) derivatives, the Commission must ensure that farmer co-ops can continue to effectively manage risk and offer hedging tools to their farmer-owners, a representative of the 
The President of the 
A big announcement from 
The 
In this week's program Chuck talks with Mike Adams, AgriTalk.
