Statistics show cooperative status, progress and trends
By Charles A. Kraenzle,
USDA Rural Business-Cooperative Service
Understanding farmer cooperatives requires a detailed analysis of statistics. The Statistics group in the Rural Business- Cooperative Service (RBS) of USDA Rural Development has the responsibility of collecting, editing, tabulating and presenting these important statistics related to cooperatives’ status, progress and growth. Statistics provide information for education, research and other work that improves the cooperative way of doing business. Through RBS, USDA is the only source of detailed information on U.S. farmer cooperatives and their service to American agriculture.
The Cooperative Marketing Act of 1926 (CMA) authorized gathering statistics and other information about farmer cooperatives. Specifically, this Act gave USDA authority “to acquire, analyze and disseminate economic, statistical and historical information regarding the progress, organization and business methods of cooperative associations in the United States and foreign countries.” Although the Act authorizes the collection of statistics and other information in foreign countries, RBS focuses this effort on U.S. cooperatives.
Statistics on farmer cooperatives were important long before Congress passed the CMA. The earliest statistics on cooperatives were compiled about 1863, profiling the operations of 35 cooperative cheese factories (see Cooperative Information Report 1, Section 26, “Cooperative Historical Statistics”). The first nationwide survey of farmer cooperatives was conducted from 1913 through 1915 by USDA’s Office of Markets and Rural Organization.
The Bureau of Census in the United States Department of Commerce conducted the second nationwide survey of farmer cooperatives in 1919. In early 1922, USDA’s Bureau of Agricultural Economics, within the Division of Agricultural Cooperation, began another nationwide survey of cooperative buying and selling activities. This annual collection of data on farmer cooperatives continued through 1926.
During the 1925-26 marketing year, when Congress passed the CMA, USDA listed 10,803 farmer cooperatives. That number reached a high of 12,000 in 1930. The number had declined to 3,466 farmer cooperatives by 1999 due to dissolutions, mergers, consolidations and acquisitions. Many of these mergers and acquisitions, however, have resulted in the merged or acquired organization becoming a branch operated by the headquarters operation. For example, in 1999, 2,209 grain and farm supply cooperatives operated an estimated 5,330 branches serving member and nonmember patrons.
At the same time, the gross business volume of farmer cooperatives has been increasing, especially in the early 1970s. When adjusted for price changes, however, the real increase has not been that significant. One could look at the effect of price changes in another way. A cooperative in 1926 with $5 million in marketing sales would be similar to one with $21 million in sales in 1999.
While cooperative numbers have declined, the survivors became larger. Analyses of historical data show some interesting trends. Data on cooperatives grouped by size of business were not published until the mid-1950s. In 1955-56, the business volume of 9,493, or 96.6 percent of U.S. cooperatives, was less than $5 million. This had dropped to 4,545 (70.5 percent of all cooperatives) in 1979 and 1,719 cooperatives (49.6 percent of all cooperatives) by 1999. This reflected the growth in cooperative business volume over the years.
By 1989 and 1999, 38.9 percent and 50.4 percent of all cooperatives had business volume of $5 million or more, respectively. Those cooperatives with $25 million or more in sales increased from 295 (4.6 percent of all cooperatives) in 1979 to 503 (14.5 percent of all cooperatives) in 1999.
