Rural Cooperatives Magazine - March/April 2001
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Robert A. Cropp
Agricultural Economist
University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Co-ops & UW-Extension
Personal background: Born on a Wisconsin dairy farm, Cropp remembers attending with his dad a Pure Milk Association meeting, at which the little tyke was bored. But as he grew, so did his interest in agriculture. A bout with polio exempted him from military service and he headed to the University of Wisconsin-Platteville to study agriculture education. While working at UW-Madison on his master's degree and Ph.D. in agricultural economics, with thesis work in milk marketing, he had to teach a co-op class. That?s now a responsibility he relishes teaching every fall semester.
Education posts: For nearly 20 years, Cropp taught ag-economics at his alma mater. He then served as executive director to a special task force studying the future of America's dairyland and coupled that assignment with duties in the UW Cooperative Extension Service. Then, after serving as dean of the UW- Platteville College of Agriculture, Cropp accepted new responsibilities as director of the UW Center for Cooperatives in 1990. He now splits time between the Center for Cooperatives and the UW-Madison Agricultural and Applied Economics Department, where he is a dairy marketing and policy specialist.
Co-op honors: Cropp received the Distinguished Extension Program award from the American Agricultural Economics Association in August 2000. In 30 years, recognitions have come from the American Institute of Cooperation, Association of Co-op Educators, St. Paul Bank for Co-ops, Wisconsin Federation of Co-op, UW-Platteville and Extension, Wisconsin Association of County Ag Agents, Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board, Wisconsin 4-H and FFA, Alpha Gamma Rho (ag fraternity), Wisconsin Farm Bureau, GROWMARK, Farmers Union Milk Marketing Co-op and Accelerated Genetics.
Why such a commitment to co-ops? "It consumes you. I think people who work in the co-op arena share the same philosophy of supporting a system of self-help to create a better bottom fine for members. We have a soft spot for farmers and rural communities and, through a cooperative, you see the benefits going back to those people. I'd like to think that I'm of some use, that what I do is of some value and that I've made a difference while working with people. And that's the part of my job that I like the best. I think I've learned more from working with co-op boards and members than I've been able to help them learn."
What co-op lessons do you find yourself continually teaching? "We know that when farmers aren't doing well, the co-ops aren't doing well either. So it gets frustrating when you have good, hard working farm families that are looking to their co-ops to do things for them. But it's difficult to understand the complex changes going on throughout agriculture that are impacting members and co-ops. And it can become difficult to demonstrate the value of cooperatives during times like these. So we spend a lot of time at the Center working with boards to get them to think about where they are now, what trends are impacting their co-op and how they need to respond to them. Frankly, there are some co-ops out there that need to make some changes in how they operate. Otherwise, I fear they might not be around in another five years."
Where do you think co-ops are headed? "Director education is more important than ever because of their responsibilities to be visionary and do long-range planning in a more complex business environment. And we find ourselves doing more specialized training with individual co-op boards. That?s because directors today represent a more heterogeneous membership. We have differentiated services, a shrinking farm population whose operations are getting larger at the same time we have consolidations on the other side of the marketing equation with our customer base. There is more technology on the farm and in the co-op. Business structures can be more complex as co-ops bring in non-member investments. So the answers become more critical to questions of how we structure the co-op, who our customers are, what their needs are, how and if we're going to serve them, and how we're going to finance all of this at a time when farm income is depressed." [end]
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