Agri-Mark, Allied Federation
dairy co-ops join forces
he Agri-Mark dairy cooperative,
Methuen, Mass.,
and the Allied Federation
of Cooperatives — a federation
of 26 small co-ops
in New York — have voted to join
forces.
About half of Allied’s 800 members
are expected to join Agri-Mark over the
next several months. Three Allied
members have been named to Agri-
Mark’s 17-member board, and a fourth
may be appointed. Rather than calling it
a merger, the two co-ops say they are
“joining forces” as one cooperative,
under the Agri-Mark name, to wield
greater marketing and political muscle.
“The farmers of both the Allied
Federated Cooperatives and Agri-Mark
have voted to come together to protect
the region’s dairy industry and work for
higher farm milk prices,” the two coops
said in a joint statement. “As dairy
farmers, we need to work together to
preserve what we have left of our
regional industry,” says Mike Barnes, a
dairy farmer from Mount Upton, N.Y.,
who serves as Allied’s board chairman.
“This joining of our organizations
makes us a stronger cooperative than
ever before,” says Carl Peterson, a
Delanson, N.Y., dairy farmer who
serves as Agri-Mark’s chairman. “From
northern Maine to Vermont, and from
Southern Connecticut to Western New
York, we are going to continue to be
the voice of the Northeast dairy farmers
and represent them in the marketplace
as well as in state legislatures and
Washington, D.C.
“While other companies are closing
dairy plants in the region and investing
in mega-plants in California and New
Mexico, Allied/Agri-Mark has more than $75
million invested in four
dairy processing plants
in New York, Vermont
and Massachusetts to
provide a milk market,
maintain stable prices
and generate valueadded
products under
the award-winning
Cabot and McCadam
brands of cheddar
cheese, butter and other
dairy products,”
Peterson noted.
“We’re making a real
financial commitment to
the Northeast,” he continued.
“Our goal is
better dairy markets and better longterm
farm milk prices. Farm prices have
been up and down the past several years
and when you couple that with plants
closing, you can see why farmers have
to work together like never before.”
The small co-ops that operated
under the Allied umbrella are dissolving,
with most members choosing to
join Agri-Mark, although there is no
obligation to do so, says Bob Wellington,
Agri-Mark’s senior vice president.
Most of the new member-farms are in
the northern tier of New York, stretching
from Syracuse to Plattsburgh.
By late April, more than 300 former
Allied members had already joined
Agri-Mark directly, including 95 percent
of those in the Northern Tier
close to its Chateaugay facility. Another
50 to 100 more in the central part of
the state are expected to join in the next
several months as their cooperatives
dissolve, according to Agri-Mark
spokesman Douglas DiMento.
Though the Allied Federated
Cooperatives will cease to exist, Barnes
will continue to serve as chairman until
the transition is completed over the
next several months. Agri-Mark had
roughly 1,250 farmer-members
throughout New England and New
York, with more than 500 of its farmers
in the Empire State. As of May 1, the
cooperative had 1,530 member farms,
with more than 775 in New York.
Agri-Mark bought the McCadam
Cheese processing plant in Chateaugay,
N.Y., in 2003 when its foreign owner
announced plans to close the facility.
The 150 members of the former
Chateaugay Cooperative also joined
Agri-Mark at that time. Agri-Mark has
since been marketing additional New
York milk and investing in the McCadam
brand on behalf of its dairy farmerowners.
