PAGE FROM THE PAST
From the archives of Rural Cooperatives
and its predecessor magazines
50 Years Ago...
From the May & June 1957 issues of News for Farmer Cooperatives
FS Springfield feed mill opens (cover article)
Illinois Farm Supply Co., headquartered in Chicago, took
its place in the electronic age with the opening of its new
modern feed mill at Springfield early this year. The mill
turned out its first bag of high-quality FS feed on Jan. 17 and
the first truck rolled away from the loading dock the following
day.
An electronic panel with rows of push buttons is the nerve
center of the plant. One man can control automatic weighing,
batch mixing and blending of each of the 83 kinds of FS
formula feeds. This automation
makes it possible to produce a ton
of feed with less than one manhour
of labor — a considerable
change from the early days of feed
mills.
Manufacturing capacity of the
Springfield mill is 30 tons of feed
an hour in all forms —meal,
pellets, or crumbles — either
bagged or in bulk. Annual
production is projected in excess
of 100,000 tons.
The new plant is located on a 20-acre tract south of
Springfield. Construction of the mill building required 4,200
yards of cement and 425 tons of steel. At its highest point the
building stands 147 feet above ground level. The basement
goes down 17 feet below ground. More than 20 miles of
electric wiring were used in the various electric circuits plus
over a mile of low voltage wire in the blending panel.
Illinois farm supply records show that FS feed is now the
largest single brand fed on Illinois farms and demand is
continuing to increase. In 1955, feeds accounted for nearly
$13 million of the company’s business.
Rockingham rings in seventh year
Shen-Valley Meat Packers Inc., Timberville, Va., home of
the “Rockingham” brand of beef and pork meat products, has
just celebrated its seventh birthday at an annual meeting, its
most successful year so far. A local television station also
carried highlights of the meeting.
In 1956, substantial growth was shown in membership,
volume of business and in net savings. More members used
their meat plant to market their hogs and cattle than in any
previous year. There was a 15
percent increase in 1956 in the
membership, now totaling 1,717
members from 20 Virginia and
four West Virginia counties.
With a record slaughter of
hogs and cattle in 1956, the sales
tonnage approached the 20-
million-pound mark, a 12 percent
increase over the preceding year.
Net sales were $5.8 million. For
the first time, the cooperative paid
a 6 percent dividend on all outstanding capital stock.
Keynote speaker Maury A. Hubbard, executive secretary of
the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation, said, “You cannot
measure the value of a cooperative by the patronage refund.
The best way to measure the value of a cooperative is to first
do without it.”
30 Years Ago...
From the May & June 1977 issues of Farmer Cooperatives
Cooperative Farm Credit Loans Total $36.7 Billion
The Farm Credit System’s loans outstanding on Dec. 31,
1976, totaled $36.7 billion, a 15.7 percent increase from $31.7
billion a year earlier. Farmers and their cooperatives borrowed
a total of $34.6 billion through the lending units of the Farm
Credit System during 1976, a 15-percent increase from the
$30.1 billion borrowed in 1975, according to figures released
by the Farm Credit Administration.
Federal Land Banks had
loans outstanding of $19.1
billion, an increase of 15.1
percent, and made loans of
$4.7 billion during the year,
a 6.6 increase. Production
Credit Associations made
loans of $18.5 billion during
1976, a 14.9 percent increase
from 1975, while outstanding loans totaled $12.3 billion, up
13.9 percent. Banks for Cooperatives made loans of $10.5
billion, up 18 percent.
Minnesota Cooperatives Buy Volstead House (cover
article)
A man reviled by his contemporaries will be assured a place
of honor in history after action taken to make his home a
museum. Andrew J. Volstead, 1860-1947, served as a U.S.
representative from Minnesota’s 7th District from 1903 to
1923. He was best known, and often hated, during his lifetime
for authoring the Volstead Act, or
the 18th Amendment to the
Constitution, which established the
prohibition of alcoholic beverages.
In turning his home in Granite
Falls into a museum, citizens of the
community and members of the
Minnesota Association of
Cooperatives (MAC) seek to pay
tribute to Volstead for an
achievement that has far outlived
the memory of prohibition — his
contribution to co-ops. As chairman of the House Judiciary
Committee, Volstead wrote what is now known as the
Capper-Volstead Act of 1922. It enables farmers to jointly
market their products without being prosecuted for antitrust
violations.
Before the law was passed, Minnesota farmers were thrown
in jail for trying to bargain with buyers to achieve higher
prices. The act prohibits cooperatives from engaging in
unlawful business activities, such as undue price enhancement,
predatory trade practices and collusion with outside parties.
Before passage of the act, marketing co-ops were small and
struggling. Since enactment of what has been called the
“Magna Carta of Cooperation,” farmers now market $33
billion worth of agricultural goods annually through co-ops.
They purchase another $9 billion worth of products and
services.
In 1923, Volstead wrote: “The cooperative marketing law
will do more good than any other law that you can name,
because it will make it possible for farmers through farm
organizations to sell their products upon an equal footing with
the businessmen.”
Henry Harren, of the Minnesota Historical Society’s
historic sites division, says if he had to select one Minnesotan
whose life has had the greatest impact upon all Americans, he
would vote for Andrew Volstead.
The home was purchased from Mable Connor by MAC
with a $40,000 grant contributed by a number of Minnesotabased
cooperatives. MAC has donated the home to the city of
Granite Falls. The U.S. Department of Interior’s National
Park Service has established a $15,000 grant for acquisitions
in the project.
10 Years Ago...
From the May/June 1997 issue of Rural Cooperatives
West Virginia Quilters Stitch New Marketing Plan (cover
article)
She quietly wields needle and
thread, stitching patches of cloth
into a portion of the quilt
collected in a square wood frame
propped against her knees. The
rest of the quilt cascades across
her lap and onto the floor. She is
a member of the Cabin Creek
Quilters Cooperative, following a
long-standing tradition handed
down through families and friends
living in the coal-laden hills and
hollows of southern West Virginia.
The extra earnings from her quilts have helped to keep her
family and others like them alive in this community, both
during the heydays of the mines and later when the coal
supply played out. When Cabin Creek formed in the early
1970s, the state had 75,000 people working in the mines, but
today employment there has dwindled to 25,000.
Today, the co-op claims 300 members. However, only 40 to
100 are active at any one time and receiving checks for their
work. “It’s often seasonal work for many, explains co-op
representative Jamie Thiebeault. “Many work on quilts in the
winter; some make only one or two a year, while others are
looking for $100 to $200 a month to supplement Social
Security income.”
By the mid-1970s, the cooperative was thriving, helped
considerably by national publicity garnered when Jackie
Kennedy purchased two quilts and later ordered more. The
co-op was propelled into the national market and yearly sales
climbed to $500,000. Prices for quilts soared to the $500 to
$800 range in the early 1980s. These higher returns to
producers were more in line with the intense labor and
craftsmanship involved in producing the quilts. However, the
higher prices put the product beyond the affordability range
for many people. Competitors found cheaper material and
labor in overseas factories in Haiti, the Philippines and China.
As cheap imitations began to flood the market and
undercut domestic producer prices, the co-op was on the
verge of folding. But core members were determined to fight
back. They decided they needed a new headquarters store and
marketing plan to lower their products’ costs.
In 1991, the co-op moved to a historic house in Malden to
draw more tourist business and in 1992, it developed the “all-American” quilt as a joint venture with two other domestic craft cooperatives. The co-op decided to market this symbolic product through Land’s End, the Wisconsin mail order
clothing house. The arrangement continued until 1995.
Another marketing strategy is to better tap into West
Virginia’s growing tourism trade.
