MANAGEMENT TIP
How does your local co-op rate?
Beverly L. Rotan, Economist
USDA Rural Development, Cooperative
Services
Another year has come and gone
with some of the larger regional supply
cooperatives no longer in business.
How did this affect your local
cooperative?
Many local cooperatives that would
have had positive net incomes had negative
net incomes due to loss on disposal
of investments. Has your cooperative
fared better, about the same or
lower compared to cooperatives with
similar functions and factors, including
sales, product mix, etc.?
Comparisons with other cooperatives
may help to determine whether
your cooperative is doing well or poorly.
The following tables can help you
make industry trend and norm comparisons.
The tables shown here contain
average financial data compiled from
a survey of 287 cooperatives for 2002
and 2003. Fill in the blanks and compare
these benchmarks with your
cooperative’s financial data.
So how’s your cooperative doing?
USDA awards $22.8 million to support renewable energy
USDA Rural Development has awarded $22.8 million
in competitive grants to 167 recipients in 26
states to support President Bush’s renewable energy
efforts. The funds will be used by rural small businesses,
farmers and ranchers to develop renewable
energy systems and promote energy efficiency
improvements.
“The Bush administration is committed to advancing
renewable energy ventures in rural America,”
Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman said in
announcing the grants. “We have the natural resources
and the ingenuity to create new forms of energy and to
use it more efficiently.”
Veneman said the Renewable Energy Systems and
Energy Efficiency Improvements program was created
as part of the 2002 Farm Bill to assist farmers, ranchers,
and rural small businesses develop renewable energy
systems and make energy efficiency improvements to
their operations. Under this program in 2003, the Bush
administration invested $21.7 million to develop or
improve wind power, anaerobic digester, solar, ethanol
and other bioenergy related systems or energy efficiency
improvements in 24 states.
A large percent of the 94 renewable energy applications
selected this year will support anaerobic digesters
and small and large wind power type ventures. A predominate
number of the 73 energy efficiency grants will
go to agricultural producers who will use the funds for
buildings.
A complete list of the selected grant recipients and
projects can be found at: http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/
rd/newsroom/news.htm.
