Several thousand rural boys and girls wrote essays hoping to win one
year of college tuition at any North Carolina college in the eighth annual
essay contest of the North Carolina Cotton Growers Cooperative Association and
the Farmers Cooperative Exchange. Layton Pait of Bladenboro took first place
and used the scholarship to attend Kings Business College in Raleigh. Other top
essays were submitted by Milton Lord of Cary, Grace Mewborn of Snow Hill and
Loy Crowder of Polkville. The essays were judged by J.W. Johansen, extension
economist at State College, chairman; Dr. G.W. Forster, professor of
agricultural economics at State College; and Mary E. Thomas, extension
nutritionist at State College.
“What a Unified Program of Cooperative Marketing and Cooperative
Purchasing Can Mean to the Farmers of North Carolina” by Layton Pait of
Bladenboro, as published in the September, 1935, issue of Carolina
Co-operator.
Intelligent cooperation is the masterkey to a real,
permanent agricultural prosperity.
When the farmers organize in cooperation in their common
cause for mutual good and say together, “United we stand; divided we fall,”
then will that promised better day for the tiller of the soil become a reality.
And this is the day of cooperation. The day of individualism
is past. It is just as essential that the farmers get together and carry on
their business cooperatively as it is for the business men and manufacturers
and organize and cooperate.
In North Carolina farming is a real business; the North
Carolina farmer is a real business man. Our State now ranks third in the
financial value of its farm crops. The values of our different crops fore the
last year were: cotton, $40,625,000 for lint and $10,368,000 for seed; corn,
$38,540,000; tobacco, $122,142,000; peaches, $2,312,000; sweet potatoes,
$4,314,000. We also have poultry, livestock, and dairy interests.
Let us consider some of the injustices and inequalities in
the way the farmer has purchased his supplies and marketed his products. For
generations, he has purchased his fertilizers, feeds, and seeds in the
organized American markets at a high price level and sold his farm produce,
produced with these production goods, in the unprotected worlds markets at a
low price level, “at least 25 per cent below that of the first.”
Unorganized, No
Bargains Power
Then, too, due to the lack of organization, the farmer’s
bargaining power has been inadequate. He has been put to a disadvantage in
dealing with buyers. As a rule, he has known little about the supply and demand
of his goods on the market. Often he has not known what prices were being paid
for products of different quality and grade. He has usually taken whatever the
buyer was willing to pay; and, therefore, has not received the true market
value of his products.
To correct these inequalities, to secure fair play for the
farmer, a unified program of cooperative purchasing and cooperative marketing
is essential. And we have an excellent foundation upon which to build. In June,
1934, the Farmers Cooperative Exchange, a model cooperative purchasing and
marketing association, came into existence—the result of an extensive study by
our State agricultural leaders. The Exchange has the consolidated and active
support of the Greater University of North Carolina; the State College of
Agriculture; the State Department of Agriculture; the State Department of
Vocational Agriculture; and the State Department of Education. The Producers
Mutual Exchange and the Cotton Growers Supply Company have merged into and have
become a part of the FCX. The purchasing business which the Grange and Southern
States Cooperative had built up in North Carolina is now turned through the
Exchange. Truly it exemplifies the essential principle of unity of purpose and
action.
Efficiency Through
Cooperation
This consolidation and unification will eliminate
competition, cross purposes, and duplication; and the highest degree of
efficiency will be realized. As it grows, the Exchange can further consolidate
the cooperative movement. It will serve as a marketing agency for those crops
not now served by a marketing association. For the marketing of our cotton the
Cotton Association is prepared to render even greater services in the future.
The FCX and the Cotton Marketing Cooperative are at our
disposal. They are built on a sound foundation of deep fundamentals. In
cooperation with our State agricultural agencies, they are working toward one
goal—a better living for the farm people of North Carolina through a more
economical way of buying the farmer’s goods, through a more economical way of
selling his goods, through protecting his interests, through encouraging
economical production and business management. They are the means of the
farmers’ salvation. They point the way out.
What benefit and services will the farmers realize from this
unified program of cooperation? In the first place, it will mean to the farmers
an increased income. In the production of such cash crops as cotton, tobacco,
and truck, heavy production expenses are incurred. For example, North Carolina
farmers use one-seventh of the commercial fertilizer used in America and spend
an average of $30 million a year for it. They purchase $11 million of
commercial feeds and $6 million of seeds per year. These costs can be greatly
reduced through cooperative purchasing. The FCX is not in business to make
money. It is in business to help the farmers. Efficiency, savings, service, and
quality are its goals. The Exchange furnished the farmers their production
goods at cost, which is the wholesale price, plus operating charges. After
taking care of operating expenses, however, the efficient branches of the FCX
now operating in North Carolina are furnishing the farmers their goods at
wholesale price plus five to six per cent. Compare this with what the farmers is
paying who is buying through a private or time-price agency. He is paying from
20 to 30 per cent above wholesale prices.
Higher Quality
A further important advantage of cooperative purchasing is
higher quality standards in farm supplies. Purchasing cooperatives mush handle
goods that will give satisfaction. Every bag of fertilizer or feed with the FCX
brand is open-formula—made up identically as the information on the tag
indicates. The Exchange sees to it that the formulas used in making their feeds
and fertilizer are those developed by the State Experiment Stations and from
ingredients that have been shown to give the best results. The gains in
production effected through the use of these reliable feeds and fertilizers,
and seeds of known origin and adaptability, will mean more actual dollars to
the farmers than the savings effected in prices.
Nothing now stands in the way of cooperative purchasing. The
organization of the Production Credit Association tends to remove one of the
greatest obstacles to the cooperative purchasing movement, namely, the crop
mortgage time-price credit system. Now the farmer can borrow money at a low
interest rate, operate on a cash basis, and purchase their supplies
cooperatively. In a few years, he will not have to borrow money. He will have
saved enough through cooperative purchasing and through the use of high quality
goods to enable him to pay for his supplies out of his private bank account.
“Then will be breaking the fullness of our day.”
Furthermore, in the FCX we can build a great marketing
agency for our fruit, truck crops, and poultry and dairy products as well as a
purchasing cooperative. Through organization we can face the markets as one
collective body of sellers, and our bargaining power will be increased. Intelligent
and alert cooperative sales managers know market conditions and can meet the
buyers half way. A cooperative markets the farmer’s product in the most
economical way and returns to him all that it sells for minus actual costs.
Cooperative Increases
Net Income
The principal gain through cooperative marketing may be the
development of a more satisfactory marketing service rather than an immediate
increase in prices. Cooperatives save the farmers money in the assembling,
grading, packing, marketing, and distribution of his products. Proper storage,
orderly marketing, encouraging quality production, standardization of grades,
advertising, keeping the farmers intelligently informed, protecting the
farmers’ interests in legislation –these are services a cooperative renders
which unquestionably increases the farmers’ net income.
This increased net income over a number of years will enable
the rural people to enjoy a real prosperity. They will have better and more
attractive homes, provided with modern conveniences and artistic furnishings.
Each family can have a car, a radio, a modern bath room, and the service of
electricity. The farmers will have improved machinery and implements. The farm
women will be saved from a life of toil by the introduction of modern equipment
and labor-saving devices. Neither extreme wealth nor extreme poverty will
exist. But there will be contentment, satisfaction, and security.
Other Benefits
The social, cultural, and spiritual, as well as the
material, side of life will be enriched. The farmers cooperating can have their
local organizations and hold community meetings once or twice a month where the
rural people—men, women, boys and girls—can meet and render interesting
programs. Such local organizations bring the farmers together in activities
that develop their friendliness, sociability, and cooperative spirit. The
program will teem with visions of beauty. The great spiritual values of faith,
hope, cooperation, and love will be emphasized. A love and appreciation of
country life will be stimulated. Social activities and church work will be
encouraged.
The rural boys and girls will become interested in farm
life. They will be encouraged to join farm clubs and organizations. They will
study farm problems and take part in educational activities. The spirit of
cooperation will be inculcated in their hearts. In this way a real, intelligent
farm leadership can be developed—a generation of rural boys and girls educated
in the principles of cooperation, with a laove of farm life and a determination
to do their best in making North Carolina and the South “a land of plenty, of
beauty, of rural comradeship.”
“And this is no Utopian dream.” The farmers in the United
States have demonstrated the fact that they can purchase and market
successfully through their own business organizations. There are now 12,000
cooperatives in the United States, involving practically every type of
production goods and farm products, with a membership of over 3 million
farmers, and doing an annual business of more than $2.5 billion.
The 58 member service companies of the Illinois Farm Supply
Company handled over $7 million worth of oil, gasoline, and other farm supplies
for its members last year and paid patronage dividends amounting to $630,000.
The Eastern States Farmers Exchange in 1934 handled 313,684
cars of feeds, seeds, fertilizers, and other farm supplies for its 56,130
members located in New England and the Middle Atlantic States.
Over 18,000 Members
In 1922 the North Carolina Cotton Marketing Association was organized.
It now has over 18,000 members. It does an annual business of $10 million.
During its 13 years of operation it has handled 1,290,068 bales of cotton for
its members and paid them $109,315,235.58. It has rendered real service to
cotton farmers.
If the farmers of Illinois and the New England and Middle
Atlantic States can purchase millions of dollars worth of supplies
cooperatively each year at greatly reduced costs, and if the farmers of North
Carolina can successfully market their cotton crop cooperatively for 13 years,
we can support the FCX and purchase our supplies and market our products in the
most economical, satisfactory, and beneficial way.
We must not expect the FCX to accomplish all these things in
its first few years. It will take time. Twenty to 25 years is not a long time
for a developmental period of this great organization. As their membership
increases and as the years go by, the FCX and Cotton Association will render
greater services and extend better benefits to their members. For, in the words
of President Roosevelt, “Together we cannot fail!”
But the farmers must cooperate. No matter how hard our
agricultural leaders may work to build up these organizations, if the farmers
do not cooperate they cannot succeed. The FCX and Cotton Association sends a
challenge to every North Carolina farmer.
Join these associations and be an ardent and enthusiastic
member. Keep an interest in your cooperatives and in your country’s plans.
Through cooperation let us build up here in North Carolina one of the finest
types of civilization that the world has ever known.
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