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Show FARM CO-OPERATIVE SELLING By GLENN G. HAYES (. 1924, Weatern Newapaper Union.) Local Live Stock Shipping Associations IT WAS barely seven o'clock In Ida Grove, but around the Union stock yards the day's work had started a whole two hours earlier. It was shipping ship-ping day for the local shipping association asso-ciation and farmers had been busy since five o'clock getting their hogs loaded Into the empty car that stood on the siding. The early morning freight would be due any minute now. "How many you shipping today, Frank?" Tim Gordon asked as he and his neighbor, Frank Watson, leaned over the white-washed fence of the yards, smoking as they watched the loading. "Only had one more ready. Sent three last week." "Great Idea this co-operative shipping ship-ping association. Shipping them out one or two at a time Just as they fatten fat-ten up, beats the old plan of having to wait until there's a whole carload ready." "I like having our commission company com-pany down at the central market," and Frank knocked the ashes from his pipe. "It takes a lot of worry off a fellow's mind to know that there is someone down there to look after our sales; someone that knows how to do it." Other trucks drove up, some with one hog and some with two. Each hog was weighed and listed, then loaded load-ed with the rest into tie waiting car. The freight puffed in. It puffed out again taking with it the producers' car of hogs and Sam Johnson, who is paid to look after the shipments until they are safely In the care of the Producers' Produc-ers' Commission association at the stock yards. Awaited Their Checks. The farmers at Ida Grove stood along the siding and watched the freight pull out. Their part in the shipping was done. All that was left for them to do was to indorse their check when it arrived. This is the co-operative way of taking hogs to market. Twenty-five per cent of all the live stock sold on the terminal markets is handled through co-operative shipping associations. Four thousand farm communities have organized associations associa-tions duplicates of the one at Ida Grove. For fifty years farmers have been experimenting with co-operative shipping. ship-ping. But up until 1916 not more than one carload in 10,000 of the live stock of the nation traveled the co-operative road tq market. Today 65 per cent of the live stock shipments at St. Paul are co-operative. Co-operative shipments ship-ments at Chicago total about 30 per cent half or more of the hogs and 12 to 15 per cent of the cattle. It is estimated esti-mated that co-operative shipments make up 20 to 25 per cent of the stock on the East St. Louis and Sioux City markets. At Kansas City, St. Joseph and Omaha the average Is around 15 per cent. On the Buffalo market the share of co-operative shipments Increased In-creased from 17.8 per cent in- 1919 to 29.3 per cent in 1921. It was in 1S72 that the Grange started the first co-operative live stock shipping movement. In less than two years several hundred associations were organized in Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska Ne-braska and Illinois. These associations associa-tions were generally .mere shipping agencies. They were distinctly Grange movements and when the spirit of the Grange began to fade the shipping association as-sociation movement died. But it was born again. The next time It cropped out was down in Tennessee In 1877. A group of sheep men around Goodlettsvllle formed the Goodlettsville Lamb club, an agency which graded and pooled lambs and wool and sold at an auction. auc-tion. If the bids were poor the products prod-ucts were shipped to the central market. mar-ket. This organization was a success and It still continues to operate. The Society of Equity. In the SO's the Farmers' Alliance began organizing live stock shipping associations In Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and Mississippi. When the alliance alli-ance began dabbling In politics around 1S90 Its various commercial enterprises disappeared. That was the end of the most of the shipping associations until around 1904, when the Society of Equity began the work of organization. During the following decade many associations as-sociations were started throughout the Middle Western states. The Equity Is still at the good work. Six years ago farmers all over the Central West began organizing ship-pins ship-pins associations by the dozens. Live stock prices were rising and country buyers refused to increase their prices accordingly. Farmers mot the situation situa-tion by organizing to do their own selling. The Fanners' union started organizing associations and then the state farm bureaus got interested in the movement and they organized hundreds hun-dreds of units, particularly in Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio and Minnesota. These associations are made up of the live stock producers of a community commu-nity or of several communities who pay membership dues and agree to Ehip all their stock through the local unit. It works something like this: A manager Is hired usually one of the farmers of the neighborhood who cerates the association as a side Issue, although in aome of the larger organizations he Is paid enough to devote de-vote his entir time to the work. It Is the manager's Job to assemble the live stock In carload lots for shipping into the central market, where the Producers' Live Stock Commission company oversees the sales. When a member has stock ready to sell he notifies the manager, who orders or-ders a car for the proper date. In many associations one day of each week is shipping day and the fanners bring in their stock, one or two or three animals at a time, just as they are ready. The common custom Is to mark each owner's stock before it Is shipped. The shipments are then sorted at the central market and each man's stock is sold by itself and each is paid the actual amount his stock brings, after the cost of transportation and handling are subtracted. Each man's stock bears its pro-rata share of the expense. The National Association. Before the National Live Stock Producers' Pro-ducers' association came into existence each local association had a representative represent-ative in the central market to oversee the sales of its stock. This is now the work of the new National Live Stock Co-operative association, which Is scarcely more than two years old. The local association can Join the National Na-tional Live Stock Producers' association associa-tion at a nominal fee usually of $50 for which the National association will oversee the sales of the local shipments. ship-ments. Many of these local associations are not incorporated; others are; but the most of them are simply voluntary organizations. Generally the groups are governed by a board of directors who have general charge of the business, busi-ness, as well as the hiring of the man ager. Shipping once through the association asso-ciation does not obligate a farmer to make further shipments for there is seldom a contract. He is free to sell or ship in any other way he likes. However, in the last few years many of the associations are becoming more strict. They are Incorporating. They are adopting a contract under which the producer agrees to sell only through the association for a certain number of years usually three. They are buying office space and scales and are making a united effort toward permanence. per-manence. In spite of the loose slipshod organization organi-zation of the past these co-operative units, most of them, are making money. In some states the saving ranges between 20 and 75 cents per hundredweight, with a general average of 35 cents. The saving per car usually usu-ally ranges from $45 to $75. If the savings of all these thousands of associations asso-ciations were added together it would be high in the millions. |