The Farmer and His Community

by Dwight Sanderson

The late G. Harold Powell, for many years the successful manager of the California Fruit Growers' Exchange, in his discussion of the fundamentals of coöperation emphasizes that coöperative associations must be born of a real need:

"Among farmers, who under existing conditions are already prosperous, the need of business organization is not usually felt, even though the costs of marketing and extravagant profits of the middlemen or the railroads might be greatly reduced. They must feel the pressure of need before they can launch a successful business association. When the farmers buy their supplies at reasonable prices, and sell their products readily at a good profit, they do not feel the necessity of organization. It has been the experience of the past that they must feel the need of getting together to meet a crisis in their affairs, and the realization of the need must spring from within and not be forced upon them from without by the enthusiasm of some opportunist who seeks to unite the farmers on the principle that organization is a good thing.... In short, if an organization is to be successful, the investment of the farmer must be threatened by existing social and economic conditions before he can overcome his individualism sufficiently and can develop a fraternal spirit strong enough to pull with his neighbors in coöperative team work."[33]

The tremendous losses suffered by American agriculture in 1921 furnish exactly such a crisis as Mr. Powell suggests, and have given the strongest impetus to the coöperative movement. But even when the necessity exists and is recognized it takes time to build up a strong coöperative association.

The successful operation of a local coöperative association is a matter of slow growth, because it requires the education of the membership in the principles both of coöperation and of marketing, and what is equally essential, the development of a willingness to sometimes forego the advantage of larger profits by individual members in order to ensure the permanent success of the association. The local association has to learn how to conduct its business just as does the individual business man, and it has to compete with individuals and firms who are in business for profit and who have the advantage of experience in the existing marketing system and the financial backing of its business connections. In the attempt to create local selling associations rapidly so as to secure a sufficient volume of business to ensure the success of large marketing enterprises, there is always a tendency to encourage the local members to believe that they will secure a considerably larger share of the consumer's dollar, and when prices are not materially better than under the old system they readily become dissatisfied and withdraw. The best authorities and advocates of coöperative marketing insist that it will be successful only to the degree that it can become more efficient than the existing system and so effect savings and make legitimate earnings, but that there is little prospect for large "profits"; indeed, that the legitimate objective of coöperation is not profits, but savings. Professor Macklin summarizes the matter as follows:

"The true coöperative organization seeks to establish and maintain a distributing system to provide adequately and dependably at minimum cost the essential marketing services of which the industry and its individual members have constant and vital need. Its justification lies in rendering these services at a lower cost and in bringing to farmers a higher proportion of the consumer's dollar."[34]

With the factors involved in successful coöperative selling associations we are not here concerned, except to insist upon the point that as the weakest link measures the strength of a chain, so the strength of the local association determines the strength or weakness of the central selling association. A joint stock company may afford more efficient management than a coöperative association, and unless the local membership is convinced of the superior equity and ultimate advantages of a strong coöperative system, there is little hope for the coöperative to compete with the stock company. Coöperation means working together, and its emphasis is more on duties and obligations than on rights and personal advantage. In coöperative enterprises the individual must be convinced that his best interest in the long run is bound up with the best interest of the whole membership, and unless he is sometimes willing to forego immediate personal advantage and unless he can learn how to work with others, sometimes without compensation or with less than he could secure otherwise, there is little chance for developing a strong organization. For coöperation is but democracy applied to certain phases of business, and, like democracy in politics or any other sphere of life, its highest sanction lies in belief and satisfaction in the collective well-being.

It seems obvious, therefore, that those attitudes which are essential for coöperation are the same which encourage community life, and that where the coöperative spirit dominates, community activities will be strengthened. Whereas, on the contrary, in those localities where family, political, or personal feuds, jealousies and suspicions are rife, coöperative enterprises will be difficult and the community will be weak.

That coöperation does develop those qualities which make for better communities is attested by all who have observed its effects. As a result of his long experience Sir Horace Plunkett says:

"It is here, in furnishing opportunity for the exercise of education secured from the agricultural colleges, that the educational value of coöperative societies comes in; they act as agencies through which scientific teaching may become actual practice, not in the uncertain future, but in the living present. A coöperative association has a quality which should commend it to the social reformer—the power of evoking character; it brings to the front a new type of local leader, not the best talker, but the man whose knowledge enables him to make some solid contribution to the welfare of the community."[35]

So, likewise, a keen observer of Danish coöperation describes its influence in creating scientific and social attitudes: