Reflections on Cooperation

John Ikerd

doi:10.5304/jafscd.2013.032.001

Abstract

First paragraphs: When I was growing up in the late '40s and early '50s, the local was where we sold our chickens and eggs and bought feed for our chickens, pigs, and dairy cows. The exchange was operated by a cooperative, the Missouri Farmers Association or MFA. Its jingle on the local radio station proudly proclaimed, MFA, it's the profit-sharing way. All agree, plain to see, it's the farmer's friend. I didn't have any reason to doubt its claims. However, the MFA has long since betrayed its farmer-members' trust by supporting the industrialization of agriculture. During the mid-1990s, the president of the MFA regularly proclaimed that Missouri only needed a few dozen large farming operations, and smaller farmers should look elsewhere for their future. As a young agricultural economist, I had made similar statements. I didn't know any better at the time. The leader of a farmers' cooperative, however, should not have been so naive — or perhaps uncaring. Economic efficiency is good only insofar as it improves the well-being of people. The large agricultural cooperatives in the U.S. have become virtually indistinguishable from the rest of corporate agriculture...

Highlights

When I was growing up in the late ’40s and early ’50s, the local “farmers’ exchange” was where we sold our chickens and eggs and bought feed for our chickens, pigs, and dairy cows
John Ikerd is professor emeritus of agricultural economics, University of Missouri, Columbia. He was raised on a small dairy farm in southwest Missouri and received his BS, MS, and Ph.D. degrees in agricultural economics from the University of Missouri
He worked in private industry for a time and spent 30 years in various professorial positions at North Carolina State University, Oklahoma State University, University of Georgia, and the University of Missouri before retiring in 2000

Summary

Introduction

When I was growing up in the late ’40s and early ’50s, the local “farmers’ exchange” was where we sold our chickens and eggs and bought feed for our chickens, pigs, and dairy cows. He spends most of his time writing and speaking on issues related to sustainability with an emphasis on economics and agriculture. I have spent the 25 years since learning and teaching the principles of a new economics of sustainability.

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