Market Farming

["Rick Williams" <mrfarm AT frontiernet.net>]

> Cooperatives however are usually meant to
> make customers also function as the owners and investors, combining day to
> day authority and responsibility. In essence, a company's
> customers own the
> company and control it, without outside investors. Outside investors would
> want the highest return on their money, regardless of service or cost to
> customers. There are many areas of modern commerce that could benefit from
> running as cooperatives instead of corporations.

Although one might think that this is true, what has unfolded over the last
150 years or so has not been so supportive of coops. The coop concept seems
to fail as you get larger and larger and lose the purpose of serving the
owners. Also, the coop model makes it difficult to capitalize the business
and that is why so many coops have either failed or have de-mutualized and
gone to stock owned companies. We see that with insurance companies in
particular. With farm coops it is tragic because they basically go bankrupt
and the owners never get their money back which they have put in, often for
decades.

There are smaller cooperatives that are successful. We have small electric
coops in our area that do well. I was able to get back my capital credits
for one of them over a 7 year period after waiting the 20 year period they
require. And they in turn belong to a very large energy cooperative in this
region which seems to be doing well compared with the IOU's.

But utilities are different from regular commerce due to the monopoly
situation and may be special case.

Sincerely,

Rick Williams
Misty Ridge Farm
Dairy heifers and dairy beef graziers
Viroqua, WI

www.mistyridgefarm.com