Farmer Cooperatives

Farmer cooperatives are voluntarily owned business organizations controlled by their member patrons and operated for and by them on a nonprofit or cost basis. These organizations are an integral part of the economic organization of agriculture. They are organizational tools that enable farm families to have access to markets and achieve a degree of marketing power so that farmers can compete and survive in an increasingly concentrated food and fiber economy. Cooperatives also represent an alternative organiza tional form to carry out business activities and are distin guished from other types of businesses because they represent economic democracy in action. Growth in their use, as a dimension of market structure, has been limited by the prevailing school of thought on cooperation in the U.S. A conflict exists between cooperatives' perceived role in this school and the hard realities of fundamental changes in market structure. Expanded use of cooperatives is also influenced by the external environment, such as the legal climate for growth, sources of finance, and public attitude toward collective action by farmers in an era of a close balance between supply and demand for .food and relatively higher food prices. The ultimate measure of cooperative success, however, is performance in enhancing the economic well-being of members and rural communities.