Cooperative Bargaining Developments in the Dairy Industry, 1960-70 … With Emphasis on the Central United States

Excerpts from the report: During the past decade, dairy farmers moved rapidly into new bargaining activities to provide producers with more adequate incomes. Motivating factors have been depressed milk prices, depressed incomes, and reduced dairy farm numbers. Initially, a number of midwestern milk marketing cooperatives worked together in forming two large federated bargaining associations in the early to mid-1960’s. Then came a sequence of consolidations and mergers within these two federations by local cooperatives, resulting in several multimarket regional cooperatives. These merged regionals in turn became members of their respective federations. The specific objectives of the study were to: 1. Describe the changes which have occurred in the structure of fluid-milk markets in recent years, with emphasis on changes in producer organization. 2. Identify the activities of bargaining organizations in the dairy industry and their relation to bargaining success. 3. Analyze the effect of bargaining groups on milk prices, producer returns, and milk processors. 4. Analyze the implications of bargaining efforts in the dairy industry for producers and their cooperatives in other commodity areas.