The extended family

Rural Cooperatives, May-June, 2004 by Dan Campbell

No man is an island, nor is any cooperative.

Regardless of what purposes cooperatives serve, they are all strengthened--and the scope and impact of their operations amplified--through a supporting network of private sector and governmental organizations dedicated to the belief that, through cooperative businesses, there is nothing Americans cannot achieve for themselves.

More than 120 million people are members of 48,000 cooperatives in the United States alone. Worldwide, cooperatives serve some 730 million members. Those are numbers often trumpeted each October during Cooperative Month. But they should be cited in speeches and articles throughout the year to help communicate just how far-reaching the co-op system of business has become.

Whether it is to process and market their crops, to gain access to dependable and affordable energy and telecommunications services, to secure credit or housing, or for nearly any other service or product under the sun, cooperatives are delivering every minute of every day for their members. This wouldn't be possible without an infrastructure of supporting organizations that do everything from giving their member cooperatives legislative clout to providing director training programs and educational materials needed to attract and inspire the next generation of co-op leaders and members.

A special section of this issue, which begins on page 18, provides an overview of some of the major organizations supporting cooperatives and highlights some of their recent accomplishments. To provide an idea of the scope of these efforts, here are just a few highlights from the special section:

* National Milk Producers Federation is strengthening the dairy industry through the Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) program, a self-help effort to balance milk supply and demand, and by proposing changes to the dairy price support program that will prevent farm-level prices from dropping below $9.90 per hundredweight.

* National Council of Farmer Cooperatives is striving to improve co-ops' access to capital and is supporting legislation that would eliminate the third layer of taxes imposed on farmer cooperative dividends.

* National Cooperative Business Association has organized opposition to a ruling that threatens to throw the balance sheets of thousands of co-ops into chaos by reclassifying member equity, as debt, and has launched an initiative to expand the role of co-ops in creating economic opportunity, in inner cities.

* National Rural Electric Cooperative Association's legislative and regulatory efforts are focusing on controlling costs for consumers, protecting them against market power abuse and anticompetitive behavior, and on preserving the co-op governance structure of its members.

We've also provided an overview of how USDA Rural Development is helping to improve the quality of life and create jobs in rural America, and--in particular--the many ways its Cooperatives and Rural Utilities Programs help the nation's farm and utility co-op sectors. Also check out the Newsline section of this issue for several news items that describe more than $500 million in USDA loans and grants recently awarded (or soon to be awarded) for rural electric, broadband and renewable energy projects.

Space didn't permit us to list every organization that has played a major role in helping cooperatives. On the agricultural front alone, the American Farm Bureau Federation, National Farmers Union and National Grange have played key roles in helping establish and promote cooperatives. So do numerous other ag commodity boards and associations.

Likewise, virtually every arm of USDA--the Farm Service Agency, Natural Resources Conservation Service's RC&D committees and Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service, to name just a few--in one way or another impact farmer cooperatives. Yon can find out more about these and any other USDA agency or program through the www.usda.gov website. We've also included websites and other contact information for every organization included in the special section, and we urge you to find out more about them.

So, while "user owned, user controlled and user benefited" remains the mantra of the nation's family of cooperatives, let's never forget that we'd be a pretty dysfunctional family, providing fewer benefits to fewer people, without a solid infrastructure of supporting organizations.