TABLE 4.-Associations, estimated membership, and estimated business, with percentages for geographic divisions, leading States, and commodity groups, 1930-31-Continued

PRESENT STATUS OF FARMER COOPERATION

The nation-wide survey made in the summer of 1931 indicated that there were 11,950 farmers' selling and buying associations sufficiently active to be counted as going concerns. This was a slightly smaller number than had been included in the survey of the previous year.

FIGURE 9.-Relative importance of the several geographic divisions as regards number of farmers' selling and buying associations, membership of the same, and amount of business transacted in 1930-31 marketing season.

The decline was due in part to the consolidating of small associations into larger units. As in all previous surveys the bulk of the associations were located in the 12 North Central States. (Table 4, Fig. 9.)

Wisconsin was the leading State as regards the number of associations marketing dairy products and Minnesota was second. (Fig. 11.) In the grain group Illinois led and North Dakota was second.

Iowa led for livestock and California for fruits and vegetables. The States holding second place in the livestock and fruit and vegetable groups were Minnesota and Florida, respectively.

The 11,950 associations had an estimated membership of 3,000,000, more than 65 per cent of which was in the North Central group of

MARKETING AND PURCHASING ASSOCIATIONS, 1931

FIGURE 11.-More of the dairy marketing associations are in Wisconsin than in any other State. Illinois leads all the States in the number of cooperatives for handling grain; Iowa is the most important State as regards livestock shipping associations and California has three times as many fruit and vegetable associations as Florida, the next State in relative importance.

States. (Table 4.) number of members. Nebraska in fourth.

As in all previous surveys Minnesota led in the Iowa was in second place, Illinois in third, and (Fig. 12.)

As regards the commodity groups 25.8 per cent of the total estimated membership was in the associations handling grain; 24.2

FIGURE 12.-The leading States as to the number of members in farmers' selling and buying associations in 1931, were Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Nebraska. New York led for the Eastern States, Oklahoma for the Southern States, and California for the Western States.

per cent in those handling dairy products; 13.3 per cent in those handling livestock; 6.4 per cent in the cotton associations; and

FIGURE 13.-Farmers' selling and buying associations in California transacted a larger cooperative business in the 1930-31 marketing season than the associations in any other State. Minnesota ranked second among the States, Illinois third, and Iowa fourth.

6.1 per cent in the associations marketing fruits and vegetables. (Table 4.)

Total estimated business for the 1930-31 marketing season was estimated at $2,400,000 (Table 4), which, considering the lowered

price level, indicated that a considerably larger quantity of products was handled than for any previous season.

Over 10 per cent of the total business was transacted by the California associations; 8.1 per cent by the associations in Minnesota; 8 per cent by the Illinois associations; 7.7 per cent by those in Iowa; and 7.6 per cent by those in New York. (Table 4.) The associations in the five States were responsible for nearly 42 per cent of the total business of the year. The 12 States in the North Central group transacted 54 per cent of the total cooperative business. The relative importance of each of the 48 States is indicated by Figure 13.

COTTON ASSOCIATIONS

Although cotton growers began in the early seventies to devise methods for marketing their annual crops, little progress was made before 1920. Several hundred associations for operating cotton gins and warehouses were established prior to 1915, and some such associations were formed even before 1900. In 1917 approximately 85 counties in Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Oklahoma organized for local classing service. With the assistance of the United States Department of Agriculture, 450,000 bales of cotton were classed, of which amount 60,000 bales were sold collectively. While some benefits were obtained from this type of service, it did not go far enough in the solution of the cotton farmers' marketing problem. The economic aid which could be obtained through local enterprises was limited. It was not until the largescale centralized association was evolved that cotton in any quantity was marketed cooperatively. The first of the existing large-scale organizations was formed in 1921, and since then from 5 to 17 per cent of the annual cotton crop has been delivered to farmer owned and operated associations. (Table 5.)

TABLE 5.-Cotton received and percentage of total production handled cooperatively by large-scale associations, 1921 to 1981

1 Running bales.

28

Bales
418, 363

Per cent

Number

5. 2 1927.

16

Bales
823, 105

Per cent

6.4

3 10

723, 791

7.4

1928.

16

1, 164, 330

81

14

903, 562

8.9

2,348, 979

17.1

2,250,000

13.3

23 associations organized late in the 1921-22 marketing season received 65,137 bales of the 1921 crop, which were sold with the 1922 crop.

325,000 bales of the 1922 crop were sold with the 1923 crop. Estimated, June 1, 1932.

The yearly deliveries have risen from less than half a million bales of the 1921 crop to nearly 2,350,000 bales of the 1930 crop. These deliveries and the location of the associations to which they were made are shown by Figure 15. Of the 14 States contributing cotton to the farmers' marketing program Mississippi and Oklahoma have been the most consistent cooperators. (Appendix, Table 6.) Texas cotton growers have delivered a larger total baleage to be marketed cooperatively than the growers of any other State. (Fig. 15.)