318 ■ iSTATE BOARD OF AGRIOULTURE 



No patronizing attitude is assumed toward Agricultural organizations 

 in any respect and no actual marketing service is contemplated. Special 

 attention is given to the continuous maintenance of fann control in 

 co-operative institutions and careful study to the sociological factors, 

 incident to the development and holding of local leaders capable of 

 carrying full responsibility for marketing undertakings. Farmers are 

 given to understand that efforts in co-operative organizing are their own 

 efforts and not, in any sense, promotional institutions of the College. In 

 advising farmers relative to organization problems, the general efficiency 

 of the industry is kept in mind in addition to the marketing function 

 around which the organization is to be built. 



Co-operative marketing institutions must be able to meet legitimate 

 competition and should make some additional savings, but many under- 

 takings in organization which are considered worth while from the point 

 of view of the general benefit of the industries, might be questionable if 

 established entirely on the basis of the savings between the co-operative 

 system and the old regime. The marketing function is the common interest 

 which forms the best basis for agricultural organization, but efficiency in 

 production as well as efficiency in marketing and the still more difficult 

 problem of co-ordinating production with demand, must be taken into 

 consideration in formulating organization j^lans. 



The efficiency of agriculture as an industry, both iu production and 

 marketing, is the goal sought and, as the lack of organization is rec- 

 ognized as the chief weakness of Agriculture and constitutes the prin- 

 ciple barrier to the attainment of high efficiency, our opinions and rec- 

 ommendations are given with full consideration to this larger aspect 

 of Agriculture. 



As the assistance which the Markets Department gives to farmers 

 is of an advisory character, the work has been, from the start, piecemeal, 

 attention being given to groups of farmers, here and there, in response 

 to requests, sometimes to local problems and sometimes to the interests 

 of groups of locals. As the work progressed, however, more and more 

 attention has been given to comprehensive plans for organization of the 

 commodities grown by the farmers in the state and more recently atten- 

 tion has been given to the uniting of the Commodity Exchanges in the 

 state along lines in whcih they have common interests. 



The Michigan State Farm Bureau, organized in the (beginning, as a 

 mass organization of all farmers in Michigan, seemed an ideal organiza- 

 tion to harmonize and unite the various Commodity exchanges, as well 

 as represent the interests of the farmers in this state through the federa- 

 tion of County Farm Bureaus and, during the last two years, plans have 

 been gradually formed through which the Farm Bureau assumes the 

 functions above described. This plan, having become a fixed policy of 

 the Michigan State Fann Bureau in collaboration with the Markets 

 Department and, being state-wide and comprehensive in character, 

 market and organization reports are formulated on the basis of this 

 plan for the purpose of- clarifying the description of the work and, also, 

 indicating the relative importance of the various proects. 



Keports of the work in Markets and Rural organization are given in 

 the following order: 



