164 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



COLLECTIVE MARKETING OF FARM PRODUCTS 



The farmer has long felt that he should have better facilities for 

 marketing his crops and animals. Because of the violent decline in 

 the price of farm products experienced during the past year he seems 

 to have become more fully convinced that our present system of 

 marketing is hopelessly inadequate. At the present time one or more 

 farmers' organizations are developing plans for the collective market- 

 ing of nearly every one of our staple farm crops in one or more im- 

 portant producing areas. All of this is being done in large measure 

 without the basic information necessary to the development of plans 

 which shall conform in their essentials to good economic procedure 

 and sound business practise. Without such information, we must 

 learn largely by our own experience, which is usually both expensive 

 and hazardous, instead of being able to profit by the experience of 

 other undertakings subject to the same economic laws and principles. 



We hear much these days, for example, regarding the orderly 

 marketing of farm crops. By this is meant, as I understand it, that 

 the farmer shall endeavor to market his crops as they are required for 

 consumption. Since the consumption of nearly all of our important 

 farm crops is surprizingly uniform throughout the twelve months of 

 the year, the farmer would have to market approximately one-twelfth 

 of his crops each month in the year. Reduced to its simplest terms, 

 in the abstract, this would mean that the farmer, rather than some- 

 one else, should carry his crops until the time when they are required 

 for consumption. 



In actual practise the problem must be far less simple. Someone 

 must first determine how much of the crop there is on hand. How 

 much of it is to be marketed. How much would probably be con- 

 sumed at different prices, and what prices will have to be named to 

 move all of the crop into consumption during the year, allowing of 

 course for the normal carry-over. In order that one-twelfth of the 

 crop shall move into consumption during each month of the year, it 

 would no doubt be necessary to pool all, or practically all, of the crop 

 to be marketed and pro-rate the monthly price to all of the consignors 

 to the pool. 



In connection with this problem I cannot help but point out the 

 danger of carrying over large surpluses from one year to another, in 

 the hope that subsequent reduced production will make possible the 

 absorption of such surpluses. The most obvious fact should be that 

 the very act of somewhat artificially maintaining prices by withholding 

 a part of the crop from the market would tend to increase rather than 



