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CENTRALIZED GRAIN 

 MARKETING 



. •. 



By Harrison Fahrnkopf 



ILLINOIS IS vitally interested in gram marketing. Our producers ship out 

 pf the counties where grown more corn and more oats than any other state. 

 Approximately 2 !<> ,000,000 hu. of corn, oats, and wheat are shipped annually 

 out! of Illinois counties. This is i"? per cent of the commercial supply of these 

 crops sold annually in the United States. Illinois furnishes one-fourth of all the 

 corn that enters the channels of trade in the United States. It lies closest to Chica- 

 go, bne ot the greatest primary grain markets in the world. 



(torn is the I.irgest of all agricultural crops in the United States in acreage, 

 quajntity and value, and in qu.intity it is tie largest grain crop in the world. In 

 terijis of dollars from a worlds standpoint it is second only to the wheat crop. 

 Altiiough the United States produces approximately 3,000,000,000 

 bu. of corn annually, only two per cent is exported, six-tenths of 

 one per cent is required for seed, and between is and 20 per cent 

 IS milled and manufactured. The balance is fed to livestock. 

 Approximately 500,000,000 bu. of corn move annually m the trade 

 nels of the United States. 1 



Must 



Make 



System 



Effective 



'T'HE Agri- 



Three States Sell Half Com 



^UT of the 3,00,000,000 bu. of corn produced annually in 

 Illinois, 120,000,000 bu. go into the market channels. Iowa 

 shij^f 102,000,000 bu. to market and Nebraska 61,000,000 bu. 

 These three states together produce more than to per cent of all 

 th^ corn shipped into the market channel^ of the United States. 

 In Illinois we have 500 farmers" elevators many of which have 



beeai in operation for more than a quarter 



of a century. Of the 



<)Oq farmer-owned elevators only about loci are fully co-operative. 

 There are approximately 2,000 country elevators in Illinois. 



Thus, only about 2 5 per cent are farmer-owned, and approximately five per 

 cenfl are wholly cooperative. It should be understood, however, that the 

 faritiers' elevators are usually larger and handle a little more than half of all 

 grain marketed in Illinois. Farmers' elevators hav|e been instrumental in de- 

 vel<x>ing leaders. The Farm Bureau has developedl leaders. These men come 

 from the same ranks — the ranks of the producer. We have a common problem. 

 All I must work together to solve that problem. I 



The Time To Advance [ 



THE time is at hand for the farmer in Illinois to give the very best he 

 . has in the way of leadership and support toward perfecting local and 

 teminal grain marketing machinery that will oper;,ie etfectiycly in his behalf. 



There appears to be no question but that marks 

 warid in the name of cooperation. The big job for the organized farmer is 

 to sfee that the movement renders him service in fa^t as well as in name. 



Re 

 Jmc 



fxcntaliies c! farmers' levators and I. .A 

 ,si a centralized ^ram marketing or^ani 



A -Farm Bureau meet to 

 ation for Illinois. S. R. 



jilcKeliie oj the Federal ['arm Hoard is iht man m the light suit 



1*1 I IN' I I I 



U^ 





In circle above: Harrison Fahrnkopf, grain 

 marketing director for the I. A. A. Below: 

 Federal Farm Board launches movement to 

 help grain growers. The Farmers' .\ational 

 Grain Corporation was the result. 



c u 1 1 u ral 

 Marketing Act 

 has given u< 

 the Farm Board 

 and this board 

 has given us the 

 Farmers' National 

 Grain Corpora- 

 tion. Ample cred- 

 it for marketing 

 on a large scale 

 is available. In 

 Illinois we must 

 apply ourselTca 

 assiduously to the 

 task of seeing 

 that both facili- 

 ties and credit 

 serve the pro- 

 ducer to the 

 maximum. It ii 

 entirely possible 

 for opposing in- 

 terests such u 

 the organized 

 grain trade to 

 dominate the sit- 

 uation to such an 

 extent that the 

 entire movement 

 may be rendered 

 ineffective. A I 1 

 farm interests 

 must pull together. >X'e should build a cooperative marketing system that 

 will enable us to get "an American price for an American product." Our 

 marketing machinery should be producer-owned and producer-controlled — not 

 producer-owned and "somebody else" controlled. 



Need Control of Commodity 



THE problem is to secure control of the large percentage of the commodity 

 in order that it may be marketed through single hands. This control 

 should lie within the farmer's own organizations. By all groups working to- 

 gether wc can realize the long hoped lor marketing system whereby 

 the tarmer can merchandise his crop to his own advantage and get a 

 price for that product equivalent to the world price plus the American 

 tariff. 



The farmers' elevators, the Farm Bureau, and the Illinois Agricultural 

 Asst)ciation working hand in hand and giving support to the new national 

 program should go far in scttmg up an elfective organization in 

 Illinttis. I 



Still Back in the Country 



SWll'II, R. \lcKl LVIF, grain member of the Federal Farm Board, 

 told members of the State Bar Association at Lincoln, Nebr., re- 

 cently that mastery of the terminal markets was the next point for 

 agricultural C(H)pcrativcs to gain. "There are more than 12,000 farmers' 

 cooperative societies in this country today having a membership of 2,- 

 iKHi.onu and handling annually products of the value of over J2, 5 00,000," 

 he said. "For the most part these cooperatives are back in the country 

 and have not reached the terminal markets where the greatest influence 

 " is exercised in orderly distribution and price control. It is the job of the 

 I'ederal I'arm Board to see that these ciwperatives take the next step in 

 organization which will give them mastery of the terminals." 



