Successful Cooperation 



How Milk Producers Around the Quad Cities Won 

 a Battle and Built Two Sturdy Cooperatives 



^^N THE days when every village "Art" Lynch director of dairy market- 



l/l family had a cow which they ing, and eight Farm Bureaus, four in 



\^^ pastured on the commons, milk Illinois and four in Iowa, 



delivery was a problem only for the The depression hit the Quad-Cities 



younger members of the family who during a season of heavy milk produc- 



cooperated closely with the cow each tion. Farm machinery makers in the 



night and morning. As towns grew, area closed shops. Consumer demand 



common pastures became business sec- suffered. Dairymen, with an unseason- 



tions, residential districts or parks. Lack al surplus to sell on a demoralized 



of nearby pastures doomed the family market, were forced to take severe cuts 



cow and gave rise to a market for in price, 



whole milk. In 1931 and 1932, dealers got 10 



Farmers who lived near the towns cents a quart for milk. They paid 



became dairymen. They delivered farmers $1.85 a hundred for base milk, 



milk, still warm, to homes in town. that which was bottled, and butterfat 



But, as population continued to con- prices for surplus milk. While these 



centrate, local dairymen gave way to prices look OK on paper there were 



expansion. A new system, with middle- facts that few consumers heard about. 



men and other fancy trimmings, re- They didn't know that less than 40 



placed the farmer-to-consumer relation- per cent of the total milk production 



ship. Health authorities, too, played was being bought for bottling, or that 



an important role in the change. surplus milk, about 60 per cent of the 



In most places the change came grad- total production, was bringing farmers 



ually and much less violently than it butterfat prices which at that time 



did in the Quad-Cities of Rock Island, averaged around 75 cents a hundred, 



Moline and East Moline, Illinois, and or that dealers were charging 30 cents 



Davenport, Iowa. Most milk distrib- a hundred for hauling milk from the 



utors operated on small scale until farms. 



the World War. In the '20's when in- Figure it out the farmer's way. Say 



dustries were prosperous, milk dealers a producer was making 300 pounds of 



expanded on a strong, steady market. milk a day. 



Farm incomes were satisfactory but 40% (base) of 300 lbs. is 120 lbs. 



leaders foresaw difficulties. It was not j 2 cwt. at $1.85 is _ $2.22 



until 1929 that dairymen in the Quad- ^ar^ ^^ j g ^^^ ^j $0 75 jj _ 1.35 



Cities shed started organizing to gain 



bargaining power in order to meet the ^^^j . ^ ^^^ ^^ y^ 3 57 



m.ghty and P/osperous Quad-C.t.es As- ^ 



sociation of Milk Dealers on an equal •' J^ * 



plane in price negotiations. . ~ 



The Quality Milk Association, incor- Total income for 300 lbs. milk.. 2.67 



porated in May 1930, developed Average net income per cwt., 89c. 



through local leadership with the aid Did the producers need a bargain- 



of the I A A, represented by A. D. ing association ? 



CHEAM AND MILK PRODUCERS WORE HAND IN HAND 

 Headquarters oi two dairy co-ops in which the finest butter in the state is churned 

 and packed under the "Prairie Farms" label. Producers battled ior iair and orderly 

 marketing and won. Their surplus milk goes through the creamery. 



O F M O L I N E 



QUALITY MILK ASSOCIATION. 







iih 



I i,.,:,L_ 



ACCURATE TESTING 

 Quality Milk Tester Lee Jensen reads a 

 test. Most oi the milk consumed in the 

 Quad-Cities is bought on Association's 

 weights and tests. 



Furthermore, the producers had 

 nothing to say about the amount of 

 milk going into the fluid trade. Nor 

 could they check dealer's records to 

 find the truth, although many sus- 

 pected dealers were bottling surplus 

 milk as well as base. Then, too, there 

 were doubts about tests and weights. 



Quality Mil5, pledged in its by-laws 

 to get a fair share of the consumer's 

 dollar, to check weights and tests and 

 to improve quality and promote con- 

 sumption, was growing. In 1932, the 

 association represented 85 per cent of 

 the producers in the milk shed, a total 

 of 850 members. 



Until August of that year every ef- 

 fort to gain dealer cooperation had 

 been spurned. Even a non-partisan 

 council composed of representatives of 

 the dealers, the producers and the con- 

 sumers, set up to inspect weights and 

 tests, decayed. 



Producers offered to handle their 

 own surplus which the dealers claimed 

 was costing them money to process. 

 Dealers refused the offer thereby afford- 

 ing producers evidence that some sur- 

 plus was being sold as bottled milk. 



Disparing at last of ever getting deal- 

 er cooperation in raising prices, pro- 

 ducers took a firmer stand. They raised 

 $10,000 to purchase and remodel a 

 plant in Davenport for handling sur- 

 plus milk. Thus entrenched in their 

 efforts to get better prices. Quality 

 Milk members polished off their big 

 stick. 



Sleepy citizens of the Quad-Cities 

 were startled into wakefulness when 

 they opened their morning papers on 

 September 1, 1932 by the news that 

 milk producers were on strike. The 

 big stick had fallen! 







