212 AGRICULTURAL ORGANISATION 



THE PROBLEM FOR CO-OPERATORS. 



While the opportunities for an increased production of 

 bacon appear to be so great, the aforesaid risks and 

 difficulties in the setting up of co-operative bacon factories 

 in the United Kingdom have led to the question being 

 raised as to whether agricultural co-operative societies 

 should not, preferably, content themselves with ensuring to 

 their members greater opportunities for the remunerative 

 sale of live pigs. What has been done in this direction by 

 the Eastern Counties Farmers' Co-operative Association, 

 Ltd., is told in the section dealing with the co-operative sale 

 of live stock ; and in some quarters where the subject is 

 being very closely considered there is a strong impression 

 that the Eastern Counties farmers have done better by 

 selling their live pigs co-operatively than they probably 

 would if they had started bacon factories on their own 

 account. In any case it is thought desirable that the 

 question should be looked at closely from the dual stand- 

 point here suggested. 



I. GRIST MILLING. 



As a means of obtaining, for their live stock, feeding stuffs 

 of assured quality at moderate prices, a number of societies 

 have resorted to co-operative milling, either taking over 

 one of the existing mills, disused or otherwise, to be found 

 in many different parts of the country, or else setting 

 up an entirely new milling plant. 



In some instances members send their own barley to the 

 co-operative mill, and have it ground there, with an assurance 

 that they will get their own barley back again after it has 

 been ground at a lower rate than an ordinary miller would 

 charge. In other instances the society itself procures the 

 grain, prepares the meal, and sells to its members. In most 

 cases the co-operative milling is carried on as an addition to 

 the special purposes for which the societies have been formed 

 sale of agricultural necessaries or eggs and poultry, or so 

 on and they find the milling a useful adjunct to their 



