TWO NEW COOPEBATIVE PROGRAMS 

 OUTLINED AT LEADERS' MEETING 



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Two new, forward-looking, cooper- 

 ative programs of the Illinois Ag- 

 ricultural Association, service brand 

 feeds, and plant foods, were outlined 

 to Farm Bureau leaders at the annual 

 fall leaders' meeting in Springfield by 

 George E. Metzger, lAA field secretary. 

 At the outset of his report, Metzger 

 pointed out that the Service Brand 

 Feeds program will in no way inter- 

 fere with the Blue Seal Feeds program 

 which has been carried on for several 

 years by the Illinois Farm Supply Com- 

 pany at the request of the lAA. 



Service Brand Feeds, Metzger said, 

 are complete mixed feeds. They will be 

 sold to the farmer as such. The Serv- 

 ice Brand Feeds program will make 

 it possible to grind and mix home- 

 grown grains in the localities where 

 the feed grain is grown. It will permit 

 taking advantage of the purchase of 

 protein ingredients under volume con- 

 tracts and provide for the manufacture 

 and distribution of precision pre-mixes 

 containing vitamin carriers and other 

 essential ingredients and guarantee to 

 the purchaser a quality product at a 

 considerable saving in price. 



The savings to be made are largely 

 savings in transponation which 

 the farmer would ordinarily pay 

 shipping his grain into the market 

 and shipping the mixed feeds 

 back. Certain pre-mixes involving 

 possibly 250 to 400 pounds in each 

 ton of complete feed will be pre- 

 pared by the Illinois Farm Supply 

 Company in its central mills. 

 The local distritbutor will provide 

 the locally grown grain where possible, 

 purchase his protein ingredients to the 

 best advantage, purchase the pre-mix 

 from the Illinois Farm Supply Company 

 and mix the feed under quality control 

 supervision and sell the feed to the 

 farmer in bags carrying the Service 

 Brand label. There probably are some 

 sections of the state where insufficient 

 grain is grown locally to take care of 

 the feed needs where this program may 

 be of little or no advantage. However 

 it may be that in such areas a local dis- 

 tributor might ship in the grain, buy 

 his necessary concentrates and pre- 

 mixes and mix it more cheaply locally. 

 These cases will require careful study 

 before entering into such a venture. 



The Service Brand Feeds program 

 will not be introduced in any county 

 without the approval of the County 

 Farm Bureau board. It will not be car- 

 ried into any county until the County 

 Farm Bureau board names a distributor. 



The local distributor must meet certain 

 qualifications; 



1. The distributor must be a co- 

 operative organization of the Farm 

 Bureau type, providing all the nec- 

 essary controls to make it such 

 an organization. 



2. The distributor should be able 

 to give county-wide service or 

 adequate service in a definitely 

 assigned territory within the coun- 

 t- 

 s' The distributor must have 



adequate finances. 



4. The distributor mtist have 

 adequate facilities, which in this 

 case means a grinding plant, with 

 mixing equipment, sufficient and 

 satisfactory storage for both grain 

 and mixed feed and trucks to make 

 delivery to the county. 



5. The distributor must have 

 adequate f>ersonnel. 



6. The distributor should be in 

 a position to pay patronage divi- 

 dends to Farm Bureau members 

 only. 



On invitation of County Farm 

 Bureau boards, representatives of 

 the lAA and Illinois Farm Supply 

 Company are meeting with County 

 Farm Bureau boards to discuss in 



detail this program and furnish any 

 available information to enable die 

 County Farm Bureau board to 

 make the pro{>er selection of a dis- 

 tributor. 



County Service Companies and Pro- 

 ducers Supply organizations can usu- 

 ally qualify as distributors. There arc 

 a number of counties, however, parti- 

 cularly in the surplus grain producing 

 area where it might be wise for County 

 Farm Bureaus to consider farmer co- 

 operative elevators which could be re- 

 organized to meet the qualifications or 

 to set up County Grain Associations 

 which could acquire or build facilities 

 and otherwise meet the qualifications. 

 All formulas and other matters per- 

 taining to quality will be worked out 

 by a Quality Control Committee made 

 up of the business service committee 

 of the lAA, one member appointed by 

 the Farm Advisers' Association, and 

 one or more representatives from the 

 Illinois Farm Supply Company in col- 

 laboration with representatives of the 

 University of Illinois. 



The program is getting under way 

 rapidly and can be fnade available in 

 most counties as soon as the proper 

 distributor has been appointed and has 

 acquired facilities necessary to the dis- 

 tribution of these feeds. 



The Plant Food Program is the re- 

 sult of a study which has been made 

 during the past two years by a commit- 

 tee made up of representatives of the 



{Conlinutd on pJge 25) 



OCTOBER. 1944 



