STRONGHURST 

 GETS THE 



HIGH DOLLAR 



»• 



HENDERSON COUNTY'S 



NEW CO-OP IS BRINGING 



AN ACTIVE MARKET 



RIGHT TO THE MEMBER'S DOOR 



by LEW REISNER, iaa Field Editor 



LIVESTOCK producers in Hender- 

 son county have a right to be 

 enthusiastic over their new direct 

 hog buying program and recent 

 sales tie-in with the statewide 

 Illinois Livestock Marketing As- 

 sociation. 



It's pretty well agreed that since 

 their marketing co-op started buying 

 hogs this winter direct from farmers 

 at the yards in Stronghurst it raised 

 the price on all grades and weights 

 by at least 50 cents a hundred. 



And C. A. Hartquist, manager of the 

 Henderson Livestock Marketing Asso- 

 ciation, maintains this estimate is con- 

 servative. "Soon after we switched to 

 direct buying in January," he said re- 

 cently, "we had concrete proof that 

 other buyers were offering as much as 

 a dollar less than we were paying." 



Even more it's giving farmers the 

 satisfaction of selling at home coopera- 

 tively. It is bringing an active market 

 to their door. 



Manager Hartquist/ center, fills out weight 



ticket for Roy Anderson as Sven Seversen, 



right, looks on. 



Roy Anderson waits 

 his turn at the scales. 

 He has sold his hogs direct 

 to the busy Stronghurst Co-op. 



Weekly hog receipts at the Strong- 

 hurst yards have doubled and many 

 new patrons are now selling direct 

 through the home co-op. This shows, 

 in the opinion of Earl Brokaw, pres- 

 ident of the Henderson County Farm 

 Bureau, that the new service is popular. 



To demonstrate how the county and 

 state marketing associations tie in to- 

 gether, Hartquist explained his day's 

 bidding. "I had a call this morning 

 from Decatur," he said. "A Wisconsin 

 firm wanted 250 hogs weighing be- 

 tween 210 and 230 pounds. 



"I agreed to furnish all these hogs 

 and at 10 o'clock I had them bought." 

 He paid $27.50 a hundred for them. 



Farmers who sold knew what they 

 were getting before the hogs left their 

 farm. They are protected. If the 

 market should have gone up after they 

 had sold and the association made a 

 profit, the farmer would eventually get 

 it back as a patronage dividend. 



Losses? "So far," Hartquist ad- 

 mitted readily, "we've lost on just one 

 day's buying, about $26." 



They buy hogs only. Other species 

 are shipped to co-ops on terminal mar- 

 kets every Monday. They expect to en- 

 large soon by getting into the stocker 



and feeder business, selling particularly 

 to those wanting less than carload lots. 



Although they expect a weekly aver- 

 age of about 900 hogs throughout the 

 year, receipts have run as high as 650 

 daily for which they have paid as much 

 as $42,000. 



The co-op at Stronghurst is a pace- 

 setter. Other buyers phone in to learn 

 what they are paying. This naturally 

 makes for a good market. "In effect," 

 Hartquist says, "farmers get a patron- 

 age dividend every time they sell us 

 a hog." 



Hogs are trucked in from as far 

 distant as 12 miles southwest of Car- 

 thage or about 48 miles from Strong- 

 hurst, from Aledo, 36 miles to the 

 north, and west from the Mississippi 

 river, the western boundary of Hender- 

 son county. j 



The farmer-members hire their own 

 manager who grades and weighs their 

 hogs. This helps. But just as im- 

 portant, the co-op's ability to get the 

 high dollar rests with its tie-in with 

 the Illinois Livestock Marketing Asso- 

 ciation. 



All hogs purchased at Stronghurst 

 and eight other concentration points 

 in Illinois are sol'd through the Decatur 





■V 



1. A. A. RECORD 



