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STEADY progress is being made in 

 the Farm Bureau's statewide mar- 

 keting programs, according to re- 

 ports made at the regular spring 

 leaders meeting held in Spring- 

 field. Some 800 leaders repre- 

 senting the 99 county Farm Bureaus in 

 the state attended this session to receive 

 the latest information on various phases 

 of the Illinois Agricultural Associa- 

 tion's service and legislative programs. 



Main activity in the lAA's grain mar- 

 keting program at present centers in 

 the river area. In shaping this pro- 

 gram, Farm Bureau leaders were of the 

 opinion that they should have ample 

 grain supplies before entering into ex- 

 tensive merchandising operations. The 

 river areas appear to be the most read- 

 ily available source of such supply. 



Heading up the grain merchandising 

 program is the Illinois Grain Terminals 

 Company with three affiliated river 

 grain terminals: Havana River Grain 

 Company to service Mason, Logan, 

 Menard, Cass, Schuyler, McDonough 

 and Fulton counties; Prairie Grain 

 Company serving LaSalle, Lee, Henry, 

 Marshall-Putnam, Stark, Woodford, 

 Bureau and Peoria counties, and 

 Western Illinois Grain Company serv- 

 ing Hancock, Henderson, McDonough 

 and Warren counties. 



Completing the chain pf operations, 

 county grain associations are being 

 formed to tie in with the three river 

 grain companies. 



Havana River Grain has a new 70,- 

 000 bushel elevator that is expected to 

 be ready to handle the wheat crop, and 

 remodelling is started on the old ele- 

 vator. Work has been started on a 

 corn crib in connection with the new 

 Havana terminal elevator. It will have 

 bins for 12,000 bushels of ear corn and 

 8000 bushels of shelled corn. 



Western Illinois Grain has just com- 

 pleted a year's operation of its elevator 



at Dallas City, a working relationship 

 has been completed with county or- 

 ganizations in McDonough, Hancock, 

 Henderson and Warren counties. In 

 all four counties, grain companies have 

 been set up or will be organized im- 

 mediately and these county companies 

 will be members of Wesetrn Illinois 

 Grain. * 



Prairie Grain has three elevators pur- 

 chased and is about to let a contract 

 for construction of an elevator at one 

 of the sites. The sites purchased are 

 at Lacon, Hennepin and Ottawa. 



lAA Field Secretary G. E. Metzger 

 also explained the "five-year plan" in 

 the grain marketing setup which seems 

 to have created confusion in the minds 

 of some Farm Bureau leaders. 



The grain marketing program of the 

 organization, he said, calls for member 

 elevators to become Farm Bureau type 

 cooperatives, which means that the 

 members of the cooperative elevators 

 should ultimately all be Farm Bureau 

 members. 



The plan for achieving this objective 

 is as follows: The prospective member 

 elevators' boards of directors will agree 

 to set a definite date, after which 

 members of the cooperative will not be 

 accepted unless they are Farm Bureau 

 members. 



As of that date, any and all members 

 of the elevator who are not Farm 

 Bureau members for all time to come, 

 or for as long as they shall live, may 

 enjoy the full rights and privileges of 

 membership in the elevator cooperative, 

 including patronage refunds, even if 

 they do not see fit to become Farm 

 Bureau members. 



The five-year plan, as it is commonly 

 spoken of, has to do only with the 

 LEGAL SETUP of the elevator. If, 

 after five years from the cut-off date set 

 by the elevator's board of directors, the 

 elevator has failed to make the neces- 



sary legal changes in its setup, then 

 the elevator shall be droppea from 

 membership. 



In the livestock marketing prograai, 

 reported by Homer Curtiss, chairman 

 of the lAA board's marketing commit- 

 tee, the main activity at present centers 

 around the establishment of new and 

 additional cooperative concentration 

 points for the marketing of hogs close 

 to home. This in reality is the expan- 

 sion of the operations of the Illinois 

 Livestock Marketing Association, an 

 associated company of the Illinois Agri- 

 cultural Association. 



New concentration points in opera- 

 tion are at Stronghurst, Freeport and 

 Effingham. The latter is a branch of 

 the Shelbyville unit. Points in the 

 process of organization are in Hancock, 

 Mercer-Rock Island, Henry and Adams 

 counties. The old concentration points 

 which are operating successfully are at 

 Champaign, Bloomington, Paris, Dan- 

 ville, Shelbyville and Decatur. 



All of these points are affiliated with 

 the Illinois Livestock Marketing As- 

 sociation which acts as sales agency 

 with its sales office at Decatur. The 

 Decatur sales office gets the orders and 

 bids from packers all over the country 

 and relays this information to the man- 

 agers of the concentration points. The 

 hogs are weighed and graded by the 

 local manager and the packer pays on 

 the home weights. The local concen- 

 tration point manager is under the 

 direction of a local board of directors. 



Another matter discussed at the 

 Springfield meeting was that of cream- 

 ery territories. lAA Marketing Chair- 

 man Curtiss pointed out that experience 

 has shown that most of the territories 

 allotted by Prairie Farm Creamery, lAA 

 associated state company, to the 10 

 member creameries are too large. 



{Cottlhued on page 2\) 



lAA Grain Program 



Moves Rapidly in 



River Areas 



MAY, 1947 



