UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
DEPARTMENT BULLETIN No. 1266 
Washington, D. C. 
August 22, 1924 
AGRICULTURAL COOPERATION IN DENMARK 
By Chkis L. Chkistensen, Agricultural Economist, Bureau of Agricultural 
Economics. 
CONTENTS. 
Page. 
Introduction 1 
History and development of Danish 
agriculture 4 
Danish agriculture to-day 7 
Principles observed in Danish coop- 
eration , 9 
Dairy industry and cooperation 14 
Bacon industry and cooperation 31 
Page. 
Egg industry and cooperation 46 
Cooperative cattle export associa- 
tions 54 
Cooperative buying 56 
Cooperative breeding associations 74 
Agricultural credit 81 
Miscellaneous cooperative organiza- 
tions 87 
INTRODUCTION. 
Forty years of sound agricultural planning and progress have 
revolutionized the economic and social life of the Danish people. 
From a depressed state of peasant agriculture, which threatened the 
welfare and prosperity of the whole nation, Denmark (fig. 1) stands 
to-day as the world's foremost agricultural country in the scientific 
organization of her production and marketing. Her people, rural 
as well as urban, appear contented and prosperous. (See fig. 2.) 
Neither extreme wealth nor extreme poverty exists. 
The farmers are now owners of the tracts of land they cultivate. 
They rank foremost among the nations in the application of scien- 
tific methods in agriculture, use of fertilizers, and relative crop pro- 
duction. Their intensive development of animal industry stands 
highest. Their extensive application of democratic cooperative 
principles has made Denmark famous the world over. 
As a measure of the importance of Danish agriculture to con- 
sumers of other countries to-day, it was well known before the war 
that Danish agriculture furnished 27.9 per cent (1913) of the inter- 
national butter trade. Besides supplying 40 to 50 per cent of the 
total butter, bacon, and egg imports to the United Kingdom, Den- 
mark has a relatively large surplus of cattle (meats), horses, and 
seeds for other countries. 
The first real step in the direction of agricultural cooperation was 
taken in the eighties, although the modern cooperative movement be- 
gan in Denmark with the formation of the credit associations in the 
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