Growth of Farm-City Cooperative Associations

Excerpts: Farmers' marketing cooperatives are described elsewhere in this Yearbook. They represent only a part of the cooperative movement in agriculture. On the other side of the picture there are the purchasing cooperatives, which have also had an impressive growth in recent years. There are four types of rural purchasing cooperatives: (1) Those including only farmers and handling only farm supplies, (2) those including only farmers but handling consumers' goods as well as farm supplies, (3) those including both farmers and city people and handling both consumers' goods and farm supplies, and (4) those including both farmers and city people and handling only consumers' goods. The first two types are by all odds the most numerous and influential. The last two types are relatively new and have developed in spite of the fact that some sincere elements in the rural cooperative movement do not approve of them. Although the author of this article is interested primarily in outlining this new development, he presents a striking picture of the growth of rural purchasing cooperatives as a whole.