The Bovine Bugle

Meet-ups with fellow farmers

Last week I attended the 86th annnual business meeting of the St Albans Cooperative Creamery. Our farm belongs to both CROPP Cooperative and St Albans Cooperative. Both cooperatives are farmer-owned cooperatives, with a board of directors elected from their farmer membership. We have belonged to St Albans since 1976, and to CROPP since 2001. When CROPP wanted to establish a pool of dairy producers here in the Northeastern U.S. to supply their customers, such as Stonyfield Farm Yogurt, they worked with St Albans Co-op to find farmers wanting to produce organic milk. St Albans has about 560 dairy farms in Vermont and New York, and CROPP has over 500 organic dairy farms nationwide.

The annual meeting is a time to hear about the financial position of the co-op, to elect auditors and directors to fill expired terms, and to catch up on the news with your fellow farmers.

Both St Albans and CROPP are very well run cooperatives, and are always working towards producing an excellent product for their customers while ensuring the best finacial return for their members and the best price for their milk. We are proud to belong to these two farmer-owned, farmer-run cooperatives that work hard every day in the field, in the statehouses, and in Washington D.C. to make sure their farmers are getting the best deal they can.

Of course the best part of the meeting, and the motion from the floor that gets made, seconded, and passed the quickest, is the distribution of profits back to the member farmers of the Co-op.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

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Posted by Blogger Chris at February 22, 2005 04:23 PM