Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Minutes of the Business Meeting of NCERA-194, Research on Cooperatives Tuesday, November 5, 2007 Crown Plaza-Riverfront, Saint Paul, Minnesota Administrative Advisor: Sarahelen (Sally) Thompson Department of Agricultural Economics Purdue University West Lafayette, IN 47907 Chair: Shermain Hardesty Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics University of California Davis, CA 95616 Vice-Chair: Brent Hueth Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Madison, WI 53706 Secretary: Gregory McKee Department of Agribusiness and Applied Economics, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58105 Treasurer: Michael Boland Department of Agricultural Economics, Kansas State University, Manhattan KA, 66506 Attendance There were 23 individuals in attendance, 19 NCERA-194 members and 4 other individuals (graduate students, guests) NCERA-194 Members in Attendance: Michael Boland, Kansas State University Dennis Conley, University of Nebraska Shermain D. Hardesty, University of California-Davis Brian M. Henehan, Cornell University Brent Hueth University of Wisconsin-Madison Phil Kenkel, Oklahoma State University Rob King University of Minnesota Gregory McKee North Dakota State University Chris Peterson, Michigan State University Anne Reynolds, University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Cooperatives Bruce Reynolds, USDA Cooperative Services-Cooperative Programs, Evert Van der Sluis, South Dakota State University, Randall Torgerson, Retired USDA Cooperative Services, William Nelson, CHS Foundation, James Baarda, USDA Rural Development, David Barton, Kansas State University, Julie Hogeland, USDA Rural Development, Sally Thompson, Purdue University, Michael L. Cook, University of Missouri, Burton Pflueger, South Dakota State University, Jennifer Bond, Colorado State University, Other Individuals Attending Curt Stofferahn, University of North Dakota, Paulo de Brito, Colorado State University, Frayne Olson, Iowa State University, and Jong-Ick Jang, University of Missouri Call to Order: Vice-chairman Brent Hueth called the meeting to order at 4:15 p.m. Approval of minutes from the 2006 Annual Meeting Vice-chair Brent Hueth distributed the 2006 meeting minutes. A motion to approve the minutes was made by Michael Boland and seconded by Phil Kenkel. Motion carried. Nominating Committee Report Brent Hueth gave the nominating committee report. The committee recommended an officer slate consisting of: Brent Hueth-Chair, Gregory McKee-Vice Chair and Todd Schmidt-Secretary. There were no further nominations from the floor. A motion to elect the recommended slate of officers by acclamation was made by Phil Kenkel and seconded by David Barton. Motion carried. Treasurers Report Mike Boland presented the financial report. $3,000 was received from the CHS Foundation and $1,000 from The Cooperative Foundation to support travel scholarships. These funds were disbursed to the scholarship recipients. The account balance on November 2, 2007 was $1,000.71. A motion to approve the financial report was made by Chris Peterson and seconded by Phil Kenkel. Motion carried. Administrative Advisors Report The Administrative Advisor indicated that the membership needed to submit a proposal for renewal of the project. All members will need to file Appendix E with their state experiment station in order to continue membership. Impacts of the group also need to be reported. Cooperative Text Book Project Mike Boland led a discussion on the cooperative text book project. Revisions of chapters still need to be forwarded to the reviewers. Suggestions for alternative methods of publishing material from the text include as special submissions to the Journal of Cooperatives. Status of Journal of Cooperatives Phil Kenkel led a discussion on the status of the Journal of Cooperatives. The journal has been published electronically. It is funded through page charges. Articles will be published as they come in; the journal needs to establish a consistent publication record to draw quality articles. As editor, Phil plans to rely heavily on the NCERA194 membership for reviewers. Areas for articles include: research, case studies and teaching articles. Archived articles will be available through the NCERA-194 web site and JSTOR at no charge. A presentation was made by representatives of the AgEcon Search service to suggest publishing the journal there as well. A motion by Christopher Peterson and seconded by Jim Baarda was made in support of publishing the journal on AgEcon Search. Access to back issues of Journal of Cooperatives is uncertain; NCFC holds the copyright. Phil inquired with the NCFC to obtain permission. Permission pending. Numerous back issues of American Cooperation have been scanned and will be posted once copyright permission is obtained. Student Registration Fees and Financial Support Mike Boland reported that student participation funding was received from the CHS Foundation. Students from Colorado State University and from University of Missouri were able to attend because of support funding. Resolution of Appreciation A motion thanking the CHS Foundation for their support of the meeting was made by Phil Kenkel and seconded by Christopher Peterson. Motion carried. A motion thanking Phil Kenkel and Roger Ginder for their work on the Journal of Cooperatives was made. A motion thanking Shermain Hardesty for her administration of the group was made. A motion thanking Sally Thompson for her services as administrative advisor was made. 2008 Meeting Format The format for the 2008 NCERA-194 Annual Meeting was discussed. The group agreed to continue to link the conference with the Farmers Cooperative Conference. The general consensus was that holding NCRERA-194 immediately after the Farmers Cooperative Conference was preferable to before the conference. The meeting adjourned at 5:00 p.m.

Objective 1. To promote and coordinate timely research on cooperatively owned business organizations for agricultural marketing, agricultural input supply, vertical coordination through value added processing, and rural services. Accomplishments during 2006: NCERA-194 has continued to facilitate collaboration and interaction among individuals conducting research on cooperatives. NCERA-194 members continue to be actively involved in joint research projects and cooperative agreements between USDA, Cooperative Services and the Land Grant institutions. NCERA-194 members are making full use of the committees infrastructure to communicate the results of their research to each other. During 2007 NCERA-194 members disseminated research results during the annual meeting. NCERA-194 members also used the NCERA-194 web page and the list-server (described in more detail below) to communicate with each other. NCERA-194 members, as well as others interested in cooperatives, can access the selected papers presented at the each all meetings from the web page, which can be found at: http://www.agecon.ksu.edu/accc/ncr194/ncr%20publications.htm. Members also made use of the List Server (ncr-194-net@macc.wisc.edu) to facilitate communications among members. Messages sent to the list server are forwarded to all NCERA-194 participants. Eric Thor assisted with the formation of five major cooperatives in the Southwest. Phil Kenkel assisted in the establishment of a new oilseed processing cooperative Plains Oilseed Products in Oklahoma. The cooperative is partnering with an existing cottonseed processing cooperative. The cooperative is installing over $8M of canola processing equipment and is contracting canola acreage for 2008 delivery. At full production the new cooperative will process over 150,000 tons of canola generating over $39M of revenue for its producer members Brent Hueth wrote a successful grant proposal to continue funding of research on the national economic impact of cooperative business. This, the second, phase of research funded by Rural Development-Cooperative Programs at USDA will develop and implement a longitudinal business survey across all sectors where the cooperative business model is used. Brent Hueth also competed successfully for a USDA NRI grant to compare governance practices in cooperative firms, relative to their investor-oriented counterparts in the agricultural sector. Phil Kenkel serves as editor of the Journal of Cooperative which resumed publication in 2007 as an electronic Journal hosted on the NCERA-194 website. The journal published 5 articles in 2007, three of which were authored by NCEAR-194 members. All ten members of the Journals editorial board are NCERA-194 members. Other specific examples of collaboration include: Mike Boland and Dave Baron and The Arthur Capper Cooperative Center (Kansas State University) conducted director development programs in California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, and Montana Mike Boland woreked with Greg McKee at NDSU on economics of making ethanol from sugar beets and we has a draft of a case in review. Mike Boland is also working with Dan Sumner at UCDavis on case studies of Sun-Maid Growers (forthcoming) and Sunkist and with Mykel Taylor at Washington State on a case study of Tree Top Growers. Jenifer Bond participated in a project funded by CHS, administered through Rocky Mountain Farmers Union. She has completed 5 cooperative case studies and has three more in progress. Phil Kenkel completed a Risk Management Agency funded project examining the feasibility of machinery templates. Project output includes a feasibility template available at http://www.agecon.okstate.edu/coops/files/machinery_cooperative_feasibility_template_7-15-2007.xls and three publications. Objective 2. To serve as a forum for industry and government decision makers in management and staff research positions to interact with land grant researchers and extension specialists to share research results and discuss implications for cooperative business organizations, their producer members, farm structure, efficiencies in food production and distribution, the environment and economic well being of rural communities. Accomplishments: Attendance at NCERA-194s annual meeting included 23 individuals, 19 NCERA-194 members and 4 nonmembers. It consisted of a one-day forum, attended by USDA representatives as well as representatives from universities. Thirteen research papers were presented at the meeting. Topics of the papers presented included cooperative finance, new cooperative formation, characteristics of successful cooperatives and the economic impact of cooperatives. Another important objective of NCR-194 is to attract young individuals to cooperative development. Progress toward this objective was achieved during 2006 through the successful pursuit of $2,000 in scholarships to two students to participate in both the NCERA-194 meeting and the Farmers Cooperative Conference. NCERA-194 member Mr. William Nelson, representing the CHS Foundation, was instrumental in making scholarship funds available. The availability of the these scholarship funds further serves as an indication of the successful working relationships between NCERA-194 members working in industry and in academic settings. Continuing development of a cooperative textbook for use in college and university courses was supported. Seven NCERA-194 members have completed preliminary drafts of 21 chapters of the textbook. NCERA-194 member Mike Boland was awarded funding from foundations to support a retreat to complete the textbook.

Barton, D. and M.A. Boland South Dakota Soybean Processors. Prepared for Farmer Cooperatives 2007, St. Paul, MN, November 3, 2007. Barton, D. and M.A. Boland FC Stone. Prepared for Farmer Cooperatives 2007, St. Paul, MN, November 3, 2007. Barton, D. and M.A. Boland Goldkist. Prepared for Farmer Cooperatives 2007, St. Paul, MN, November 3, 2007. Boland, M.A. book review: Truman Torgensen: Straight from the Shoulder Journal of Cooperatives, Vol. 20, 2007 p 64. Boyd, S., M.A. Boland, K. Dhuyvetter, and D. Barton. The Persistence of Profitability in Local Farm Supply and Grain Marketing Cooperatives. Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics 59,1(2007):201-210. Boland, M.A., A.M. Bosse, and G.W. Brester. Mountain States Lamb Cooperative. Review of Agricultural Economics, 29,1(2007):157-169. Briggeman, B. and P. Kenkel. Farm Credit Employees Perceptions of Loan Business Relative to Different Types of Borrowers selected paper, SAEA 2006 Annual Meeting, Mobile Alabama, Feb 4-7, 2007 Hardesty SD, Salgia VD. Most West Coast agricultural cooperatives are financially space competitive. California Agriculture, October-November 2007 61(4):1726. Hogeland, Julie A., "The Role of Culture and Social Norms in Theories of Institutional Change: The Case of Agricultural Cooperatives," in Alternative Institutional Structures, Nicholas Mercuro and Sandra S. Batie (eds.). Part of the book series, The Economics of Legal Relationships. Routledge, forthcoming, 2008 Hogeland, J.A. (2007) An interpretation of the competitive yardstick model using critical discourse analysis, Journal of Cooperatives, 20, 34-48. Hogeland, J.A. (2006) The economic culture of U.S. agricultural cooperatives, Culture & Agriculture, 28:67-79. Kenkel, P. and R. Park. Business Models and Producer-Owned Ventures: Choices, Challenges and Changes,  Agricultural and Applied Economics, Vol. 39, No. 2 July 2007 Kenkel, P and G. Long. Options for Joint Machinery Ownership OSU Department of Agricutlural Economics AE07041, July 2007 Kenkel, P and G. Long. Organizing a Machinery Cooperative OSU Department of Agricutlural Economics AE07042, July 2007 Kenkel, P and G. Long. Feasibility of a Shared Machinery Cooperative OSU Department of Agricutlural Economics AE07042, July 2007 Kenkel P., R. Holcomb and T. Bowser. Feasbility of a Producer Owned Winter Canola Processing Venture Proceedings, National Value Added Conference, Lexington KY June 4, 2007 Long G. and P. Kenkel Feasibility Of Machinery Cooperatives In The Southern Plains Region, selected paper, SAEA 2006 Annual Meeting, Mobile Alabama, Feb 4-7, 2007 Royer, J.S. and Darnell B. Smith. "Patronage Refunds, Producer Expectations, and Optimal Pricing by Agricultural Cooperatives" , Journal of Cooperatives, Vol 20, 2007 pp 1-16.