Agribusiness Cooperatives under Attack, Take the Offensive

Over the years since their meager beginnings, agribusiness cooperatives in the U.S. have compiled a checkered history of both praise and condemnation. Some observers have argued that cooperatives no longer communicate with, nor represent the best interests of their farmer members. Some critics suggest that cooperatives have stymied, or at least diffused, free market transactions in the agricultural economy. Still others have been so bold as to propose that cooperatives characterize the socialistic antithesis of a private free enterprise system. Despite such strong and diverse judgments by their critics, agribusiness cooperatives have, over the years, also received their fair share of compliments and plaudits. They have been referred to as the sole protectorate of the family farm concept, guardian of the small or marginal farmer during economically depressed periods, and the only remaining vehicle by which competition in the product and factor markets is enhanced and facilitated. Finally, it is not at all inconsistent that such statements of praise and condemnation could be heard concurrently.