Member Spotlight: Ursa Farmers Cooperative
All businesses have uncontrollable elements that jeopardize company profits, but none so much as the farmer. Like others, his business is impacted by new taxes and unexpected government regulations, but he also is significantly influenced by unmanageable weather conditions. Floods, wind, and too much or too little sun and rain can wipe out his entire production for a year.
Gerald Jenkins, manager of Ursa Farmers Cooperative (UFC), says that farmers are natural-born risk takers and, for 91 years, the coop has offered products and services to manage those threats and maximize profits.
“Farmer-owned elevators like Ursa Farmers Coop were developed in the early 1900s because of unfair marketing conditions,” says Jenkins. “At that time, the elevator owners had organized a pricing system that allowed them to take a very large margin of profit from the farmers’ grain. Then, the railroads refused to do business with the independent farmer, demanding that they go through an elevator. So, in 1920, a group of farmers in this area organized into a cooperative and built their own elevator.”
What began as a 60-member organization with one 23,000-bushel silo has grown into a 2,400-member cooperative with six locations, 53 full-time employees and $150 million in annual sales. Three-fourths of all farmers in Adams and Hancock Counties are UFC members, and nearly half of farmers in Lewis and Clark Counties in Missouri are members.
UFC’s mission is to provide products and services that are most beneficial to member producers. The Marketing Department works directly with major grain companies and brokers on the Chicago Board of Trade to find customers that will buy grain at top dollar. They also research the demand for specialty grains like non-GMO (non-Genetically Modified Organism) corn and soybeans. UFC offers crop insurance that guarantees income despite a poor production year. They offer feed for animals, help members buy seed and chemicals in bulk at a lower price and maintain a large fleet of trucks that help producers move grain.
“Our members are the real strength of the organization,” says Jenkins, who has managed the coop for 22 years. “Three-fourths of the changes we make here are the direct result of a request or suggestion by one of our member producers. We listen.”
Profits each year are paid back to members at the direction of a seven-member Board of Directors. Last year, UFC paid out $2.2 million in patronages.
“Every year is a challenge,” says Jenkins. “This spring, the planting season started very well but then the weather got wet and cold in April and that delayed completion of the planning until May or June. Then, in July and August, we were really hot and dry.
“Our farmers are harvesting in the fields now, and we are finding that the early planted corn is better than expected.
It’s probably below the five-year average, but still better than expected with such extreme heat and drought. That proves how good the hybrid seeds are,” he says. “We’re concerned about the soybean crop, though, which will be harvested in October, but that’s a risk you take as a farmer.”
For more information, call Jenkins at (217) 964-2111 or visit www.ursacoop.com.
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