NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665
March 23, 2000
Bill Patrie, rural development director for the North Dakota Association of Rural Electric Cooperatives, is this year's featured speaker at the annual Bloomquist Lecture Series at North Dakota State University. Patrie will deliver his address, titled "New Generation Cooperatives and the Future of Agriculture," at 4 p.m. on Thursday, March 30, at the Reineke Fine Arts Center.
Patrie says, "The good news is this: through intelligent and courageous cooperation, the farmers of North America can redesign the agriculture and food production system. Even in the depths of this current farm depression, I believe in opportunity--opportunity so bright it is blinding."
For much of the past two decades, Patrie has worked with hundreds of farmers and agribusiness people to form new generation cooperatives, which add value to commodities through processing and put more income into the hands of producers. But Patrie warns that if the U.S. food system is not redesigned, American-grown farm commodities will be replaced by imports--a move that will end traditional farming in this country.
Patrie says new generation cooperatives provide a powerful alternative to that scenario and points to Carrington, N.D.,-based Dakota Growers Pasta Company as an example. The durum growers who are members in that co-op receive more than twice the average market price for a bushel of durum due to their investment in the company. In 1998, Dakota Growers reported a 28-percent average return on equity. Vertical integration is a complex process, Patrie says, but it can be worth the risk to investors.
The Bloomquist Lecture Series is open to the public, and there is no charge for attending. A public reception sponsored by NDSU's Quentin N. Burdick Center for Cooperatives will follow Patrie's address. Parking is available in the T-lot on the south side of 12th Avenue North in Fargo where it intersects Bolley Drive on the NDSU campus.
The annual Bloomquist Lecture Series is endowed by American Crystal Sugar Cooperative to honor its former president, Aldrich C. Bloomquist of Moorhead. American Crystal Sugar is considered a pioneer in the new generation co-op movement.
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Source: Kathy Coyle (701) 231-6370
Editor: Dean Hulse (701) 231-6136