What Farmers Say About Marketing Eastern Shore Potatoes and What Farmers Suggest for Better Marketing, Part 2
5. Farmers Wish Eastern Shore Farmers' Association to be Continued: The overwhelming majority of all persons interviewed, equally among both members and non-members, wish the continuance of the marketing arrangement involved in the Eastern Shore Farmers' Association which has been in operation now for two marketing seasons. It apparently was the opinion of the farmers, bankers and merchants, that a great deal has been accomplished already and that the plan holds possibility of even greater things in the future. The big handicap in the situation is the group of farmers and marketing agencies who have refused to give the plan a fair trial under the most favorable conditions which local unity can alone provide. This group is practically as much in favor of continuing the organization as are the active members -- but for different reasons. Those who have not joined with the organization view it as a means of protection, giving them a favorable opportunity to compete with the cooperators. In consequence, the association has been prevented from reaching its maximum usefulness and from obtaining for the farmers the best prices that conditions of the market warrant. The farmers, not the marketing agencies, will decide the future of this form of cooperation by their eagerness to help or to hinder the work of the association.
6. Inter-Regional Cooperation: The Eastern Shore people realize now as never before that marketing problems are no respecters of political boundaries. They are practically unanimous in urging that cooperative relationships be established with the potato-producing areas along the entire Atlantic Seaboard from Long Island southward. Many are so ambitious as to include the Gulf Coast and lower Mississippi Valley sections. Such a goal should demand the careful attention of everyone interested in the welfare of growers of the early and second-early potato crops. Inter-regional cooperation on the large scale recommended by those interviewed will be a reality only when, and to the extent that, individual regional territories are able to develop a cooperative discipline and loyalty which will inspire the confidence of the present unorganized territory. The rather frequent excuse offered by non-members in the Eastern Shore counties is that they will join when the entire producing area is united under some plan of cooperative marketing, if it is sufficiently prevalent elsewhere too, will not only prevent the growth of cooperation in the local producing area concerned, but will prevent the development of interregional cooperation on the larger scale so much desired by a majority of Shore farmers.
III. A Final Word
To the above list of more generally recognized farmer-reported problems and farmer-suggested remedies and their discussion, the agencies making the survey would like to add a closing word. This is based entirely upon the views expressed by a number of local leaders in the cooperative movement on the Shore. Cooperation in this section has been only partially successful largely because of the average farmer-member has accepted his membership too much as a mere formality and too little as a fundamentally different way of doing things.
Under the private marketing system with several competing dealers, the farmer feels he has a desirable freedom in disposing of his crop. Let us see just what happens. The dealer's motive for being in business is personal profits -- and justly so. When his commission is based upon a flat rate of so much per barrel, his profits increase as his volume of business increases. Again, out of an entirely proper self-interest, he will try to sell the produce delivered to him just as fast as he can. Especially in seasons of heavy production -- hence with buyers in the cities cautious and slow -- the inevitable result of pressure to sell by competing dealers in the market, is a falling price. Should the local grower directly consign his own potatoes to a central market commission merchant, his potatoes will go on essentially the same market as far as the price-making influences are concerned. The position of the local cash buyer is essentially the same in this existing system except that the farmer does not know how large a margin the cash buyer has taken. Therefore, instead of a imagined advantage, from this freedom of choice among a number of local dealers and direct consignment as a more or less attractive last outlet, the potato producer is, in fact, the leading party in a system which is almost bound to return him lower prices except in a year when the crop is abnormally small. This is the conviction of a number of prominent local people who have been watching these conditions for many years.
Some system of growers' cooperation, either through his own selling agency handling substantially all of the crop from a local heavy production area, or by means of agency agreements which will allow any farmer, private dealer, or cooperative marketing association to enter the plan upon pledging to observe the rules, should bring appreciably higher average returns to the farmer.
Better returns to the farmers might be obtained if substantially all of the early and second-early crop moving to the principal consuming markets of the United States could be included under one marketing arrangement. It is almost equally true, however, according to the opinions of these farmer-leaders, that any one section that produces as heavily as Eastern Shore might secure most of the advantages of organized marketing and yet be able to face competition from other sections. At least it ought to stop some of the harmful results of competition between selling agencies within the section.
However large or small the section may be, it must be emphasized strongly that the farmers, practically 100 per cent of them, throughout the region included in any plan of organized marketing must be active in organizing, operating and controlling the system. Each farmer will be eager to observe all the rules because he is convinced that only by so doing will the possibilities of the system become a reality. He will also understand that to violate means ultimately lower prices for all and the disintegration of his association. Signed contracts requiring loyalty to the rules are important, but contracts are entirely secondary to a whole-hearted willingness to work together and to accept and live up to all responsibilities faithfully and honestly.
These are some of the prices which must be paid in establishing a form of cooperation which should help to stabilize the production and marketing of the potato crop. With a vision that sees the future as clearly as the present, a willingness to forget the past, an enthusiasm to work together, and a higher level of loyalty to the common cause, growers may find a basis of understanding and mutual helpfulness. Without this cooperation, the all too important collapses of the potato market in former years, usually during the Shore's heaviest crop movement, will continue in the future -- possibly yet more violent price changes will bring an even greater menace to the prosperity of the section. The key to the situation is in the hands of the farmers themselves.