Ocean Spray, Sunkist, Land O'Lakes, Welch's, Blue Diamond, Cabot. Every one of those brands belongs to a collective farming arrangement that has worked for the better part of a century. They bear almost no resemblance to the collective farms that failed in the Soviet Union, China and Vietnam.
They are agricultural cooperatives, owned outright by the farmers who grow the crop. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's most recent annual survey counted 1,620 farmer, rancher and fishery cooperatives with combined revenue of $275.8 billion.
What the members pool is the expensive part of farming that no single family can carry alone — the processing plant, the brand name, the shelf space at a national grocery chain. What they do not pool is the farm. Each member still owns the land, makes the planting decisions, absorbs the risk and is free to leave.
The failed versions essentially pooled the land, turned farmers into field hands and handed each family a quota. Extra effort went into a common pot and came back divided. There was little reason to do more than the quota required. Output stagnated, crops failed, people starved.
China began dismantling its communes in 1978, after farmers in one Anhui village quietly divided the fields among their households and brought in a harvest bigger than the previous decade's. Vietnam broke up its collective farms soon after and, according to the International Rice Research Institute, went from chronic rice importer to one of the world's largest rice exporters.
The American co-ops pooled the selling and left the farming alone. Membership was a decision, not an assignment.
The arrangement has proved durable. USDA reports that 393 cooperatives, roughly one in five, have been in business a century or longer. Sunkist began marketing California citrus in 1893. Ocean Spray started with three cranberry growers in 1930 and now belongs to about 700 family farms.
The profits come back to members in proportion to how much each one sold through the co-op that year.
Rick Good spent ten years in the newspaper business, including with The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC) and The Greenville News (Greenville, SC). He co-wrote, with Melinda Coleman, Rutledge to Riley: Governors of South Carolina, 1776–Present (Published by The Greenville News), and is the author of Mind Games Trivia #1 (Amazon). He has recently spent 15 years creating original trivia content through Sounds Good Mobile Entertainment and continues that with his new company, SGME Software. He edits The Smart Reader’s money, real estate, and business coverage.
