DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE


 Door-to-Door Survey Shows

 Progress of Co-ops
 By F. F. HILL, Deputy Governor, Farm
 Credit Administration

 (Published in FARMER COOPERATIVES for September, 1938)
 Twenty-one years ago this fall the old Office of Mar-
kets and Rural Organization m the Department of Agricul-
ture published the first official survey of farmers' coopera-
tives. The 1917 report showed 5,424 cooperative marketing
and purchasing associations in the United States, with an
estimated annual business of $625,940,000. At that time
about 1 in every 10 farmers was a member of a cooperative

 As this article goes to press a new Nation-wide survey-
the first actual door-to-door canvass of farmer co-op to be
made in this country-is being completed by the Farm
Credit Administration and the 13 banks for cooperatives and
about 30 of the State agricultural colleges and universities.
They report 15,573 farmers' co-ops and mutual companies.
Gross business of the marketing and purchasing associa-
tions, including both wholesale and retail sales, aggregates
$2,750,000,000 annually. Nearly half of all American farm-
ers are now marketing farm products or purchasing farm
supplies, insurance, or farm business services through co-
operative farmer-owned organizations.

 We know before this, of course, that the business of
 farmer cooperatives declined during the depression, due
 primarily to falling price levels, and then turned upward
 as recovery began. The Cooperative Division of the Farm
 Credit Administration mails inquiries to cooperatives each
 year, which enables the division to estimate current busi-
 ness and membership. What we did not know definitely
 was that cooperative marketing has regained most of its