Profit margins in rural America are usually too low for Wall Street to spend much time on Main Street. For a lot of ag businesses—such as farm retailers, ethanol companies, and even commodity processors—this means private investors are hard to come by, leaving only farmers to bankroll essential businesses.

The farmer-owned cooperatives profiled here—and the jobs they support-would not be in existence if growers hadn't literally bet the farm on their success.

Counting on Cooperatives
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported in August that farm profits would drop by more than 30 percent this year. It's bad news for an industry already plagued with high production costs and falling prices.
[Read the Full Article]

Home Sweet Home
Most of us have two lives—a work life and a family life. But as one sugar company has shown, when business grows out of family, work might just end up being a home.
[Read the Full Article]

Sour Profits Lead to Farmer Ownership in Sugar Business
During the late 1800s, a wealthy investor named Henry Oxnard was busy cultivating America into an agricultural powerhouse. He's best known for his namesake Oxnard, Calif.—a city of nearly 200,000 people that boasts two Naval bases and is widely considered to be the world's strawberry and lima bean capital.
[Read the Full Article]




Bookmark and Share



Enter your email address below to receive our newsletter:


Copyright © 2009 All Rights Reserved