Renville, MN

A Spirit of Co-operation

Rather than sell their crops to processors elsewhere, several hundred farmers around Renville, Minn., (pop. 1,323) work together “investing” their crops in the next link in the food chain, thereby giving the town a measure of prosperity.

Locally grown soybeans feed tasty tropical fish; millions of bushels of corn are converted into bacon and eggs; and hundreds of tons of sugar beets tumble into a multimillion dollar plant that growers established 25 years ago.

From feed to fish to fried eggs and ham, Renville’s nine farm cooperatives have transformed the town into the Co-operative Capital of the United States.

“All we have here is agriculture,” says Renville County Extension Agent Dave Nelson. “So they (farmers) decided that if you have lemons you make lemonade.”

Renville’s cooperative history dates back to the 1930s when grain and oil co-ops were forming across the country. In the 1970s, tumbling commodity prices once again dealt a blow to Renville’s farm economy, and a few local leaders decided to do something about it. They began “adding value” to—and expanding markets for—locally grown crops.

One farmer in the vanguard was Francis “Butch” Buschette, 62. In the early 1970s, he and several other growers established a sugar beet processing plant in Renville. Today, Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative has 380 workers and is the town’s largest employer.

“I felt there was a better way to use our crops other than shipping them out,” says Buschette, chairman of Co-op Country Farmers Elevator.

In 1991, area farmers formed ValAdCo, a swine production cooperative that raises more than 200,000 hogs annually on locally grown grain. Three years later, local producers committed “seed money” to hatch Golden Oval Eggs cooperative. The plant’s 2 million birds lay 1.4 million eggs daily while feasting on 225 tons of locally produced feed shuttled in by truck every 24 hours.

Demand for processed corn and soybeans for birds, fish, pigs, and other livestock became so great in 1994 that co-op leaders got together and formed another cooperative, United Mills, which now has 12 employees manufacturing more than 300,000 tons of feed annually.

In 1997, some townspeople wondered what use could be made of warm water generated during the manufacturing process at the sugar beet plant. The MinAqua Fisheries Cooperative was spawned and is now the largest fish cooperative in the state, raising 2 million pounds of warm water tilapia for a growing gourmet following and the Asian-American market. Tilapia look like a large pan fish and are more popular than trout in the United States today.

The extra money earned through the cooperatives’ value-added efforts has brought a measure of prosperity to Renville. The town is home to two farm implement dealerships, a busy main street, and a new city hall and library building.

“There’s no doubt that their contribution to Renville can be measured in many ways, including economic,” says Mayor Quentin Rath of the community’s cooperatives.

John Meyen, vice president of the American State Bank, attributes Renville’s rebirth to its value-added cooperatives and the 500 full-time people they employ.

Loren Marcus, who owns Marcus Well Drilling with his brother, Bob, says good things have happened to their business since cooperatives blossomed in Renville. “We’ve been able to improve and modernize our equipment, and we’re sure lots busier now,” he adds.

The proliferation of cooperatives also has had a serendipitous benefit. Delegations, study groups, and the curious from nearly every state and more than 50 countries now spend days or weeks in the area learning about what can happen when neighbors join hands to squeeze more profit out of their products—or, as some say, making lemonade from lemons.

Chuck Cecil is a freelance writer in Brookings, S.D.

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