CO-OPERATIVE HANDLING OF GRAIN IN CANADA.

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume XII, Issue 3, 20 March 1916, Page 216

CO-OPERATIVE HANDLING OF GRAIN IN CANADA.

One of the most successful farmers’ co-operative enterprises in the progressive ‘Canadian province of Saskatchewan is that of the Co-operative Elevator Company, which was established in 1911 upon the recommendation of a Royal Commission appointed in 1910 to inquire into matters affecting the grain trade. The ■company was formed to enable the farmers to free themselves from what they asserted to be a monopoly exercised by ,grain-dealers, combinations of graindealers, and private elevator companies in Western Canada. It has power “to •construct, acquire, maintain, and operate grain-elevators in .Saskatchewan,; to buy and sell grain ; and generally to do all things incidental to the production, storing, and marketing of grain.” The amount of the share capital is not ' fixed : the shares have a nominal value of $5O, and no one may hold more than twenty shares. The general management is in the hands of a Board of nine directors, and each elevator acquired or built by the company has , a local board of management consisting of five shareholders. Upon certain conditions the Government advances a large part of the capital required for each local elevator, loans-from ■Government being repayable in twenty equal annual instalments, with interest at 5 per cent. Any number of shareholders in ,a particular locality may request the company to buy one of the elevators at the local forwarding point dr build a new ■one, but before taking any action the board of directors must be satisfied that the amount of shares held by the supporters of the proposed local elevator is at least equal to the value of the proposed elevator; that 15 per cent, of the amount of .-such shares has been paid up ; and that the aggregate annual crop acreage of the said shareholders represents a proportion of not less, than 2,000 acres for each 10,000 bushels of elevator capacity asked for. The growth of the company has been rapid. Between 1911-12 and 1914-15 the following increases took place : Number of shareholders, from 2,507 to 14,922 ; number of elevators, 46 to 215 ; grain handled through elevators, 3,261,000 to 12,344,000 bushels; grain handled •on commission, nil to 11,000,000 bushels. The annual report of the company.for the year ending the 31st July, 1914, shows that the authorized capital at the end ■of the year was $2,000,000, the subscribed capital $1,911,800, the paid-up capital $382,461, and ..the profit on the year’s working $285,181.

During dry weather .this summer at Ruakura weaner calves have been turned on to a break of lucerne, and then into a pasture-field largely composed of Pasp alum dilatatum. The growth of paspalum on some of the poor swamp land of the farm has been remarkable this summer. .. ..'