Palmer ,A1 as ka
Editor.Dorothy M. Boll
advertising..Harriet Z. Bell
Published once a week at Palmer, Alaska, for the Matanuska Valley
Farmers’ Cooperating Association for the purpose of giving news of the
..ssociutions work, problems and accomplishments,
SUBSCRIPTION R,.TE £>1.75 per year vl*00 for six months lOtfaopy
COOPERATIVES
Cooperatives must be.more efficiently managed if they are to fulfill
their•responsibilities to members.
They must compete on an equal basis with other business if they are to
be successful.
Y/e nuver must forget that a cooperative is a business venture. It has
risks very similar to any (bther business. It must be efficiently mana
ged, but it must also be managed insuch a manner that it accomplishes
the objectives which are distinctly different from other types of busi
nesses.
Cooperatives should not be started at all unless there is a real need
for the services they can provide. Cooperatives have disadvantages as
well as advantages. Y.’e must recognize our advantages and push them to
the limit. • :
ir.it.. To do this we must have both operators and cooperators
in the same organization.
(John V. Sims, executive secretary of the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation.}
ON PUBLIC RELATIONS
From the Cooperative Digest' we quote this information on Public relations
written by Roy H.Park,Editor.
..t nearly every national convention of farm organizations we hear a great
deal’ of discussion about public relations. Everybody agrees that it is
important, but most of the people go on and do nothing about it.
Here are the four steps which Mr. Parks thinks are preliminary to accom
plishment of any real program of general public relations for farmer
cooperatives.
1. Farmers and their cooperatives must taka off their false faces, ele
vate’ their sights, evaluate themselves as businessmen and discard the
idea that they are as a group among the "havenots."
2. Fortners and their cooperatives must accept the realities of a vigor
ous free enterprise system and work toward making it even greater rather
than hobbling it with unnecessary and artificial government restrictions.
Efficient farmer cooperatives make progress on the free movement of
goods, both to and from the farm, and given enough room to operate, they
can hold their own and go forward. ..Iso they must let the public know
that they want to stand on their own two feet and be judged on the basis
of service rendered,.
3. Farmers and their cooperatives must hammer home the fact that food in
.'merica is cheaper than anywhere else on earth• \.q must point out that
a dollar is simply a token and if we go back to the basic measure of
evaluation, an average factory worker in the United States today can buy
as much food with one hour’s work as an Englishman can buy with two hours
or an Italian with four, or a Russian with six hours of hard labor.
4. Finally, farmers and their cooperatives should pool their resources
and effectively sell ..merica: on an ever-increasing standard of better
living through better eating. This is good public relations and, since
the end product of the goods and services of farmer cooperatives is
food and fiber, it is just good business.
.JL1 this is just a matter of good merchandising, of good business, and
accepting and stimulating a free enterprise economy in which farmer co
operatives can operate most effectively.