The Risks of Expansion for the Local Marketing Union

There is no question about the success of the Kennewick-Richland Marketing Union last year. It made good and there is every reason to believe that it will make good again this year in marketing strawberries, asparagus and early potatoes. There never has been a local cooperative marketing agency that has had such solid support from the growers nor in which the members placed greater confidence. At Richland the Union represents 100 per cent of the berry growers and there are but few outside its ranks in the Kennewick district.

The Union started out on the plan that no crop would be handled unless 85 per cent of the acreage or tonnage could be assembled under its control. Now comes the proposition that the scope of the Union be enlarged to include tree fruits. It may be that the plan will work, but it should not be adopted until the most careful consideration has been given to the probable results. Marketing tree fruits, with the possible exception of cherries, is a far different proposition from that of marketing asparagus, strawberries and early potatoes. With those crops, control of the acreage means control of the market. In handling tree fruits, the Union would be only a small influence, and its success would be determined largely by the general movement of the Northwest’s crop.

Another thing that should be considered is that so far the Union has not been a competitor of the Yakima Valley association, but the minute it begins to handle tree fruit it becomes a competitor. In considering the new proposition, the directors of the Marketing Union should make sure that the taking on of tree fruit will not create a possibility for the undermining of its control of the strawberry, asparagus and early potato acreage. Care should be taken that the interests of the strawberry growers are not squeezed between two rival factions of the tree fruit growers.