Farmers Organize to Beat the Market
Producers in the White Bluffs and Hanford region draft a unified marketing plan to stabilize prices for fruits and vegetables.
Since the farmers here decided last month to try out vegetable growing on a commercial scale, they have been busy working out a marketing plan. A committee composed of R. V. Judd and Virgil Kern of White Bluffs and W. S. Webber, Robert Nichols, and Silas Murray of Hanford, with K. E. Grant as chairman and Roy C. Robinson as secretary, has mapped out a plan to handle not only vegetables but asparagus, strawberries, and early fruits. In the light of past experiences, those behind the movement feel that it will be necessary to sign up nearly 100 percent of the acreage to be successful. Distribution is one of the big factors, and the organization plans to work in cooperation with Kennewick, Walla Walla, and other growing sections to ensure marketing centers are never glutted. The organization will consider three methods of operation: building or leasing warehouses to pack and sell directly; contracting with warehouses for packing while selling independently; or having the warehouse handle the selling for a package charge.
“Distribution is one of the big factors in proper marketing and when the organization is perfected it is planned to work in cooperation with Kennewick, Walla Walla and other growing sections to the end that none of the large marketing centers are ever glutted.”
Agricultural cooperatives remain a vital survival strategy for Washington farmers, echoing the same struggle for collective bargaining power seen here a century ago. The specific mention of preventing 'glutted' markets highlights the persistent challenge of managing supply chains in a volatile produce industry.
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