Tag: newsletter articles

Phil Kenkel

Bill Fitzwater Cooperative Chair

The cooperative research community is always pondering the challenges and opportunities facing cooperatives and how we, as an industry, can better communicate the value of the cooperative business model.  One approach to gaining those types of insights is to harvest the insights of CEOs and board members.  For example the consulting and auditor group KPMG just completed their most recent survey of 400 corporate CEOs.  CEOs reported higher expectations for sales and hiring in …

Phil Kenkel

Bill Ftizwater Cooperative Chair

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 and the resulting Section 199A provision have major implications for agricultural cooperatives.  The tax rate changes impacts the optimal profit distribution choices for agricultural cooperatives.  The Section 199A provisions creates possible benefits for the cooperative but also the possibility that producers can be disadvantaged by marketing through a cooperative.  In short, tax reform has created the need to re-analyze financial choices.

Cooperative boards have a lot …

Phil Kenkel

Bill Fitzwater Cooperative Chair

In a cooperative business we often council board members to take off their “farmer hat” and put on their “board member hat”.  That reflects the fact that a patron’s preference for a decision may not be in the long-run best interest of the cooperative.  Cooperative patrons are often focused on an individual transaction or short term needs.  The board member is challenged with having a longer run perspective and in seeing the big picture.  …

Phil Kenkel

Bill Fitzwater Cooperative Chair

As the name implies, multi-stake holder cooperatives have more than one type of member.  An example would be a local food cooperative with producer members, consumer members and employee members.  While multiple stakeholder cooperatives are a small part of the U.S. cooperative sector, most new cooperatives consider the multi-stakeholder model.  Italy was the first country to adopt a multi-stakeholder statute in 1991 and now has over 14,000 multi-stakeholder cooperatives with over 5M members. In …

Phil Kenkel

Bill Ftizwater Cooperative Chair

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 and the resulting Section 199A provision have major implications for agricultural cooperatives.  The tax rate changes impacts the optimal profit distribution choices for agricultural cooperatives.  The Section 199A provisions creates possible benefits for the cooperative but also the possibility that producers can be disadvantaged by marketing through a cooperative.  In short, tax reform has created the need to re-analyze financial choices.

Cooperative boards have a lot …

Phil Kenkel

Bill Fitzwater Cooperative Chair

A few weeks ago I started discussing the areas that a good board needs to get right.  A good board needs to have the right structure, the right members in that structure using the right process and evaluating the right information to focus on the right decisions with the right follow through.  Admittedly, that is a lot of things to get right.  However, there are two more areas which you might not have thought …

Phil Kenkel

Bill Fitzwater Cooperative Chair

 

Twas the night before Co-op and all through the land

Monopoly power had gotten out of hand

The merchants were gouging the farmers at will

Raking in profits overflowing the till

The farmers laid down for a well-earned rest

When Capper and Volstead said we know what is best

All of sudden there emerged legislation

Anti-trust protection and unique taxation

Then the moon on the breast of the new fallen snow

Shined on …

Phil Kenkel

Bill Fitzwater Cooperative Chair

One of the innovative teaching ideas is to “flip the classroom” by spending class time working homework problems while students go over the lecture material on their own. I have found that throwing in an occasional “flipped classroom day” is a great way to invigorate interest and discussion.  Many boards of directors have experimented with a similar concept by “flipping the board agenda”.

Instead of beginning the board meeting with the customary review of …

Phil Kenkel

Bill Fitzwater Cooperative Chair

In many strategic planning sessions the board and CEO develop a vision of what the cooperative will look like ten years in the future.  That vision invariably brings up a conversation about growing the cooperative. While there are cooperatives that remain small and stay successful most cooperative organizations have a desire to grow.  As producers grow their operations there is a need for the cooperative to grow in order to remain relevant.  All of …

Phil Kenkel

Bill Fitzwater Cooperative Chair

As a professor and cooperative specialist, I get to view the internship market from both sides. I talk to students seeking internships and cooperatives seeking interns.  As an economist, I see a supply curve showing the number of students willing to take an internship a demand curve showing how many interns the industry is willing to host.  In this case, the price is a combination of the monetary and experience value of the internship …