While driving "up north" in Wisconsin, we saw four or five dairy farms that had a sign that said "Land O'Lakes Member Farm."  We were unfamiliar with these signs, and I assumed (wrongly) the evil Land O'Lakes conglomerate had gone and bought out mom-n-pop dairy farms or turned them into farmer-franchisees.  Upon doing some research, I found out that Land O'Lakes, which is headquartered in Minnesota, is a cooperative and always has been.

Land O'Lakes is both a producer co-op (4000 members are dairy or agricultural producers who sell to the co-op) and a consumer co-op (1200 members are farms that buy feed from the co-op).  Although the company is not publicly traded as a corporation, it does issue bonds.  On it's balance sheet, I noticed that it does engage in hedging activities.  The co-op is run by a board of directors, elected by the members.  I would be interested to know if the member-owners feel more control than a shareholder-owner of a similarly large publicly-traded corporation.

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