Indian Springs Farmers Association

Indian Springs is an example of a small cooperative that has stood the test of time. “We hold our own,” says Ben. “We got a good enough reputation that we can go to any of these stores that other people are selling to.” And Ben is justifiably proud that Indian Springs has spawned several imitators in Mississippi, South Carolina, and North Carolina. “They copied our plan, modified it a little bit, then built their own plant using the same financial strategy. When we drew our own blueprint, we didn’t have nobody to copy.” Yet Ben also sees a bunch of challenges ahead:

• Membership Expansion: There is a need for expanding the membership to achieve greater economies of scale, to compete more effectively against mainstream suppliers, to spread the benefits of the cooperative to other farmers, and to keep the struggling economies in rural Mississippi alive. “At this point,” argues Ben, “we’ve got more marketing than we do production. We’ve got to build our production base to meet our demand. I think we ought to redo our charter for a statewide charter with members from all eighty-two counties. Some of the members don’t want anyone else, but we can’t stay in business like that—people are getting old, dying off, and you have to have a different strategy.”
  
  
• Universe of Farmers: In Mississippi, as is the case throughout the United States, farmers are aging out and not being replaced by younger farmers. Can the cooperative successfully mentor a new generation of farmers from the offspring of current members or from outsiders? “You have to want to farm,” reflects Ben. “The co-op can provide your basics—a market, processing, information, technology, all of that. But is that going to help recruit anybody or help them get into farming? I don’t know whether that will help or not.”
  
  
• Supply of Farmland: One cause of the loss of farmers in Mississippi has been the loss of farmland. Land-use policies that favor speculation and sprawling development are motivating remaining farmers to sell their land. But in the absence of more land, Indian Springs has encouraged its members to grow more herbs, which take very little space and command an extremely attractive price.
  
  
• Pricing: Indian Springs may increase its commission rate. “We do marketing for non-members, now, from different co-ops. We have been doing that since day one. We charge them a one percent higher commission than we do our members. We might have to charge more, like two or three percent. You never know until you see what’s in each load that goes out.”
  
  
• Year-Round Production: To take full advantage of the capacity of its packing facility, Indian Springs needs to ramp up production year round. Some of the cooperative’s farmers have winter grow houses now, but most don’t. That’s why the cooperative is building a demonstration project and, ultimately, would like to build many more grow houses over the next few years.
  
  
• Record Keeping: Ben feels they need to tighten up their record-keeping and financial systems. For example, the cooperative owns a computer but rarely uses it.
  

For anyone interested in repeating the model, Ben has several pieces of advice: “Don’t organize for the sake of organizing. Have a definite reason you’re organizing a co-op. Stick to that reason. You might change, but always remember why you got organized and what the goal was. And stay focused. If you try to do everything for everybody, you won’t get anything done.” Ben also believes more start-up capital would be helpful: “Have more farmers invest more money. Instead of $200, our fee should have been $1,000. At the time, it would have only taken two or three years to pay off.”

Ben’s most immediate challenge concerns his own farm. “On personal side, I’ll be fifty-seven this year. I’ve been farming all my life. My nephews and daughter are farming this year. I would like to transition my farm to them. If they don’t want to farm, I guess I’ll keep doing it.” Whatever happens to Ben, he suspects the legacy of Indian Springs will endure: “The eight farmers that started the cooperative kind of had insight. It’s good they did, because we are reaping the benefits of it now.”