In the late 1980s, when dairy farmers in Wisconsin faced a “get big or get out” market dominated by chemical industrial agriculture, George Siemon and several other farmers banded together to create a co-op of dairy producers.Today, that co-op is a billion-dollar national cooperative that is still owned and governed by small, organic, family farmers. Siemon will discuss founding a farmer’s cooperative, financing, how to scale up, and what other farmers can learn from Organic Valley as a successful cooperative enterprise.

“…On the eve of legalization in 2018, the California Department of Fish and Agriculture quietly issued a surprise change in the regulation allowing unlimited small cultivation licenses for individual companies. The consequences of this are that well-resourced companies can purchase or “stack” unlimited small cultivator licenses. This unexpected change effectively removed protections for small growers trying to compete against large industrial players who are positioning themselves to dominate the market (California Growers Association, Emerging Crisis Report, 2018).”