Securing equity capital for farmer cooperatives

Abstract

"Most Missouri farmers belong to and patronize one or more cooperatives. One feature that differentiates cooperatives from investor-owned firms (IOFs) is that cooperatives are owned by the members who are also the patrons. Cooperatives are identical to competing IOFs in terms of capital requirements are met through some combination of borrowed funds and equity funds provided by the owners. While the optimum combination varies from firm to firm, the average optimum should be essentially the same for all types of firms."--First page.