Nationl Cooperative Business Association - In Iowa, farmers built marketing and supply cooperatives to bargain fairly, invest locally and keep more dollars circulating on Main Street. Fourteen of the nation’s 100 largest farmer cooperatives are headquartered in Iowa—more than any other state—illustrating how farmers here have long used cooperation to build scale, efficiency and resilience.
Rural electric cooperatives, meanwhile, power 650,000 Iowans across all 99 of the state’s counties. They maintain about 62,000 miles of power lines—enough to circle the globe two and a half times—and cover two-thirds of the state’s landmass while serving 15 percent of its people. Over the past five years, Iowa’s electric co-ops have invested more than $4.7 billion in rural economic development projects, supporting over 7,000 jobs...
Iowa’s experience shows that cooperation isn’t nostalgia—it’s a competitive advantage. If we want faster innovation, stronger rural economies, and fair returns from farm to fork, we should invest in the model that lets people own the solution together. That’s the cooperative difference—here at home, and across the globe.
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