Farmland Industries

Farmland Industries

Industry	Agricultural marketing cooperative
Successor	Smithfield Foods (foods); US Premium Beef (beef); Koch Industries (fertilizer)
Founded	1929 (Union Oil Company); 1935 (Consumers Cooperative Association); 1966 (Farmland)
Headquarters	Kansas City, Missouri
Number of employees	16,000 (2002)
Subsidiaries	Farmers Petroleum, Inc.; Farmland Foods, Inc.; Farmland Insurance Agency; Farmland National Beef Packing Co.; Pipeline Company; Farmland Securities Co.; Farmland Transportation, Inc.

Farmland Industries was the largest agricultural cooperative in North America when it eventually sold all of its assets in 2002–04. During its 74-year history, Farmland served its farmer membership as a diversified, integrated organization, playing a significant role in agricultural markets both domestically and worldwide.

The Farmland brand and its slogan "Good Food From the Heartland" are now owned by Smithfield Foods, the largest pork producer and processor in the world, but Farmland Foods, Inc. operates independently and continues to market meat products under the "Farmland" brand. Farmland Foods serves both domestic and international markets and has revenues in excess of $3.5 billion annually.

The cooperative was founded 1929 by Howard A. Cowden as the Union Oil Company (as a successor to Cowden Oil Company which he founded the year before). In 1935 it took the name Consumers Cooperative Association (CCA), and in 1966 Farmland Industries, Inc.

At its peak, the organization was the leading agricultural cooperative in North America, owned by 1,700 farm cooperatives in the United States, Canada and Mexico, which cooperatives were in turn owned by more than 600,000 farmer families. It had 16,000 employees in all 50 states and 90 countries. In 1977 it ranked #78 on the Fortune 100 company list. In 2001, its annual revenues were in excess of $11.8 billion. It was listed as one of Forbes' "most admired" companies. It ranked #170 on the Fortune List when the decision was made to sell the cooperative's assets.

The cooperative provided both agricultural supply and marketing services ranging from petroleum refining, fertilizer manufacture, feeds, shipping, crop production, livestock production, and refrigerated foods sales and marketing. The company was a joint venture partner with a number of other companies, including: Archer Daniels Midland in grain storage, distribution and marketing; Simplot in phosphate production; ConAgra in wheat marketing; Land O'Lakes in feed systems and crop nutrients; Cenex Harvest States in lubricants, propane and refined fuels; Mississippi Chemical in nitrogen production and shipping (Trinidad and Tobago); Norsk Hydro in phosphate fertilizer production and marketing; Wilbur Ellis Company in crop protection product marketing and distribution; U.S. Premium Beef in beef packing; and Kansas State University in agricultural research. Farmland also owned Tradigrain, a group of international grain trading companies headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Tradigrain was a wholly owned subsidiary of Farmland and had branch offices in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Paris, France; Bremen, Germany; Budapest, Hungary; Almaty, Kazakhstan; Tokyo, Japan; Mexico City, Mexico; Moscow, Russia; Seoul, Korea; Kiev, Ukraine; Nikolaev, Ukraine, London, United Kingdom; and Akkala, Uzbekistan.