Grain Growers' Grain Company
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| Farmers' cooperative | |
| Industry | Grain |
| Founded | 1906 |
| Founders | Edward Alexander Partridge |
| Defunct | 1917 |
| Headquarters | Canada |
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Area served
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Canadian prairie provinces |
The Grain Growers' Grain Company (GGGC) was a farmers' cooperative founded in the prairie provinces of western Canada in 1906. The GGGC met strong resistance from existing grain dealers. It was forced off the Winnipeg Grain Exchange and almost failed. With help from the Manitoba government it regained its seat on the exchange, and soon had a profitable grain trading business. The company founded the Grain Growers' Guide, which became the most popular farmer's newspaper in the region. In 1912 the GGGC began operating inland and terminal grain elevators, and in 1913 moved into the farm supply business. The GGGC was financially secure and owned or operated almost 200 elevators as well as 122 coals sheds and 145 warehouses by the time it merged with the Alberta Farmers' Co-operative Elevator Company to form the United Grain Growers in 1917.
The GGGC was largely the creation of the agrarian activist Edward Alexander Partridge, an "impetuous and idealistic" man. He was called "the sage of Sintaluta". Partridge was sent by the Sintaluta, Saskatchewan local of the Territorial Grain Growers' Association (TGGA) to Winnipeg in January-February 1905 to observe the Winnipeg Grain Exchange. He was treated poorly and became convinced that the exchange was not interested in the farmers, who needed their own grain company. He called the Exchange the "House of the Closed Shutters." He described it as "a combine" with "a gambling hell thrown in."
Patridge spoke at the Saskatchewan Grain Growers' Association (SGGA) convention in 1906, and attacked the grain handling system. He said the elevator companies, millers and exporters rigged grain prices so they were low during the fall harvest period, when farmers had to sell to obtain cash to pay their debts. They then made future contracts to the English buyers for delivery at far higher prices. Many of his audience were convinced by his argument. The leaders of the SGGA were opposed to Partridge's plan to establish a farmer-owned company, but he ignored their objections. The organization meeting for the Grain Growers' Grain Company (GGGC) was held in Sintaluta on 27 January 1906.
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