A22-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, February 19, 1994 VERNON ACHENBACH JR. Lancaster Fanning Staff INTERCOURSE (Lancaster Co.) Members of the Atlantic Breeders Cooperative are being asked to consider a merger with two other service-based artificial insemination cooperatives, even though there is no immediate financial need to do so. During ABC District 4’s annual banquet-meeting, held noon Tues day at Harvest Drive Restaurant in Intercourse, N. Alan Bair, ABC director of member and public relations, told the group about work being done by a committee of the board of directors of Federated Genetics, which is a marketing alliance of cooperatives, including ABC, that formed in 1986. According to Bair and District 4 Director David Landis, for two years a long-range planning com mittee has been studying the oper ations and used a Washington D.C.-based consultant to analyze the current business practices and long term outlook of the cooperatives. A recommendation from the long range committee is expected by late spring, but it is already known that the most likely recom mendation will be for a merger of ABC with two other artificial inse mination cooperatives. Bair said that, while the com mittee has yet to make an official recommendation to the ABC Board of Directors, it is clear that a merger would reduce duplication of effort, increase member strength, and decrease overall cost of member-services. Bettering the position of ABC for the future means that it is and get higher production with lower cost and less maintenance. C-2 feeder H-2 feeder h-2 feeder for broilers for broilers for turkeys <^ y / n»";i«iy -xZSHX^**^ nipples bins and swine FLEX-AUGER* feeding Horthi Atlantic Breeders Co-operative Considers Merger expected that the trend will con tinue for declining numbers of cattle. That translates into fewer cattle overall to breed, to use to track and collect sire data, and from which to select new sires. Since members arc the ones who ultimately have to decide the des tiny of their cooperative, each of the three cooperatives will have to review and decide on an eventual proposal. In the meantime, members are being asked to consider the possi bility of merging with Eastern Artificial Insemination Coopera tive (EAIC), headquartered in Ithaca, N.Y., and with Louisiana Animal Breeders Cooperative (LABC). The three cooperatives are already aligned with ABC under the marketing organization Feder ated Genetics. The marketing alliance was created to handle sales of cooperative semen to non cooperative buyers, including exporting. The basic premise is that bring ing the three organizations together as one cooperative done while none of the current cooperatives is in financial difficulty will benefit all mem bers on the short term with con tinued lower costs, and in the long term as a merged cooperative would be expected to have a com petitive advantage against com mercial interests, as cow numbers further reduce. According to Bair, aside from considerations of financial strength, the main reason for the merger proposal between these three cooperatives was because of the similarity of the three coopera Insist on Chore-Time Attention all Chore-Time customers. Chore-Time systems, Chore-Time repair parts and service are available to you from Northeast Agri Systems, Inc., Pennsylvania's authorized Chore-Time master distributor. Northeast Agri Systems, Inc. Flyway Business Park 139 A West Airport Road Lititz, PA 17543 . ***' *>. Receiving awards for outstanding hard production and using a majority of Atlantic Breeders Cooperative semen in their programs, are, from the left front, Clair Landis and Nevin Hershey, and from the left, rear, J. Ray Ranch, Parke Ranch Jr. and techni cian Naaman Stoltzfus. lives’ operational philosophies. Bair said each of the coopera tives has an operational philoso phy that service to members is the primary purpose of the coopera tive’s existance, not merely creat ing volume sales of semen. He said the reason for creating the cooperative in the first place was so that each member could better afford top cattle genetics. Therefore, he said ABC spends a great deal of its income on pro viding service to members. Atlan tic's statement of operadons for 1993 bears out that the majority of the cooperative’s expenses $4,448,559 was for providing service to members. STORE HOURS: Mon.-Frt. 7:30 to 4:30 Sat. 8:00 to Noon 24 Hr. 7 Da/ Repair Service and that breeding fees charged members $4,606,985 closely reflects that expense, minimizing much overhead. Many details of a merger were not available because what is being currently proposed is the concept of a merger, not the design of the merger, according to Bair. In accordance with the merger concept, there are four basic rea sons for doing a merger now, while each cooperative is in strong finan cial position and has a strong, short-term outlook. Business size has been given as a reason to consider a merger now. It was explained that while ABC adult turkey feeder with plastic pan :y 1 cage systems 3E !“~i 1-800-673-2580 *g| Ph: (717) 569-2702 HI H has been steadily growing during the past decade, cow numbers have been steadily declining. This means that with fewer cattle to inseminate, cooperatives most likely will be eventually faced with either increasing unit price to members, or getting a lar ger percentage of the cattle insemi nation business, in order to offset member prices. According to Bair, if a merger would occur, the newly formed cooperative would have a mem bership of 28,000, which was the membership of ABC when it first formed. Also, according to a statement (Turn to Pag* A 23) ULTRAFLO* for layers, pullets & breeders authorized master distributor
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