La Coopérative Fédérée de Québec--Integrated and Multipurpose Operations

Excerpts from the report: Dynamic changes in producing, processing, marketing, and distributing farm products present difficult problems as well as challenging opportunities for farmers and their cooperatives in the years ahead. Farmer Cooperative Service has been making a series of case studies of certain cooperatives that have shown success in adjusting to these changes through vertical and horizontal integration. This publication is another study in this series. While the previous case studies have been restricted to cooperatives in the United States, this study examines a Canadian cooperative. La Coopérative Fédérée de Québec with headquarters in Montreal. This report includes a description of how this cooperative has integrated its operations — first, horizontally through federating similar types of local cooperatives into a central organization, and, second, vertically by extending its marketing and farm supply purchasing activities into such functions as assembling, transporting, processing, risk bearing, financing, manufacturing, and wholesaling.