Your Opinion: Time, effort invested, but not money

Dear Editor:

Here is part three.

What started out as an Osage County Pork Producer's Association inception soon morphed into a statewide organization.

Interest was very high from pork producers large and small.

We met several times a week to lay out our plan trying to decide the best way to meet the needs of all pork producers while giving them the advantage of owning their hogs through the plant and into the grocery store.

There were a lot of good people involved who wanted us to succeed and do things right. We had an amazing grant writer who kept our project funded. Farm Bureau gave us a meeting place and lots of tech support. The state Legislature created New Generation Co-op tax credits for our project. That's what we were, a New Generation Co-op.

We met with engineers from several firms, financial guides, legislators and the Department of Economic Development. DNR even weighed in on site possibilities.

We met with producers from all over Missouri, western Illinois and southern Iowa to find out what they wanted.

An engineering firm drew up plant footprints. We went into negotiations with the City of Shelbina for a plant site. It was a great site and Shelbina bent over backwards to get our plant located there. We were rolling.

With business plan in hand, plant drawings site development we started asking for financial commitments. This was after all a co-op and what makes a cop-op work is producer investment.

Producers were once again making money and we figured it was the perfect time to ask for their money so that we could break ground.

But all of a sudden the idea of being a part of their own packing plant didn't seem so urgent. They had money in their pockets and wanted to expand. We were told that when we got the plant up and operating then they would consider investing.

After two and a half years of meetings, thousands of miles traveled (no compensation) and a lot of angst, we pulled the plug. We had nowhere else to go.

We all went back to our own farms and picked up where we had left off.

By 2003 it was all over but that is not the end of this story. Stay tuned for the final chapter.