Al Cross at the Rural Blog notes the Burley co-op is going out of business. From the website:
- A partial settlement has been reached that would result in dissolving the Co-op and paying between $2000 and $6000 each (estimated) to certain tobacco growers in Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, or Missouri that are members of a settlement class certified by the Court.
- The settlement class is made up of those individuals or businesses that were a landowner, operator, landlord, tenant, or sharecropper growing burley tobacco in Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, or Missouri during at least one of the 2015–2020 crop years.
I don't know the story behind this--apparently there was a class-action suit claiming it didn't serve any purpose these days.
The co-op movement was strong in agriculture in the last century, both on the producer side and the supply side. The tobacco, peanut, and cotton co-ops were precursors and enablers of the New Deal farm programs.
[Updated: Wendell Berry's brother on its history.]
