Corporate malfeasance is making headlines across the country these days. Greed and self-interest overpowered good business decisions in too many U.S. financial circles. Those involved (whether chief executive officers or chief financial officers or the board members overseeing or ignoring criminal conduct) need a free personal tour of a nearby U.S. penal institution. Lack of accountability is the sin behind much of this corporate fraud. Unfortunately, the activity further dampened the economic climate in the United States. That's not good for an agriculture actively pulling itself out of dismal prices and unrelenting weather.

It's not overconfidence to say you'd be hard pressed to find that type of activity in a cooperative. There's good reason. It's called accountability. Cooperatives are built for the long haul. In today's glittering world of high finance and global business, cooperatives aren't the racehorses. We're the workhorses. As a result, we accomplish far more in the long run. While the workhorse mentality can be a drawback in moving a business quickly, that same aspect is a very positive factor when compared to the Enron and WorldCom-type disasters in today's business headlines.

MFA's board of directors is composed of people active in the industry. We have no high-level consultants on our board who command huge sums for their guidance. There is no disconnect between directors and the business. What we have is better--active participants, schooled in the business, who have a personal stake in making MFA better through expediency, through service, through quality, through old-fashioned performance.

Cooperatives operate in many ways like the democratic institutions they are. Members are owners. Those members elect other members to fill board positions. In MFA's case, we have 14 members drawn from all areas of agriculture in our trade territory. According to our bylaws, each director must do at least $10,000 worth of business with MFA annually. In turn, board members have management responsibilities over the chief executive officer and participate in setting the strategic direction of the business.

If the cooperative were to operate in a manner that were not beneficial to the member/owners, the member/owners would demand and receive new policy or better performance. But by its very structure, the cooperative is unlikely to operate in a manner that doesn't best serve its member/owners, because, again, board members are the very farmers and ranchers being served by the cooperative. Unlike stockholders in an investor-owned business whose incentive can be to inflate a stock price, cooperative board members have a vested interest in making the cooperative work better for the members. It's that same accountability mentioned above. Directors of cooperatives won't look the other way and allow management to paint an unrealistic, rosy picture because those directors have a business interest at stake.

Too many boards of publicly held companies have been rubberstamping decisions or have been asleep at the switch. CEOs of those high-performing companies have been taking advantage of those boards with stock options and retirement packages that should make both the board and the CEO ashamed. I can tell you from experience, the CEOs of cooperatives don't get stock options. There are none. Neither is there an incentive for me or any member of the management team to make decisions designed to generate short-term gains at the expense of long-term gains.

What we do get are boards who are inquisitive, involved and knowledgeable. MFA's corporate board receives board training from the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives as well as other sources. It is in everyone's best interest to have highly trained and highly qualified board members. I know each of these men and can say with certainty each understands his responsibilities and is successful in his area of agriculture. As a result, MFA has a balance sheet that is among the strongest of any cooperative nationwide.

I can also say with assurance (and from experience) that no one on our board is hesitant to ask pointed questions when management has a proposal on acquisitions or on any subject that requires a large expenditure of capital. In those instances, I can and do expect a long board meeting and an involved series of specific, in-depth and pointed questions issuing from an informed board. MFA's management committee and corporate board require extensive financial analysis pro forma including a specified return on investment. That's as it should be. We will not allow debt to become a weakness. It's all part of the natural checks and balances inherent in a cooperative.

For almost all of last century, cooperatives were the driving force in the development of U.S. production agriculture. By 2000, farm cooperatives posted $100 billion in sales and featured combined assets of almost $50 billion. Although cooperatives have undergone the same consolidation as their membership, in this new century, cooperatives will continue to provide production agriculture with the infrastructure farmers and ranchers need to meet the world's demands for agricultural production.

Cooperatives are all about maximizing returns to members, not maximizing returns to investors. There's a world of difference. It starts and ends with you.