Vernon Renner witnessed the beginning of Vandalia's MFA.

During the Twenties, MFA exchanges sprung up around Missouri. Through these exchanges, farmers could buy needed farm supplies and sell produce. Also, the cooperative branched out into such enterprises as livestock shipping, creameries, grain elevators, a feed mill and an oil company with 24 bulk plants.

"My father [C. J. "Carl" Renner] and Bill Hirth spent a lot of time organizing MFA exchanges in the Vandalia area," recalled Vernon Renner, 87, emeritus soils professor at Southwest Missouri State University (SMSU). "I was 6 or 7 years old at the time and I went with my father to a lot of the meetings. When they worked on organizing the MFA Exchange at Vandalia, they usually met at New Michigan rural school, about two miles from town. That's where I attended grade school.

"They established the MFA Exchange at Vandalia, and a couple of years later, began building a grain elevator there."

In some ways, Renner's father was an unlikely pioneer of the cooperative movement. A conservative, independent farmer of German stock, Carl Renner was the second generation from original settlers on the Audrain prairie, and the elder Renner most generally kept his own counsel.

"But my Dad was convinced that the survival of the family farm depended on farmers working together," explained Vernon Renner. "He saw cooperatives as a key element of that survival, and he remained a staunch supporter and patron of MFA.

"MFA's pattern of growth was different in different parts of the state," Renner recalled. "In the early years, MFA exchanges developed more quickly in southern Missouri than in north Missouri, primarily because more northern communities had access to railroads and thus better access to markets. Farmers' needs were not as critical where railroads were more prevalent."

MFA's growth through the past 90 years has not always been a steady march from that first farm club to a major regional farm cooperative. MFA's fortunes have waxed and waned with the economic well-being of its farmer/members. But the cooperative held on and even continued to make progress through the Great Depression of the 1930s, the "Little Dust Bowl" of the 1950s and the economic hard times that hit agriculture in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Along the way, MFA Incorporated spun off several enterprises that have become successful in their own right, including:

• MFA Producers Creamery merged with two other creameries later becoming Dairy Farmers of America, the country's largest dairy cooperative;
• MFA Insurance Company, now Shelter Insurance;
• MFA Oil Company, a major and innovative petroleum cooperative.

Agriculture and the cooperatives that serve it have witnessed dramatic changes since March 1914. What changes the next 90 years hold in store cannot be seen yet. But this much is sure: The pace of change is quickening; the scope of change is widening.

"Today, farmers are affected by nearly everything on the national agenda," said Renner. "They have to be concerned and involved with a lot of issues outside of agriculture proper.

"The family farm is the best reservoir of leaders for agriculture," Renner continued. "For the most part, rural kids come from strong families and they know how to work."

But rural youth sometimes needs a leg up to fully develop their talents, he noted. To that end, Renner endows six agronomy scholarships each year at SMSU.

"MFA's scholarship programs fit right in with this, too," he said. "History shows us that nations which let their productive resources deteriorate until they can no longer feed their own people are doomed. Agriculture is basic to our national survival."

How things have changed
In 1919, when Audrain County farmers began organizing the MFA Farmers Elevator at Vandalia, Mo., production was beginning to move from subsistence agriculture to diversified farms with more products to sell on the market.

Then, through the years of the Depression and World War II, farms steadily grew fewer in number and larger in size. That trend continues.

"When I started managing at Vandalia on July 1, 1964, we had more than 1,100 patrons," recalled Leon Dempsey, former manager of the Vandalia MFA. "When I retired on December 31, 1996, we had about 300 regular patrons. We were still selling farm supplies for the same number of acres-maybe more-but fewer farm operators."

Area farmers also became more specialized over time. Livestock production increased, with farm beef feedlots and sizeable hog operations.

"This became a major cattle and hog production region," recalled Dempsey. "Our business at MFA reflected this trend; we ran feed trucks all over the area, until 10 p.m. on Saturdays.

"When we started delivering bulk feed, we had a 1-ton truck with a tarp and the truck driver scooped feed," he continued. "Then we went to a 9-ton truck with a two-compartment auger. From that, we went to multi-compartment trucks with more capacity. Finally, we were running a nine-compartment semi-trailer. That was a big change."

Farmers were making similar changes in their rolling stock. As yields and grain production increased, farmers went to bigger equipment in which to haul it.

"When I began here as manager, farmers were hauling grain in 1/2-ton pickups and farm wagons," he said. "The pickups held 20 to 25 bushels and the bigger wagons held about 90 bushels. I dumped one farmer's rig 32 times in one day. He had hauled about 640 bushels that day. Today, we get farm trucks with capacities from 500 bushels up to 1,000 bushels."

Grain produced on the Audrain prairie has undergone shifts, too. Wheat and grain sorghum production has increased slowly-some years, not at all. But corn and soybean crops have doubled and re-doubled over the past several years.

"Soybeans have had the biggest growth in both volume and yields," said Dempsey. "In the past 40 years, we've gone from soybean crops that averaged 20 bushels per acre to where 40 bushels is a poor crop."

Changes have also continued in the MFA cooperative in recent years. On Sept. 1, 1994, Don Houston was named manager of MFA Agri Services at Laddonia, and in 1996, also took over as general manager of the Vandalia outlet. Doug Wood became manager at Vandalia upon Dempsey's retirement at the end of 1996. Charlie Purvis is manager of the Laddonia location. On Jan. 1, 2001, MFA Agri Services at Martinsburg was added to Houston's general managership.