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Farmers ‘backbone’ of 100-year-old MFA

The Missouri Farmers Association is 100 years old. Better known these days as MFA, the cooperative marked its centennial Monday with the unveiling of a statue depicting a farm family.

“That’s the backbone of these companies [MFA Oil and MFA Incorporated], the family,” said Jerry Taylor, the CEO of MFA Oil, “having that sort of be the symbol of what we are and why we exist; that’s a neat thing for us that have grown up here, so to speak.”

It is an elected board of 14 farmers decides strategic direction for the cooperative, explained .Meanwhile, Bill Streeter, CEO of MFA Incorporated.

“Farmers are who are who organized the company and who has helped perpetuate it,” said Streeter, just after unveiling a 16-inch-high replica of the full-sized statue that, in the near future, is to become part of small park on company grounds in Columbia, Missouri, commemorating MFA’s centennial.

Cooperatives have some built in loyalty, because customers own the company, explained Streeter in an interview with Brownfield Ag News, but he said that it takes more than that to stay around for 100 years.

“The trust factor has never went away,” said Streeter. “Farmers, our customers, trust us, they advance a lot of money for their supplies to be used in the future. So I would say it’s just competent employees and a trusted membership.”

That loyalty seems to extend to those employed by MFA. Longevity is common.

“I’ve been with the company soon to be 45 years,” said Janice Schuerman, MFA’s senior vice president of corporate and member services and corporate secretary.

“This is one organization that had to come up with 40, 45 and 50-year service awards,” she said, “because people with start and end their entire career with this organization.”

AUDIO: Jerry Taylor (3 min. MP3)

AUDIO: Bill Streeter (3 min. MP3)

AUDIO: Janice Schuerman (3 min. MP3)