Palatinate tobacco cooperative and sales cooperative
The Palatinate Tobacco Association and Sales Cooperative was the first German cooperative association that wanted to improve the sales of German tobacco varieties for farmers from 1897 onwards . Due to insufficient organization of the cultivation and processing of the raw tobacco, the cooperative ceased operations just eight years later.
First associations
In the last decades of the 19th century the weaknesses of the German tobacco farmers became apparent. They could neither compete with the quality of the imported tobacco products from the colonies, nor was there an organized sales department that could secure adequate sales prices. The industry and the numerous large and small sales agents depressed sales prices more and more, so that sales prices of only 30 to 35 marks for 100 kilograms of tobacco could be achieved.
At the beginning of the 1890s, these deficiencies in German tobacco growing led to the establishment of sales associations. Above all, these associations should better organize the possibilities of selling tobacco to the farmers. Successes could also be recorded when there were major difficulties with sales. The shortcomings of these sales associations soon became apparent, however, in the fact that it was not enough to improve the sales of tobacco. The associations did not lead to any improvements in the quality of German tobacco varieties. Thus these sales associations could not hold their own and disappeared again.
Foundation of the Palatinate Tobacco Cooperative and Sales Cooperative
In Baden and the Palatinate , it was mainly Julius Neßler and Philipp Hoffmann who tried to improve German tobacco varieties. Neßler had already tried to improve the cultivation of tobacco at the agricultural research station in Karlsruhe . The aim of the efforts should be to bring the German tobacco varieties closer to the qualities of the foreign tobacco varieties. The main aim was to improve a uniform taste, a good fire and thinner ribs of the tobacco leaves.
In 1897 the Palatinate Tobacco Cooperative and Sales Cooperative was founded on the basis of a Raiffeisen cooperative . Within this cooperative, the joint sale and cultivation and processing of tobacco should be improved together. In Schifferstadt a warehouse was built for the cooperative. This new organization also showed sufficient success at the beginning because the cooperative also tried to refine the raw tobacco. But this concept also failed, so that the cooperative stopped its activities again in 1905.
This cooperative could not assert itself because of the internal and external conditions. Above all, the cooperative did not adequately control the cultivation of tobacco, so that there were large differences in performance among the farmers. But the middlemen and brokers also resisted negotiating the sales prices with a cooperative. In the past, they were able to negotiate prices more cheaply for themselves in negotiations with the individual farmers. Individual tobacco farmers took the right to charge higher prices because of membership in the cooperative. These reasons ultimately led to the end of the cooperative.
Continuation of the associations
Despite the end of the cooperative, the farmers had gained the insight that they could not continue to grow tobacco in Germany economically without a union. Philipp Hoffmann succeeded in establishing the first tobacco growing associations in the Palatinate in 1905. In 1909, on December 12th, the Palatinate Tobacco Association was founded in Bellheim , and from then on it was able to assert itself.
Individual evidence
- ^ Walter Röderer, The measures of the Reichsnährstandes for tobacco growing and tobacco sales, Würzburg 1940, p. 6
- ↑ Julis Neßler, Der Tobacco, its components and its treatment: Influence of the type of fertilization, drying, fermentation and storage on the quality of the tobacco, furthermore information on means to increase the combustibility of the tobacco. Investigations and experiments at the agricultural research station in Karlsruhe, Mannheim 1867
- ↑ Walter Röderer, ibid, p. 7
- ↑ 90 years of the State Association of Rhineland-Palatinate Tobacco Planters eV