Benchmarking the Fertilizer and Crop Protectant Application Activities of Agricultural Cooperatives

This research aims to benchmark agricultural supply cooperatives regarding their fertilizer application services. Cooperative fertilizer application departments are essentially an extension of member farm operations. Because farm supply cooperatives return profits to their user members, the efficiency of the application department directly impacts farm profitability. Therefore, a benchmark analysis is needed to compare performances among competitive cooperatives, identify the best practices, and inform decision makers of the less competitive cooperatives about actions that need to be taken to improve inefficiencies. Mail surveys were sent to Oklahoma grain and farm supply cooperatives. In addition to the financial data collected for benchmarking purpose, the survey investigated the adoption and availability of variable rate application technology and the educational and training needs of application service technicians.