Southern States Cooperative is a agricultural supply cooperative owned by more than 300,000 farmers in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Southern States Cooperative supplies farmers with feed, seed, fertilizer, farm supplies and fuel. there were over 1200 retail locations in 23 states.

History

Southern States Cooperative was founded in 1923 as the Virginia Seed Service by 150 farmers in Richmond, Virginia

Richmond, Virginia

Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...

 to help develop seed

Seed

A seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant...

s, it expanded to distribution of feed

Feed

Feed may refer to:In animal foodstuffs:* Compound feed, feedstuffs that are blended from various raw materials and additives* Fodder , any foodstuff that is used specifically to feed domesticated livestockIn computing:...

 in 1925, fertilizer

Fertilizer

Fertilizer is any organic or inorganic material of natural or synthetic origin that is added to a soil to supply one or more plant nutrients essential to the growth of plants. A recent assessment found that about 40 to 60% of crop yields are attributable to commercial fertilizer use...

 in 1926 and farm supplies and petroleum shortly after. The cooperative now also gins cotton

Cotton gin

A cotton gin is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, a job formerly performed painstakingly by hand...

, acquires peanut

Peanut

The peanut, or groundnut , is a species in the legume or "bean" family , so it is not a nut. The peanut was probably first cultivated in the valleys of Peru. It is an annual herbaceous plant growing tall...

s, and sells fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

. Delaware

Delaware

Delaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...

 and Maryland

Maryland

Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...

 were added to the system in 1934, around this time, it adopted the name Southern States Cooperative. West Virginia

West Virginia

West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian and Southeastern regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east...

 was added in 1941 and Kentucky

Kentucky

The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...

 in 1945.

In October 1998, Southern States acquired the wholesale and retail farm supply system of Georgia-based Gold Kist

Gold Kist

Gold Kist was a large chicken producing company in the United States south. It was founded in 1933 by D.W. Brooks, a University of Georgia agronomy instructor as the Cotton Producers Association, a cooperative to help farmers in Carrollton, Georgia, market cotton. It soon grew and diversified...

, a cooperative that has since become a publicly traded company.

In 2000, Southern States acquired the wholesale business of northeastern organization Agway

Agway

Agway of Dewitt, New York is an agricultural business that offers feed for livestock and poultry, as well as seed, fertilizers, and herbicides.-History:...

 and then later purchased Cooperative Milling in Gettysburg.

Research

The cooperative tests and adapts seed varieties to different regions. In 1948 it began a hybrid-corn research program, and in 1954 began to set up a series of research farms.

It is a member of the national seed-breeding research organization FFR

FFR

-Medicine:*Fellowship of the Faculty of Radiology of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland .*Fractional flow reserve, a technique used in coronary catheterization to measure pressure differences across a coronary artery stenosis....

, a research group specializing in forage seed-breeding, owned by a number of cooperatives, founded in 1960. It is also a member of CRF

CRF

CRF may refer to:Science and technology* Corticotropin-releasing factor, also called corticotropin-releasing hormone and corticoliberin, is a polypeptide hormone and neurotransmitter involved in the stress response...

a research group specializing in animal nutrition.