Members of Land O’Lakes gathered March 1, 2017 in Minneapolis, Minnesota for the cooperative’s 96th Annual Meeting. As part of the Business Meeting, delegates voted on four bylaw amendments, the election of six directors to the Corporate Board and the 2017 Policies and Resolutions.

Bylaw amendments approved

Four amendments to the bylaws were unanimously approved. A marked up copy of the proposals, which will now become permanent, can be found in the Governance & Leader Development section of the new Member page at LandOLakesInc.com. The amendments are:

1. Voting procedures amendment authorizes the Board of Directors to determine the voting procedure(s) it will allow for a particular merger vote; including in person, by mail or electronically. This is in response to the requests of members at the time of the United Suppliers merger vote.

2. Preferred stock amendment authorizes an additional $400 million in preferred stock for which Board of Directors’ approval is required to issue. Land O’Lakes has issued more than $315 million of the $400 million originally authorized to facilitate investment in acquisitions and other cooperative growth initiatives.

3. Class I Membership amendment allows the Board of Directors to grant non-voting membership rights to certain non-cooperative independent retailers and addresses how we provide patronage payments to United Suppliers independents post-merger. With the merger vote in 2015, the membership approved patronage payments to United Suppliers independent retailers. Class I membership is the most efficient and cost-effective way to facilitate these payments.

4. A miscellaneous amendment addressed several topics—from clarification of a member’s “proportionate share of earnings” to correcting typos.

Board of directors elected

The delegates also confirmed the election of six members of the board of directors. The newly elected directors are:

• Region 1: Paul Schweiger from Hillsboro, Wisconsin (Incumbent)

• Region 3: Stan Stark from Haviland, Kansas (Incumbent)

• Region 4: Rick Brubaker from Wabash, Indiana (New)

• Region 53: Duane Hershey from Cochranville, Pennsylvania (Incumbent)

• Region 68: Nick Schoenberger from Kiel, Wisconsin (New)

• Region 80: Joe Machado from Hanford, California (New)

There was also a new advisory director appointed by the board. Joyce Cacho, founding Principal of Adinura Advisory, LLC, takes the place of retiring advisory director, Dr. Bob Thompson. Watch for a more in-depth introduction to the new members of the board in the coming weeks.

Policies and Resolutions

The Policies and Resolutions Committee presented updates to seven policies spanning issues from broadband access to the school nutrition programs to biotechnology. All proposed changes were accepted and the 2017 policies and resolutions document will provide guidance for our legislative activities at the state and national level.

Access the 2017 Policies and Resolutions in the member section of LandOLakesInc.com under “Government Relations & Advocacy.” Note: this section requires a password.