The North Dakota Wheat Growers Association was organized on January 23, 1922, and incorporated on February 21st of that year. The Association was headquartered in Grand Forks. The purpose of the Association was to stop the dumping of wheat on the market after the fall harvest. Using funds borrowed primarily from the government, the Association advanced its members seventy percent of market value upon delivery of their wheat. The Association then sold the wheat to millers and exporters throughout the year, thereby avoiding the low prices of the fall glut. After deducting its own expenses, returns where given back to the members.
August 22, 1922 saw the first shipment of wheat purchased by the Association. Members signed a five year contract, pledging to sell all of their wheat to the Association. In its first year of operation, the Association consisted of over three thousand members, and by 1923 that number had grown to over 9,000. 1923 also witnessed the beginning of The Wheat Grower, an official bimonthly publication sent to all members. By 1924, membership was nearly 16,000. Even at this level, however, only one-fifth of all North Dakota wheat farmers were members. The Association handled over $6 million worth of wheat that year, but it was a small percentage of a total crop of over $125 million.
Membership continued to grow in the years after 1924, but the amount of wheat put into the pool declined. There were several reasons for this: one, cash poor farmers needed to have all of their money up-front, not just the seventy percent offered by the Association. Second, many elevators were hostile to the pool. The Association addressed these problems in 1926 by three means: first, members were solicited from Montana. Second, the North Dakota Wheat Growers Credit Corporation was formed to lend money to its members, thereby "freeing them from antipool pressure by the holders of crop mortgages." Third, the North Dakota Wheat Growers Warehouse Company was established. The Warehouse Company sought to buy or lease grain elevators. This was followed in 1928 by the creation of the North Dakota Wheat Growers Cooperative Terminal Association, which purchased a 150,000 bushel elevator in Minneapolis. By 1930, it owned a total of over 80 elevators.
Membership grew in 1929 after the Federal Farm Board offered a guaranteed price through cooperatives. Since the Association was the only wheat cooperative in the state, farmers and elevators poured into the membership ranks. This boom was short-lived, however, as 1929 saw the price of wheat fall. The United States Grain Stabilization Corporation purchased the stored wheat, but yet did not pay for storage costs. In addition to these losses, the Association also lost the privilege of trading on both the Duluth and Minneapolis Boards of Trade. These factors caused the Association to go out of business after the 1930 harvest. The Association sued the Federal Farm Board for damages, but was unsuccessful. By 1931, most of the pool elevators were closed or were managed by others.
Source: History of North Dakota by Elwyn Robinson, page 384-86
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