The Victorian Producers’ Co‐operative Company Limited (VPC) was an agricultural cooperative which operated as a financer and sales agency in Victoria, Australia, for the co-operate benefit of farmer members.
The founders believed they had to escape what they termed ...the tyrannical conditions imposed on them by middlemen in the sale of their produce and the purchase of their requirements.
[1] The VPC undertook the roles of selling wool, livestock and real estate (generally farms) on a commission, and providing finance to farmers on short term or seasonal loans and insurance services, as well as setting up stores for the sale of farm supplies, including veterinary products, agricultural chemicals and fencing supplies.
[1] At its peak in the late 1980s, the VPC had more than 5000 members, with a turn-over of more than $500 million annually, over 300 permanent employees as well as hundreds more part-time and casual workers.
[2] The 1990s the VPC took over McNamara Ellis, a Deniliquin Stock & Station Agency, but the collapse of the Australian Wool Reserve Price Scheme, saw their income slashed and they were themselves taken over by rival firm Elders in 1999.