Loss of a farm institution

THUMBS DOWN: Farm cooperatives have a long and successful history in the United States. Farmers who struggled with marketing, pricing and purchasing as individuals banded together and were able to band together to provide services at lower costs and to get better prices for their commodities. This year the Farmers Cooperative of Hanska would have celebrated its 100th birthday. Instead, the cooperative members were forced to disband due to financial problems that started with the explosion at the Burdick Elevator in New Ulm in June 2021. That setback spiraled for the cooperative, and its assets are being sold off to other area cooperatives. We are sorry to see an institution with such a long history and noble purpose have to dissolve.

School lunch for all

THUMBS UP: Gov. Tim Walz signed the state’s new law providing free school meals for Minnesota students in participating schools. With this law, all students in participating schools will receive free breakfasts and lunches. The problems associated with students being singled out because their parents are behind on their lunchroom account will be over. No more lunch shaming, or giving kids a cold sandwich when everyone else has a hot meal. Schools will benefit as well. No more administrative time spent figuring out which students qualify for free lunches or keeping track of who’s behind on the lunch payments. Kids learn better when they are not hungry, and there are more kids than we may be aware of who don’t get enough to eat otherwise. We’re glad the state is taking this step.

Thanks, readers, for your patience

Thumbs Up to the patient readers of The Journal who wondered where their papers were on Friday morning. A power outage hit Madelia and the House of Print (HOP), where The Journal is published Thursday night, and the outage affected the computer equipment and computer network inside the HOP. The pages couldn’t be set up for printing until the system was repaired Friday morning, and the presses started rolling around noon, 14 hours later than they were supposed to. Friday’s paper is being delivered with today’s paper. The electronic versions of the paper were available to readers, but we know that a lot of subscribers want to hold that paper in their hands. We thank you all for your patience.