As a shareholder, there are three primary ways you can profit from joining and supporting AFCNA. First, based on the amount of fiber contributed, you are paid dividends each year the cooperative shows a profit from its operations. The calculation is based on your percentage of the entire amount contributed by all shareholders. The more fiber invested as a percentage of the whole, the larger the amount of individual shareholder dividends paid.
Second, is your shareholder discount on purchases from America's Alpaca products. Shareholders usually purchase these products for personal use or to promote their farms and their alpaca business.
Third, if you have a farm or ranch store, you may choose to purchase sufficient quantities of product to market from your store. When you sell the product you gain an immediate profit because of the difference between the retail price and the the price you paid for the product.
AFCNA does not purchase fiber from shareholders. As a Marketing Cooperative, AFCNA sells fiber shareholders submit to the coop and returns all net proceeds to the shareholders in proportion to their participation (contributed fiber). Net proceeds are computed on an annual basis. What this means for the producer is that income from fiber is returned after the fiber is marketed, and that there is not a cash payment at the time of submission. The actual net proceeds returned are dependent on market conditions, expenses and other variables.
AFCNA does not purchase fiber from shareholders. Rather, the Cooperative markets shareholder submitted fiber and returns the net proceeds to shareholders in proportion to their contribution. Understanding this, one can see that no cash is returned to the shareholder until after the close of the Fiscal Year in which the fiber was received - often a year or more after the fiber submission. (See also, "Where did my fiber go?")
