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October is National Co-op Month, a time to recognize the businesses Minnesotans own together. This year carries extra meaning for electric cooperatives. In 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Rural Electrification Act (REA), and 2026 marks its 90th anniversary.
In the 1930s, fewer than 7 percent of Minnesota farms had electricity. For-profit utilities could have served the rural countryside but decided it wasn't worth the investment in poles and wire. Farms were spread out, towns were small and the math didn't work for shareholders.
So rural Minnesotans built the lines themselves. With low-interest REA loans, farmers and small-town leaders formed electric cooperatives, not-for-profit utilities owned by the people they served. By November 1936, the Meeker Cooperative Light and Power Association, the first Minnesota cooperative organized under the REA, had energized its first lines.
Ninety years later, that model is still working. Minnesota's 44 electric cooperatives serve more than 1.7 million people across 85 percent of the state, reaching all 87 counties. Many started out serving rural farmsteads, and some now serve busy cities and suburbs as well.
The structure is the same as it was in 1936. Cooperatives are owned and governed by their members. Boards of directors are elected from the membership, and every member gets a vote. Directors live in the service territory and pay the same electric bills as everyone else. It is local accountability at its best, neighbors electing neighbors. Because co-ops are not-for-profit, revenue beyond operating costs is reinvested in the system or returned to members.
Electric co-ops are only part of the story. Minnesota is among the states with the most cooperatives in the country. Credit unions, grocery co-ops and agricultural cooperatives like CHS and Land O'Lakes share the same principles of democratic member control and concern for community. When you deposit a paycheck at a credit union, shop at a food co-op or turn on a light powered by your electric co-op, you are part of a business that answers to its members.
Ninety years ago, rural Minnesotans were told electricity would have to wait. Instead, they organized, held votes and built something that still belongs to them. This Co-op Month, that is worth celebrating.
-- Darrick Moe is president and CEO of the Minnesota Rural Electric Association