agriculture founded 1914 headquarters columbia missouri usa key people ernie verslues president & ceo number of employees 1 200 website www.mfa inc.com mfa incorporated is a midwest based regional agricultural cooperative serving more than 45 000 farmer owners in missouri and adjacent states . founded on march 10 1914 mfa which once stood for missouri farmers association traces its beginnings to a one room schoolhouse near brunswick mo. in newcomer school on march 10 1914 seven farmers met to discuss an article by william hirth . hirth owned a magazine called the missouri farmer and breeder . in his magazine hirth called for formation of farm clubs . seven brunswick area farmers aaron bachtel tom penick will heisel george heisel earl smutz john kohl and will armstrong met to discuss hirth s article and soon placed the first cooperative order for 1 150 pounds of baler twine . by banding together for economic strength members of the newcomers schoolhouse farm club saved 400 in several group transactions . hirth handled the orders free of charge . word spread like wildfire . from that meeting emerged a cooperative that grew to become the largest business enterprise in the state . by the 1920s mfa represented 400 local cooperatives . william hirth was mfa s first president serving until his death in 1940 . fred v. heinkel served as president from 1940 through 1979 and oversaw a period of tremendous growth in mfa memberships income and associated businesses . 1 heinkel was succeeded by eric thompson . today it is based in columbia missouri . the cooperative created independent companies to serve its members mfa oil in 1929 and shelter insurance in 1946 . references edit frederick victor heinkel . historic missourians . the state historical society of missouri . retrieved 2014 05 30 . external links edit mfa incorporated homepage the website for mfa s member magazine today s farmer mfa incorporated s official facebook page mfa incorporated s official linkedin page this article about a business industry or trade related organization is a stub . you can help wikipedia by expanding it . v t e retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title mfa incorporated & oldid 713584147 categories cooperatives in the united statesagricultural marketing cooperativesagricultural supply cooperativesgrain companies of the united statescompanies based in columbia missouribusiness organization stubshidden categories all stub articles navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 4 april 2016 at 21 45 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view