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Association des Établissements cantonaux d’Assurance Incendie
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Glossary entry

French term or phrase:

organisme stockeur

English translation:

(marketing) cooperative

    The asker opted for community grading. The question was closed on 2017-06-23 08:54:07 based on peer agreement (or, if there were too few peer comments, asker preference.)
Jun 19, 2017 10:07
6 yrs ago
8 viewers *
French term

organisme stockeur

French to English Other Agriculture
Context: "Par exemple, même si au final les prix moyens sont souvent moins bons que les prix fermes, ils peuvent être préférables lorsque l’agriculteur est conscient d’avoir des difficultés à prendre des décisions, "Dans ce cas, autant déléguer la commercialisation à son OS." "

- the OS here stands for "Organisme Stockeur", which from what I've been able to gather is a particular entity in the French agricultural sector that collects and stores grain and cereals from farmers, and then sells them on.

When trying to find an English equivalent I keep running into "storage agency", and this term is indeed used in a Eurolex translation (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELE... However, I can't find any instances of "storage agency" being used in English - Google hits for this term seem to refer mostly to web storage companies.

So, I'm just wondering if anyone with expertise in the agricultural sector might be able to provide any insight - is "storage agency" simply a calque for an entity that doesn't exist in Anglophone agricultural systems, or is there an English term that the Eurolex translator and I haven't been able to find?

Any info would be appreciated - thanks!
Proposed translations (English)
3 (marketing) cooperative

Discussion

Ann Pond Jun 20, 2017:
Coming from personal experience in a farming community, the "elevator" is merely the building that stores grain. The link provided by mrrafe is describing a specific company whose name is "Porter Elevator". The elevator being the building and the company just decided to put the word elevator into the business name. Otherwise the article does provide the term "feed dealer" to which I would also add "grain dealer" found at http://www.ludlowcoop.com/contracts.php. I think that either would work because they are similar to "organisme stockeur" because, for both, you have to be authorized to sell the product. Of course "grain dealer" and "feed dealer" are both dealing with grains but, from what you've provided, that seems to be the case with "organisme stockeur". I hope this helps!
mrrafe Jun 19, 2017:
Stockholding in US EN refers only to company investment shares, not inventory.

Speese's "broker" offers the benefit of accuracy through extreme inclusiveness, like my "buyer." Readers could understand it even if it's not a term of art in the industry.
mrrafe Jun 19, 2017:
elevator = both the facility and the organization. See http://www.agriculture.com/news/business/sf-special-when-a-f... , cited below.
philgoddard Jun 19, 2017:
An elevator is what they store the crops in, not the organization, surely.

What about the literal "stockholding body/organisation"?
John Speese Jun 19, 2017:
Here is a link to a business in the area that I grew up that does this very same thing, and as mrrafe goes on to suggest, it calls itself an "elevator". It is a private business rather than a coop, but does much the same thing (buys grain and soybeans from the local growers and sells them). But "elevator" would only apply to grain, corn, soybeans, etc. I don't know of a broader term that would apply to other commodities, broker maybe? http://www.coastalcommodities.com/aboutus

Proposed translations

14 mins
Selected

(marketing) cooperative

Not sure whether the meaning is identical, but in practice the entity that would aggregate the farmers' production for resale would be called a marketing cooperative or more commonly just a cooperative or coop.

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Note added at 14 mins (2017-06-19 10:21:57 GMT)
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In US EN, that is.

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Note added at 26 mins (2017-06-19 10:34:08 GMT)
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An entity smaller than a coop, but with a similar function, may be called an elevator, after the grain storage elevators it operates. http://www.agriculture.com/news/business/sf-special-when-a-f...
Reference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_cooperative

Peer comment(s):
neutral writeaway : any direct refs that show this is the correct translation?
57 mins
Don't know of any. Again, it's just that the US coops'/elevators' functions resemble the OS's. The structures may differ. What a US farmer would call the OS, I don't know. Translating OS as "buyer" would be extremely vague but safe.
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3 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thanks for the feedback and discussion entries! I think cooperative is the right way to go, but it's still difficult to find a single unified term in English. I too found "elevators" and the delightful-sounding "wheat pools", but these seem to be littl"
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