Horace Plunkett

Farmers' co-operatives in Ireland. Plunkett, an Anglo-Irish landowner who had ranched in Wyoming, set up the first co-operative creamery in 1889 and the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society in 1894 to help small farmers process and sell milk together. Hundreds of co-operative creameries followed, the roots of today's large Irish dairy co-operatives and the companies that grew out of them.