As used in this Act, unless the context or subject matter requires otherwise:

(a) "Agricultural products" include livestock and livestock products, dairy products, poultry and poultry products, wine and viticultural products, seeds, nuts, ground stock, horticultural, floricultural, forestry, bee and any and all kinds of farm products.

(b) "Supplies" include any and all types of supplies, machinery and equipment used by farmers as producers or used by farmers as consumers.

(c) "Association" means a corporation organized under or adopting the provisions of this Act, or a foreign association or corporation authorized to do business in this Commonwealth, organized under any general or special act as a cooperative association for the mutual benefit of its members and other patrons as farmers, and which confines its operations to purposes authorized by this Act and restricts the return on the stock or membership capital and the amount of its business with nonmembers to the limits placed thereon by this Act for associations organized hereunder and which qualifies to do business in this Commonwealth under this Act.

Associations shall be classified as and deemed to be nonprofit corporations, inasmuch as their primary object is not to pay dividends on invested capital, but to render service and provide means and facilities by or through which the producers of agricultural products may receive a reasonable and fair return for their products and obtain supplies and services on a cooperative nonprofit basis.

(d) "This Act" means this article, which may be cited as the "Agricultural Cooperative Association Act."

(e) "Member" includes the holder of a membership in an association without capital stock and the holder of voting stock in an association organized with capital stock.

(f) "Person" includes an individual, a partnership, a corporation and an association.

(g) "Patron" means a person using the marketing facilities of an association for the marketing of agricultural products, or a person using the purchasing or service facilities of an association for the purchase of supplies or the rendering of services.

(h) "Board" means the board of directors of an association.

(i) "Commission" means the State Corporation Commission of Virginia.

Code 1950, § 13-248; 1956, c. 428; 2010, cc. 317, 561.