October is National Cooperative Month and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has announced the nation’s farmer, rancher and fishery cooperatives record income and revenue in 2014.

The USDA report shows cooperatives earned $6.5 billion in net income and generated $246.7 billion in total revenue last year. Net income increased 16.5 percent while revenue rose 0.4 percent from 2013. Co-ops set records for income and revenue in 2014 for the fourth year in a row.

“The nation’s co-ops are essential to the U.S. economy and to rural America,” Vilsack said. “The income they generate is reinvested or returned to members who spend it in their local communities. USDA is proud to continue its support of the cooperative movement.”

The report also from showed USDA’s annual rankings of the nation’s Top 100 Ag Co-ops. CHS Inc., a fuel, supply, grain and food cooperative based in Inver Grove Heights, Minn., is the nation’s largest cooperative. It posted $43 billion in revenue in 2014. Kansas City-based Dairy Farmers of America, with $18 billion in total revenue, moved up a slot from last year. And Land O’Lakes, headquartered in, St. Paul, Minn., with $15 billion in revenue, rounds out the top three.