Sapiro was born in Oakland, California in 1884. The son of Jewish immigrants his childhood was lived in relative poverty. Despite this, he was able to obtain a law degree and gain a position on the California markets board staff, where he became acquainted with the concepts of agricultural cooperation for the first time. He was active in organizing in the United States before being posted by the Farmers’ Union leadership to promote the Pool in western Canada most notably Saskatchewan. He also devised a plan for the "commodity method" of cooperative marketing, which became widely known as the "California Plan" or "Sapiro Plan".. This plan involved developing farmer co-operatives in an effort to eliminate middlemen and wholesalers and, in the process, to dramatically increase farm profits, p