How many people here have enough money to start a cooperative to

[Cleita]

either grow or make things? I'm thinking this may be the way we have to save our economy. I'm sure there are widgets to be made that can be competitive with imports until we roll back all the global treaties that are ruining our economy and taking our jobs. Even something as simple as buying a vacant lot and growing seasonal vegetables to be sold at farmer's markets or even the super markets could be a start. You can get a very good yield from small spaces.

[glowing]

1. The more that put in on a co-op, the more money you have and the larger

variety that you have.. Overflow can be given to food banks. OR do you mean selling co-op food.. then the FDA gets a hair up their butts.

[Cleita]

2. You have to do what's legal and get all the proper permits, which means

you will have all the pertinent agencies inspecting you on a regular basis. So if you do it you have to do your homework and have the money to put an accounting firm and lawyer on retainer. It would be better if you got those guys from your ranks who have made a contribution and are part of the cooperative offering those services. I'm not just talking about growing food though although I thought it would be a good place to start since people have to eat even in a depression. When I worked in the restaurant business there were vendors who grew specialty vegetables and brought their produce in vans to kitchens for the chefs to sample and buy. I asked one of them where he got his produce and he said he grew it in his back yard. He had turned his whole back yard into a kitchen farm. It was legal too because farm animals weren't involved. That's another thing too, growing chickens for eggs and food, especially if they are range fed and organic. People like that.

I'm thinking of things you can manufacture in your home in a special room set aside or that you can build in your garage. You can get your fellow cooperative investors contributing to the labor. A lot of this stuff can be sold through a website. It's baby steps but we need to change the way we do commerce and take it back to the artisan in the village shop and kick Wal-Mart off the block.

[Traveling_Home]

3. 3-5 years Capitol on hand to start a small business even out of your home nt

[glowing]

5. Then again, I do believe these type of co-op businesses are the way of the future.

AND I believe that the govt will be offering low interest loans and grants for these ventures. Some of the money is already there if you have the time to sort through the grants; and especially in you have minorities involved. Takes time and pro-action... Problem is many need a check on a steady basis in order to keep the lights on. So to have some start up capital available for paying people while in the beginning stages of a business start-up. Capital to pay oneself thru the beginning stage is one of the reasons many don't go into business for themselves. But I think its a way to the future and a way to save a lot of small towns in rural areas.. esp. if they get broadband.

[HillbillyBob]

19. The way the Foolish Dimwits Agency works, I don't what them on my land,

They let in uninspected food tainted with melamine in from foreign sources.
They need a major hosing err cleaning.
We are starting an EcoFarm on a very limited budget.
We plan on selling food later, problem is to get and organic cert is so much more involved and costs run around 100,000$ for organic cert according to a couple of other organic style farmers around here.
That is ridiculous, it is because Monsanto, ADM and Cargill et al have them in their pockets.
Its so wrong that to be able to grow natural food you have to pay pay pay so much more in dollars than someone developing poisons like corn syrup solids, and getting your tax dollars in the billions to do so.

[HillbillyBob]

23. We trade various veggies with our neighbor for venison.

They also have free ranging chickens and we barter for eggs, which are very rich s, better for you, and her dad has honey bees and we get honey from him, he lives at the end of the driveway..can't be more local than that.
We are also gathering heirloom variety veggie seeds, since they are hardier, don't need as much in the way of chemicals. We plan on getting guinea fowl who eat bugs not the plants and have planted 4 o'clocks which attract the Japanese beetles , they eat, then die. We had a much improved black berry harvest this year than last as the beetles almost destroyed the berry vines last year. There are other plants that can be combined in the garden that will mutually nurture each other such as corn and beans, the beans grow on the corn plants and provide nitrogen to the corn, which really soaks it up.
We are still learning, as we are new to this. We grew up on farms that were heavily chem based.

Our farm motto is "It's all an experiment" not that we just try everything, but try to add to what we do know and learn from others. Putting in fruit and nut trees that are a tad exotic, but should grew in our local climate and are not generally planted in this area.

[Le Taz Hot]

4. Something I started last year:

a Plant Swap. We live right by a city park and I reserve one day a month in the spring in which people can bring the plants that they no longer want/have too many of and exchange them for plants they do want. What people didn't take during the day I gave away to family/friends and what they didn't take I put up on my local freecycle. Last year we had everything from Bird of Paradise to herbs to vegetables to miniature fruit trees. The swap or free concept is to ensure the city or I.R.S. doesn't get their nose into it as there is no money exchanged.

Your idea is an excellent one. Recovery WILL come from the bottom up -- as it always does.

[Cleita]

6. That's an excellent idea.

We have places for swap meets in my county. I'll look into and see who interested in it in my area.

[Mike 03]

7. I admire your premise, and I do think about this concept frequently,

but people are cutting their spending to the bare minimum now. Widgets and balsawood imports are the last things in the world people are buying right now. Witness the bankruptcy of "Sharper Image."

The farming idea is sensational. There is also hydroponics. The question is always, "Can I really feed myself/my family from growing fruits and vegetables in this fashion, in this space," and there is a whole host of related issues, including how cheap it is to buy grains in mass, and if things really get that desperate, we will just be stealing from each other.

If we had more time, we could do what you are suggesting. But there is going to be a compression in time of how quickly we must adapt to these new circumstances, and I think it is admirable, but unlikely, that we will be able to become farmers again, or migrate from urban environments to suburbs or agriculture-based communities.

[Mike 03]

8. One Additional Point:

There are individuals who created small communities exactly as you describe, precisely because they had your insight, and the foresight as well to do this years before the crises began.

So there is nothing wrong with your idea. The issues are geographical, economical, social and, last but not least, are contingent upon the cost of making something like this very quickly.

[Cleita]

9. Even if it's a day late and a dollar short, we as a nation have been gutted

economically by the criminals who have been in charge, so we are going to have to start from the bottom up. Since it's no longer feasible to borrow from the unregulated banking industry to start a business, and quite honestly getting money from silent partners also leaves a sour taste in my mouth, the next best thing is pooling resources, talent and labor and making it work. It will still be hard because people will still be competing with the big guys who can undersell them if they find a way to.

[Mike 03]

12. Like "Mosquito Coast"? That kind of thing? Or like "Findhorne" or however you spell

it, that fantastic community that is spoken of in the movie "My Dinner With Andre"?

I LOVE this idea, don't get me wrong. But I feel it's too late (at least for me). It would require a sort of instantaneous adaptation that I'm incapable of making.

There are Technical Remote Viewers who live in lava tubes in Hawaii, and I envy and admire them for their resourcefulness. I wish I could be that flexible and imaginative. (Also, I don't think Hawaii is a good place to hide out. I can think of much better places.)

[Cleita]

15. If you are as old as me, it's too late for us, but I'm thinking younger people

need to do this. I estimate it will take a generation to change things for the better, but you have to start somewhere. Look at Europe after WWII. Much of it was destroyed, especially Germany. Now look at what they have accomplished since then and it's in my lifetime, so younger people will live to see the fruits of their labors.

[HamdenRice]

10. I started gardening as a hobby a few years ago, and it's more than I can eat

and I'm talking about a tiny backyard in Queens, New York.

That said, given the economic outlook, I'm going to take up the last of the grass in the backyard and create a complete garden space.

Although I've been at it a few years, one thing I learned about this year was year round gardening. When summer ended, I planted cold weather greens -- arugula, collards, lettuce, and brussels sprouts and the garden was producing until a week or so ago (and I'm still waiting to harvest sprouts). I'm going to start with cold weather veggies around February under plastic.

I was really doing it because we're kind of crazy about great fresh natural food, but I did realize that people can decrease their food budgets pretty drastically with even small gardens.

[Cleita]

11. Don't forget to rotate your crops as well. Good luck.

You might start taking your excess garden produce to local restaurants and see if they are interested. If you have a car and some type of crating to carry your produce in, you might find yourself in business. I think the plant swap suggestions is a good one too.

[H2O Man]

13. Sometimes I think

about a commune. My ex-wife and her sister own their late parents' family farm. It was in use for generations, but sits empty. It is a beautiful, remote valley, with hundreds of acres of fertile land, creeks, ponds, and woods. I used to think about having a series of small cabins around the higher lands, and using the main farmhouse/barns for "community centers."

[Cleita]

14. Maybe you should get together with some like minded friends and

brain storm the idea. It sounds like it's calling to you. Not everyone has a great piece of real estate for starters.

[trof]

16. This guy is doing exactly that in Alabama.

http://www.dauerwalden.com/

[Selatius]

22. That plot of fertile land could help feed the community if tilled and worked on.

For those in such a farming co-op who helped produce the food and live on that land, they would share the fruits of their labor with each other, calling no man master but his own.

[HillbillyBob]

24. That was the sort of place we were looking for but couldn't find

that was affordable. So we ended up with a 9 acre place in the woods, big enough to be a subsistence farm for just us two , there is room for some cabins and 2 acres clear to grow food on.
We are building it to an eco farm. Hard to do on a limited budget. At least we can grow enough for the two of us and have some for barter, which we are doing with our neighbors for our veggies and such we get eggs and honey and occasional venison, our neighbor hunts in the woods on our property.

[Incitatus]

17. interesting related article

On Monday, December 1, a SWAT team with semi-automatic rifles entered the private home of the Stowers family in LaGrange, Ohio, herded the family onto the couches in the living room, and kept guns trained on grandparents, a mother (whose husband is currently serving as a U.S. Navy Seabee in Iraq) and children for four hours. The team was aggressive and belligerent. The children were quite traumatized. At some point, the “bad cop” SWAT team was relieved by another team, a “good cop” team that tried to befriend the family. Altogether, this traumatic intrusion lasted for almost nine hours.

The Stowers family has run a very large, well-known food cooperative called Manna Storehouse on the western side of the greater Cleveland area for many years.

There were agents from the Department of Agriculture present, one of them identified as Bill Lesho. The search warrant is reportedly suspicious-looking. Agents began rifling through all of the family’s possessions, a task that lasted hours and resulted in a complete upheaval of every private area in the home. Many items were taken that were not listed on the search warrant. The family was not permitted a phone call, and they were not told what crime they were being charged with. They were not read their rights. Over ten thousand dollars worth of food was taken, including the family’s personal stock of food for the coming year. All of their computers, and all of their cell phones were taken, as well as phone and contact records. The food cooperative was virtually shut down. There was no rational explanation, nor justification, for this extreme violation of Constitutional rights.

Presumably Manna Storehouse might eventually be charged with running a retail establishment without a license. Why then the Gestapo-type interrogation for a 3rd degree misdemeanor charge? This incident has raised the ominous specter of a restrictive new era in State regulation and enforcement over the nation’s private food supply.

http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/08/swat-team.htm

[Cleita]

18. This is why you have to be legal, getting the right permits, and paying your taxes.

I knew many people who thought they could get around the local business laws and ran into trouble particularly with the IRS. That doesn't mean that there aren't institutions than can be skirted like borrowing money from banks and paying rent to commercial landlords. It's better to own the property that you will be working from and that you follow zoning restrictions. You can run limited family businesses from your home. You just have to read up on the laws. You should try to set up a credit union for banking purposes and things like that.

[HillbillyBob]

25. Um laws ?? seems like the kind of terror tactic espoused by the Rpigfacist booshies

nt

[hippywife]

20. We currently buy much of our food

through a local coop. I buy as little as possible at the grocery now.

There are CSA's and coops throughout the nation. They can be located here:

www.localharvest.org

I think if people start to look for what they need locally and regionally, things will change for the better. Hand in hand with that is people need to start living within their means and redefine what they really need as opposed to the things that are merely "wants."

Good thinking, Cleita. :hi:

[Selatius]

21. I always wanted a sort of SBA-style public bank to encourage the start-up of labor co-ops.

Co-ops, in general, treat their employees better than traditional firms. Namely, because the employees are the owners. If there are enough co-ops around, then there would be pressure put on traditional employers to treat their employees better or risk losing them to the co-op sector.

Such a public bank may help to raise living standards, which have been eroding since the 1970s.