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  • From: Kathy Carter-White <kathycarterwhite@earthlink.net>
  • To: "pcwick@gmx.net ; permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>, "<sera@lists.ibiblio.org>" <cedecor@gmx.net>, RunningOnEmpty2@yahoogroups.com, William Dellinger <hunger@hunger.org>
  • Cc:
  • Subject: [permaculture] Re: Alternative Food System Description
  • Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2003 00:33:52 -0600

(Hi Paul... I will take the liberty of passing along your name to Bill Dellinger. )

In Oklahoma we have started www.oklahomafood.org , a cooperative which is innovative. We have both consumer members and producer members. A few folks in Missouri might be interested in doing something like that up your way. Springfield to Columbia seems like a logical transportation route.

Take a look at our website at www.oklahomafood.org, which was started by Robert Waldrop.

In sum, at Oklahoma Food we have a 1-week window during which consumers (and producers too) can order from the current list of all available products. It is about 17 pages long, and features, now that it is winter, mostly meats and not a lot of veggies... but as the seasons change, so will the product offerings. Orders go to a central bookeeping system and producers are notified about what has sold. Producers have a week to get it all together... and this sometimes involves butchering, so it is rather a short turnaround. A week after the order deadline, producers bring their goods to a central "order picking" site... in this instance, a church which is very supportive... and each customer's groceries order is bagged up. The producers backhaul to consumers along their way home... sometimes meeting consumers who then deliver to the more outlying areas' members (or have their own meetup spot). The consumers pay online or mail a check, and the producers are paid from the central in and out account for the orders. The producers know each other, and call each other to pool the ride of goods to Oklahoma City. The consumers know each other and pool on picking up their orders. It is like a virtual grocery store... but no profit margin (as yet...we are contemplating a small percentage surcharge so we can pay some of the volunteers via order credits, like work equity, who do a large proportion of the work. It is kind of a neat model because it gives producers a winter market when Farmers' Markets are closed. Also, Consumers can get lots of info on production methods (de facto organic, grass pastured, hormone free, etc.) And it is a better price than commodity stream pricing for the farmer, but not too high for the consumer for identity-preserved food. Maybe one day we'll have the volume to need a brick and mortar store, but last week we sold over $4,000 in groceries, and the month before we sold about $3,000... for about 19 producers.

I'm cc'ing Bill so he can pass your name along to Farm Crisis, which is being informed about this idea and may want to go forward with this idea. In Oklahoma, we did it with grassroots folks sort of out of the blue, and if you really like the idea, you could too. We have tended to court the sustainable and responsible farmers, and encouraged and supported those who are transitioning to sustainable. We've limited it to Made in Oklahoma, in order to benefit smaller farms, and to insure that transportation complexities do not make it vulnerable to thinks like fuel price fluctuations. Food security is one of our principles, so we hope to dot the landscape with these "living machine" pulse points that can serve a smaller area (albeit with more limited product choices) should there ever be a need to decrease dependence upon fossil-fuel transportation, vertical product markets, and the like.

I'll also cc interested others with this more in-depth explanation, since others may be interested also.
line items for outright donation and for purchase of goods where the proceeds go to the hungry.

Kathy Carter-White
Tahlequah, OK USA

pcwick@gmx.net wrote:

Kathy,

I saw the following on the permaculture list:

Are there any MO permaculture folks on this list who would be interested in an innovative farm-direct "buying Club" type of relationship between farmers and consumers? If so, please send me a private message and I'll put you in touch with someone else who wants to do that. Kathy

I'm in Springfield, MO and may be interested. What are you proposing?

Paul









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