permaculture

[Robert Waldrop <bwaldrop@cox.net>]

Well, the announcement below doesn't directly mention permaculture, but 
I think it is interesting from an "invisible structure" viewpoint, also 
those of us into urban permaculture have to think and work a lot on ways 
to produce and distribute food in and to cities, and the community food 
enterprises (CFE) profiled have something to contribute in that regard. 
In consideration of full disclosure, however, I will also say that one 
of the CFEs profiled in the study is the Oklahoma Food Cooperative, of 
which I am the president. Note that the study is available free as a 
download from the internet, it profiles 12 CFEs in the US and 12 outside 
of the US.

If you want to start a local food coop in your area, you can have our 
software for free under the general public license system -- 
http://www.localfoodcoop.org/ .

Bob Waldrop
www.energyconservationinfo.org
www.barkingfrogspermaculture.org

http://www.communityfoodenterprise.org/

NOW AVAILABLE! The Wallace Center at Winrock International, in 
partnership with the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies 
(BALLE), announces the release of Community Food Enterprise: Local 
Success in a Global Marketplace, profiling 24 locally owned food 
businesses from around the world, and providing detailed analyses of 
their financial, social, and environmental performance.

Community Food Enterprise (CFE) helps build the case that local 
ownership of food businesses can help more people access healthy, 
sustainably grown food, and strengthen local economies by fostering 
income, jobs, and resources within the community.

KEY REPORT FINDINGS:

* CFEs harness the advantages of local ownership. Local food is not just 
the proximity of production location and short supply chains. Equally 
important is local ownership of food enterprises, which stimulates local 
income, wealth, jobs, taxes, charitable contributions, tourism, and 
entrepreneurship.

* CFEs take many shapes and sizes. CFEs defy common assumptions. They 
are not necessarily small, they are not naïve about business, they often 
reach into global markets, and they effectively take on myriad business 
frameworks (for-profit, non-profit, co-op, public-private partnership, 
sole proprietorship).

* CFEs are competing effectively. CFEs are deploying more than a dozen 
interesting strategies for competing effectively against multinational 
enterprises. Many CFEs take characteristics that were once regarded as 
liabilities – smaller size, limited capital, high social standards – and 
turn them into competitive assets.

* CFEs are going global. The local food movement, once thought to be a 
phenomenon in a few wealthier countries, is taking root globally.

* CFEs are strategic economic development tools. Economic developers, 
both in the U.S. and internationally, would be wise to give CFEs greater 
priority as vehicles for creating new jobs and ownership opportunities; 
improving job quality in traditional economic sectors like farming; 
generating individual and community wealth; and improving public health 
and community well-being.

Download the book -- 
http://www.communityfoodenterprise.org/download-the-book

Download individual case studies -- 
http://www.communityfoodenterprise.org/download-the-book/download-individual-case-studies 
or http://tinyurl.com/ygphoon

On Facebook at http://tinyurl.com/yehu36r .

On Twitter at http://twitter.com/community_food .

Please help spread the word about the release of this new study.
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