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  • From: Robert Waldrop <bwaldrop@cox.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] Study of local community food enterprises published
  • Date: Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:38:28 -0600

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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