Reply to a comment from Rachel in a local farmer forum who writes:
I’ve been noticing that it is becoming more and more common to see
large-scale
wholesale farms supplying affordable organic produce to our local
supermarkets, and I am afraid that this will eventually translate into it
becoming harder for local non-certified and organically-certified small
farms to compete. One major difficulty that I had as a start-up organic
farmer was that there was not a great amount of farm financial data
available which makes it difficult to know if my business performance was
meeting industry standards. Obviously the first task of any business is to
obtain good market and costs information to generate a realistic farm
business plan. I spent a year analyzing the market and my own numbers, but
without benchmarked standards it is more difficult for start-up farmers
like myself to understand how to manage and improve my own practices to
increase economic efficiency. Obviously the most successful farms sold at
the most popular marketplace(s) and exploited the economy of scale, while
others restructure their businesses by diversifying or adding value to
their farmed produce. But not all start-up farming businesses have those
options and it is still important to assess how they are operating compared
to leading businesses in the sector. Benchmarking can be a tool that can
help identify excessive costs and inefficiencies, and used to compare your
performance with the performance of others engaged in a similar activity,
and learning from the lessons that these comparisons throw up and borrowing
good ideas from others about how to improve. To my knowledge there is not a
real reliable source of this benchmark info out there and it was my
experience that other farmers are hesitant to talk openly about this type
of information.
Personally I believe that it is going to be critical that local farmers
stick together and help each other do economically better if we are going
to survive in this global market place. Not only do we need the average and
best farms to openly share information to generate more benchmark standards
(business KPIs), but we need to also invest in educating the public why it
is crucial for them to support local farming in order to drive more people
to the farmer markets and/or to buy locally *not just organically* (e.g.
disadvantages of food miles and benefits to health & wellness, costs, and
environmental sustainability etc). Is this a concern of other small farmers
in the area and what is the best strategy as a community that we can carry
out to address these important issues?
AND:
There are some good articles on the internet that explain the concept
> behind farmer cooperatives like this one:
>
| Entrepreneurs Toolkit
Cultivate Coop http://cultivate.coop/wiki/Main_Page
Cultivate.Coop is a library of information about cooperatives. Everything
here is created by and for people who work in co-ops. You can edit and
upload content to Cultivate.coop just like Wikipedia. Cultivate.coop is
also home to the Cooperative Education Network, a group of practitioners
developing a centralized collection of materials on co-op education.My
comment:
Farmer cooperatives can serve CSA's, individual gardeners and farmers,
neighborhood gardening associations and community garden growers. A coop
could become a subset of some other organization with existing facilities
so it could avoid having to entirely reinvent the wheel. What about
approaching food hubs in the region about hosting a coop? There are a lot
of them based in the Triangle that and some from out of state that serve
NC. I hear from someone who worked for one that they do an incredible
business and are always in need of farmer-suppliers with local ones
sometimes having to outsource from other states. Though redundant in
function it could allow the coop to be independent while benefitting from
it financially and as a source of product. So, what is the difference
between a commercial food hub and a true coop? You have organizations such
as the Triangle Food Shuttle which serves food pantries. They have the
resources that a coop would need and could pay them for, monetarily, or by
donating produce for distribution to the pantries. The Shuttle has its own
farm but could still benefit from collaboration by gaining access to
products not available from its own garden. This sounds like a true win-win
opportunity. Food pantries have some funding from government agencies which
is used to buy food to distribute. They could buy a lot of food from a
coop. Some grocers use money raised for charitable purposes to purchase
food from local growers to donate to food pantries. They too could do
business with a coop which could also serve as a coop csa. What about a
crafts coop operating under the same roof with farmers? Orange County,
through Cooperative Extension and Economic Development, is creating a giant
food hub with related projects (teaching/farmland lease/value added
processing facility [all destined to be financially self-sustaining]) for
any Orange County farmers interested in participating. Maybe the Orange
County growers in an independent NC farmer coop could sell through them and
reach a much larger customer base.
I was wondering about farmer collectives and found this incredible resource
on coops:
Cultivate Coop http://cultivate.coop/wiki/Differences_Between_Worker_
Cooperatives_and_Collectives
Differences Between Worker Cooperatives and Collectives
The terms "cooperative" and "collective" are often used interchangeably.
While there is some overlap between the two, these terms have distinct
meanings:
A *worker cooperative* is a cooperative in which the workers are the only
member-owners. This means that each worker owns one voting share, and is
able to participate in the governance
<http://cultivate.coop/wiki/Differences_Between_Governance_and_Management>
(and often the management
<http://cultivate.coop/wiki/Differences_Between_Governance_and_Management>)
of the business. Because workers are the only people eligible to become
member-owners, outside investors or consumers do not participate in the
governance of the cooperative. Some worker cooperatives have elected
managers, or managers who are hired by the elected Board of Directors. Some
worker cooperatives that are not collectives have a flat management
structure at an operational/worker level with no managers, but key
decisions made by the Board of Directors.
A *collective* is an organization that is managed without hierarchy. This
means that every member has equal decision-making power. Some decisions
may be delegated to individual members or sub-committees, but no one has
the special, un-recallable authority usually granted to a manager. The
legal structure will specify that all Members are automatically Directors
and must accept the responsibilities of Directorshop, or that the
organization is managed by Member meetings.
A *worker collective* is a particular kind of worker cooperative. A worker
collective adheres to the same cooperative principles as does a worker
cooperative. However, worker collectives also adopt a non-hierarchical
(often called a "flat" or "horizontal") management structure. This means
that all workers are equal co-managers: nobody has un-recallable
decision-making power or authority over another worker. Smaller decisions
may be made by individuals, department teams, or committees, but all
collective members participate in both major management
<http://cultivate.coop/wiki/Differences_Between_Governance_and_Management>
and governance
<http://cultivate.coop/wiki/Differences_Between_Governance_and_Management>
decisions.
As you can see, the word "cooperative" refers to a specific *ownership
*structure.
Cooperatives can be owned by workers, community members, or both. The word
"collective" refers to how members participate in the *management *structure.
Collectives manage worker-owned cooperatives, consumer cooperatives,
non-profits, or volunteer activist projects.
<>
The time is perfect for a farmer coop startup in NC. Would a crowdfunding
project be in order? Generate interest among existing food hubs and food
shuttle-pantries?
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 9:52 AM, Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>
wrote: