Frank concludes his interview with Luis Sierra of the California Center for Cooperative Development. Luis begins by explaining the difference between a worker cooperative and a service cooperative, and then provides some historical examples of agricultural worker cooperatives in the 60’s and 70’s. He then explains why the worker cooperative model has been so sparsely adopted in the agricultural sector, and offers some insights on how to grow the worker cooperative model in agriculture. Frank then concludes by sharing his own thoughts, suggesting that social organization and enterprise management are the holy grail of scalable permaculture.
Cooperation Works: The Cooperative Development Network
The California Center for Cooperative Development
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3 responses to “Episode #149: Worker-Owned Permaculture”
I’ve been listening to this podcast for years, and have really appreciated having your meandering string of shows to listen to as I work from field to field. This particular shows has evoked a need in me to donate to the show and to provide a few thoughts.
My first comment deals with the way Luis portrays “the” successful worker-owned cooperative in CA. He speaks of the intense emotional connection being the driver that binds the member owners. That ingredient, coupled with strong leadership from Tezozomoc, the coop’s manager, need examining. How can individuals come together and creating a lasting cooperative when they don’t undergo the struggles depicted in “The Garden”?(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZRgUkNrRdg)
Frank, would you consider sending out a request to Tezozomoc and perhaps Josh Volk of Slow Hand Farm (http://www.ourtable.us/our-cooperative.html) to be interviewed so that the work stories of cooperative agri-culture are really broken down for other practitioners to emulate? I would really appreciate cultivating a nuts and bolts understanding of what “steps you have to master” (Luis’ phrasing) as a group and as individuals. It seems their Volk’s work, or at least its skeleton, is available here in their articles of organization: http://www.ourtable.us/uploads/1/7/0/6/17066100/our_table_cooperative_articles_of_incorporation.pdf
And as a guy who’s giving Savory’s main Holistic Management book to the farmers I work beside in our fledgling worker-cooperative, I’m looking forward to seeing what ROLE developing a holistic goal as a group will have in the upcoming growing season…
Do you imagine there are others who have something to say about the experience of developing a worker cooperative with HM?
Thanks, as always, Frank,
Max
Tezo’s very wordy. His presentations tend to go over my head after he starts mentioning Deleuze. He would be a good guest despite his gradstudentitus.
Try Pete from Puente. Their coops are worker and producer!
http://www.puentemexico.org/index.php?lang=es&Itemid=380
Some of my peeps are starting a farm coop up here in the east bay. Here NGOs are the ones startings coops. Mandela is doing a new produce distro WO coop.
http://wagescooperatives.org/co-op-resources
http://www.mandelamarketplace.org/
http://www.arizmendi.coop/resources
Imagine if all the ingredients in arizmendi pizzas came from worker coop farms.
http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/supportdocuments/RD_CoopMonthProclamation.pdf
2
UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Office of the Secretary
Washington, D.C. 20250
NATIONAL COOPERATIVE MONTH
October 2014
By the Secretary of Agriculture of the United States of America
A PROCLAMATION
WHEREAS
cooperative businesses unite their member-owners in pursuit of common
objectives, helping both producers and consumers attain marketplace power that would be
impossible to attain as individuals; and
WHEREAS
cooperatives are member-owned, member-controlled businesses that operate
for the benefit of their member-owners and their communities rather than to create profits
for distant shareholders; and
WHEREAS
the Nation’s 30,000 cooperatives are vital in many sectors of the U.S. economy,
including agricultural marketing and supply; credit and financial services; rural electric and
telecommunications services; and housing as well as in local food supplies and markets; and
WHEREAS
the Nation’s cooperative community is helping to stimulate economic growth
and improve the quality of life in many developing nations around the world through the
creation of cooperatives, associations, and similar groups;
NOW, THEREFORE
, in recognition of the important role that cooperatives play in
strengthening the economy, providing greater economic opportunity, and creating member-
owned benefits in rural America, I, Thomas J. Vilsack, Secretary of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture, do hereby proclaim October 2014 as National Cooperative Month. I encourage
all Americans to learn more about cooperatives and to celebrate cooperatives’ unique
structure, accomplishments, and contributions with appropriate ceremonies and activities.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF
, I have hereunto set my hand this 2nd day of September 2014,
the two-hundred thirty-ninth year of the Independence of the United States of America.
THOMAS J. VILSACK
Secretary