Foodtopia Dreaming Episode 6 Investing in our collective local food future
Talking with people while digging is better. Tribal and team work in one. While at the school garden for a dig up, a young person asked me why their employer had to put 9.5% of their pay into an organization that invested it outside their country so that they could get access to it when they moved into a nursing home just to feed themselves?
I bit my tongue. Instead, I ask “Where do you think that 9.5% should go?”
“Well” He starts.
“Things are broken so let's fix it for the best.”
“ The three main things we need to live are food, water and shelter. We learnt about Maslow the other day. So I want half my super to be invested in those. In my community. Not overseas. Imagine if each town had their own superfund.” he says.
I wonder at the way kids flip things. Drill in and kill the old ideas and norms. Yes people can start their own superfund, a self managed fund. What about a community managed fund?
I call my financial advisor and ask about the barriers to starting it. “None, except money”. She gives me a figure.
A little group crowdfund to start it. We apply for grants too. We approach service clubs and charities, social enterprises and business groups. We find out what the community wants to invest in locally.
We hear about groups like The Weekly Service in Melbourne that have taken the ritual of gatherings and made a chance to focus their lives on sustainability and community building. A branch has started in town in an old church and is immensely popular. They need a place to call home permanently and would like to buy the church.
The local farmers markets are building community connections, focusing on food security for our town but have moved 3 times and given the mouths they are feeding, deserve a central place in our town.
Community gardens are growing, horticultural therapy is now a “thing” and if a school doesn’t have a food garden it doesn’t have a way to grow it’s community. They are struggling to access funds to invest in their future. Starved of funds they’ll slowly die off.
I hear about “The Farm Next Door”, an urban farm on a suburban block running a weekly market stall in their front yard only for people in their postcode. Funded by a creative and insightful community group.
I hear about microloans. Small loans of $5000 to $20000. Pay back in 1-3 years. Interest is what you can afford. And negotiable if you can’t meet the final payment. Money is re-invested in other programs and people once it returns. People know that by paying the money back other people benefits. A fair incentive. These loans are for growing ideas. For plot farmers, or micro businesses. Co-ops or social enterprises.
We know it’s possible. TRY - Totally Renewable Yackandandah and Indigo Power did it.
I hear about a farmer who has provided land to a couple to create a farm on 400sq meters of her 5 arces. They are feeding 25 families.
Travelling to Melbourne to visit a friend in a share house blows me away. 5 rooms in what was a 3 bedroom house. The Landlord is supportive. The tenants care for the house and have built a productive garden, water tanks installed, the driveway must feed the neighbourhood with that urban farm. Not a car in sight. Bikes lining the front patio. Fruit and nut trees on the naturestrip next to the wicking beds and community compost bin.
They explain the share house rules, there’s respect for each other, for the environment, ethics and principles at play. There’s understanding. Three of the five are permanent. One bed is always kept for a WWOOFer. The other bed is for friends who are homeless. I find out that a large house on a large block is the cheapest to live in, the easiest to modify but you have to be organised and resourceful.
They explain that the owner is an investor with a conscience. It is easy for any individual or organisation to do. We exchanged details and I headed home rested, fed and inspired. Could this be something the community super would invest in. We’d all know the tenants, be supportive of their situation, be encouraging. Knowing that they had probably contributed to the community super fund and had money invested in it.
Rattling home on the train, I imagine the ways people are being creative, learning to live rich lives without money. I think more about the community fund - calling it super is wrong. Super is for when you retire - stop working. That's now for many people. A community fund should be for the community, the local environment and for now. A super fund structure may be the only way it could be set up. It may be the only way to get funds into the town? With other super funds investing in your town fund because you have smart ethical people, creative and inventive. That you value your resources and only take your fair share.
I catch up with Principal Sandy and we talk funds for her food garden and canteen space. She has most of it sorted. The community fund invests in the micro enterprises the students are creating. Learning how enterprise can work, how to barter goods and service is a learning experience Sandy knows she cannot recereate in the classroom. Her school just became a school of life. Life skills rule!
View the full Foodtopia Deaming episodes here
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