farmers markets

How the Bitcoin protocol actually works and what that means for us

Complementary currencies fascinate me and recently, the crypto currency bitcoin especially. Its an example of a decentralized example designed to reduce  inflation (although maybe not deflation) and the need to have a central authority. I agree with many that the bitcoin seems unlikely to be a replacement for fiat currency (government-decreed legal currency) and I also agree with the concern over the ultimate role of this currency that has a limit to how much can be “mined.” Still, important to remember that gold has very close to the same values and limits and has flourished as a protection against only using a national currency.

The reason why this should be so important to food system organizers-especially to direct marketing outlets-is that many of these outlets are operating what is essentially a debiting system with tokens,  yet doing it without the robust and transparent nature of a currency system, or without a fair and openly discussed exchange rate that asks everyone possible to share the costs. In other words, we have built systems that allow people to begin to depend on the market to supply a debiting system so as not to have to stop and get cash before coming to market, or from vendors from having their own machine and costs, yet are not extending the reach of that system to find ways to pay and find support for it. What seems to be the goal for most involved is to dream of the day that we can hand these systems off to the farmers to run themselves. I would say that for many reasons this is unlikely in any near future as these systems will remain unwieldy to manage.
Those reasons for the delay or impossibility of the vendor hand off happening include (but are not limited to):
-the lack of easy-to-manage back office systems
-the wide variations of card fees and systems needed to swipe cards
-the costs for each vendor to purchase and maintain these systems. Add to that the very nature of pop up markets without access to good wifi or mobile phone signals, the low number of transactions per vendor and complication of a high number of customer transactions on any one day with many small businesses that will confuse and alert card processors.
To me, what comes first is solving these problems and extending this system’s reach to savings and loans pilots. What about allowing restaurants that source locally to accept the tokens during slow months? Or working with banks to help provide some accounting or backing? What about establishing micro loans to encourage more people to use this as a sticky currency working through a local food system? The Berkshares system in Great Barrington area is an uniquely designed currency that is experimenting with these ideas and more and has added hundreds of outlets at which their currency can be used; it is surely one that should be studied closely by our field, if nothing else.
There are examples of different token pilots at markets, such as MarketUmbrella’s Crescent Fund and Massachusetts’ pilot of electronic wallet (an example here of an electronic wallet) but these pilots are still so limited and information is not widely available. I would love to see some deep analysis of the impact of these systems and some prototyping of entire systems, especially with the emergence of these popular electronic currency such as bitcoins and vibrant complementary currencies such as the Berkshares.

How the Bitcoin protocol actually works | DDI.

Overstock says they’ll take Bitcoin

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Grazing with goats in the Crescent City

Goats for grazing is a super idea for the many open, untended sites we have in New Orleans and throughout the U.S. This is a simple fundraising idea for an New Orleans entrepreneur that wants to use goats to graze public and private green space. She has already been contracted to use goats on a park in the city (Brechtel Park) starting in 2014 and needs support to get her business prepared for the work ahead.
I see she also sees this as public art, which I’d have to hear more about to understand I guess, but the goat grazing is by itself an idea that I can certainly support. Maybe you can too?

YHerd?

…To comment further on the public art point, I’d rather this be seen chiefly as a serious farming and open space issue that helps urban people see that livestock can safely serve many roles in the larger natural survival loop, even in our ordered urban environment.

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“Where Farmers Markets and CSAs Fall Short” An interview with Mary Berry

Be forewarned-if you know me, you are going to hear and see excerpts from this link many, many times in the future. An articulate and necessary interview with Mary Berry of the Berry Center (yes, daughter of our agrarian apostle* Wendell Berry) on the shortcomings (or pitfalls if you prefer) of our good food work so far. I think all of her points are spot on and all have potential actions to take to push forward.
In These Times

*Don’t worry-The term “apostle” is used here in the Classical Greek context of messenger. No idle idolatry intended.

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Economic Opportunity Is Lowest In the Republican Bible Belt, Major Study Finds | Alternet

I suspected as much, based on the struggle that our community food systems here still have in front of them to reach any decent economic plateau. And, of course, this is another easy way to track where large swaths of institutional racism are still at work.

Economic Opportunity Is Lowest In the Republican Bible Belt, Major Study Finds | Alternet.

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VT Currency Report wins a 2013 American Graphic Design Award

Our Vermont Market Currency Report won a national design award, thanks to our amazing and patient designer Matt Hannigan, now working with GoodThree Design. I heartily recommend working with them on your next report.

American Graphic Design Awards 2013.

VT Market Currency

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Better Eats for All | Belt Magazine | Dispatches From The Rust Belt

A commentary from yours truly on the food system found in my first hometown of Cleveland Ohio. Whenever I return to it, I am struck by the unusual underpinnings of their food work, being as it is deeply embedded within the community organizing/social justice strategy that is alive and well in many of their neighborhoods, as well as in the larger reality of figuring out what to do with their post-industrial inner core. Combine that with enthusiastic corporate greening, municipal support and the awareness of the need to combat the foreclosure crisis with innovative small business and residential reclamations and you get a dynamic little system coming to maturation there.

Better Eats for All | Belt Magazine | Dispatches From The Rust Belt.

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Why Some Communities Police Themselves, While Others Don’t – Mike Riggs – The Atlantic Cities

Certainly, this article is talking more about how third parties help with prevention of crime but the very concept is highly adaptable to our work.The subject of rules and how they are established and maintained is an important topic in community food systems where so much is self-regulated. If we continue to advocate for “home rule” as it were, how do we embed the appropriate levels of control into these tiny volunteer-led markets and entrepreneurial food system projects? And beyond that, what levels of certification are truly necessary without killing innovation or democracy?
I think a big part of the answer is how well we understand the social ties that we have within each project and how they can be best utilized to maintain quality and openness.

Gelfand et al’s model says that having third party punishers in your neighborhood or workplace is dependent largely on “high average strength-of-ties and low mobility.” Or put more simply, knowing the people around you and not being likely to leave. The higher the strength of ties and the lower the mobility, the more third party punishment you’re likely to see. In these situations, Gelfand’s question (why are these people intervening?) has a logical answer: “Punishing responsibly fosters a culture of cooperation in the neighborhood, by signaling that defection is not tolerated.”

So what happens if we have low strength of ties and high mobility, which is sometimes the case in melting-pot cities such as D.C.? In highly transient communities where few people know their neighbors, third party punishers are far and few between. “It’s really difficult for responsible third party punishers unless there’s a few of them around a neighborhood,” Patrick Roos says. For those of you who consider yourselves white knights, this also means that “a single third party punisher is unlikely to remain one for a very long time.” (Unless that third party is, say, Jackie Chan’s character from Rumble in the Bronx.)

Why Some Communities Police Themselves, While Others Don't – Mike Riggs – The Atlantic Cities.

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Using food stamps at farmers’ market in limbo

Although this story from Madison is a bit sobering (and was probably meant to be an alarming title by the writer, good work there Lindsay), it is also a well-reported one about the issues that we currently face in the hard work of encouraging benefit dollars to be spent on healthy food with farmers at markets. Clearly, by working closely with municipal partners these excellent markets have already begun to build deep understanding and support among those officials. We are still searching for an answer (or answers) to the costs and time needed to administer these programs, but there is no doubt that the success in attracting low-income shoppers has impressed our potential partners. I believe these programs will be rewarded in the long run with sustainable funding or with cooperative administration for managing the financials and outreach pieces if we keep telling our story in as many ways as we can.
What seems clear to me is that markets cannot continue to knock on doors for small amounts every season to fund these programs, but must instead find income streams that will maintain these programs over years. That work must happen even as we band together to fight for better technology and back office systems on a regional and national level. We can do both of those things if we collect and share data (good and bad) and talk often to each other about these issues.

The city has expressed significant support for EBT at farmers’ markets as well. In August through October of this year, grants from several local hospitals made $8,000 available in “MadMarket Double Dollars” at four smaller markets on the north side, the Eastside market at the Wil-Mar Neighborhood Center and two on the south side. For every $1 in Quest benefits, the user got another $1 from the grant.

City officials want to expand that program.

“We saw incredible growth of SNAP use at those (smaller) markets,” said Mark Woulf, the city’s alcohol and food policy coordinator. “That’s something we don’t want to lose. … Hopefully we can work through a solution.”

Woulf said financial support of the DCFM’s FoodShare program would require City Council approval, but it “would be on the table.” He conducted some of the follow-up surveys after the Double Dollars pilot program and was encouraged by what he heard.

“The Eastside market did something unprompted, which was give us a break down of (SNAP use at) individual vendors,” Woulf said. “I was impressed by how well spread out it was.”

Using food stamps at farmers' market in limbo : Ct.

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Better Health for Food Deserts: Are Mobile Farmers Markets the Answer? | Health on GOOD

Thanks to new NYC friends Anna and Manuel of Zago for sending this. Whenever I see an article on mobile markets, a few questions immediately come to mind, here are some in no particular order:

• How can people use these initiatives to leverage good food coming into their area more regularly? Has there been an example of a mobile truck initiative that led to food security? It would seem to me that if paired with some other food and social initiatives either in concert or in succession, this might be a powerful tool.

• Has anyone figured out a good business model yet? I believe that there is one out there, yes have not read of it yet.
Possibly using it as a simultaneous delivery mechanism for middle or upper income food orders might help offset the costs.
Or maybe mobile trucks can be a meal service that offers healthy food also as healthy prepared meals sent out just before and during non-traditional meal times (for those working people with typically odd work schedules) at low prices, along with some information. Sort of a combination of the food truck with the mobile market.
Or one of those ideas on our “someday” list at my last organization in New Orleans-to create a “useful” mobile market with non-food items like paper products, juice, simple hardware items etc along with those food items.

• Along those lines, is this type of thing best used as a temporal idea that to begin to promote good food and to gather initial data to then get the area to the next more permanent idea or is there a long term strategy as to their use?

• Finally, when farmers sell to these outlets, does it increase their reach or decrease it? In other words, have farmers begun to grow or make products just for these endeavors or are they taking products from other outlets? And if they have added this to their sales reach, is it financially viable for them to do so? And from the standpoint of the organizers, are many of these using their very mobility to share gleaned or seconds from those market farmers that these mobile trucks can reach easily and in some quantity on market day?

or as Manuel eloquently wrote in the conversation we had via email around this topic:
One of the biggest challenges for me when thinking about scale and community, especially when thinking about underserved urban populations, is the problem of density and offerings. The smaller and more challenged the environment the more difficult is to build volume, presence and relevance.

YES.

I look forward to the continuing conversation around this idea and connecting these initiatives to market organizations whenever applicable.

Better Health for Food Deserts: Are Mobile Farmers Markets the Answer? | Health on GOOD.

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Why Urban States Need Their Rural Counties

Although this article was ostensibly about the different secession movements afoot, it is also uses the rural/urban context for the argument that the red/blue divide has to be bridged more often before it gets worse. One place that has happened is in farmers markets and on farms where both groups often interact to access what they deem as healthy or culturally accurate foods. This means that it is crucial for market organizers to think of their pop up town square as a “no politics” zone where libertarians can meet anarchists and yellow dog Democrats and Tea Partying Republicans can hold spaces in line for each other and ultimately, find some common ground on Saturday morning. It is just as important that market organizers balance the needs of their urban or peri-urban shoppers/farmers with those of their rural farmers and vice versa and as important that rural farmers markets find ways to link with their urban peers to change policy or to add benefits to gain new shoppers. Why Urban States Need Their Rural Counties – Emily Badger – The Atlantic Cities.

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Give the gift of the Farmers Market Coalition to your favorite market or farmer

Use the link below to donate today or to gift a membership to your favorite market. FMC membership offers your market’s organizers and farmers access to tools, programs, and support networks that will help your market thrive, and give it a voice in the national food dialogue.

Farmers Market Coalition.

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