A Workers Cooperative Food System Approach to Climate Resilience

View the project final report

Commodities

Practices

• Crop Production: agroforestry, cropping systems, crop rotation, drought tolerance, food processing, food processing facilities/community kitchens, intercropping, multiple cropping, no-till, nutrient management, pollinator habitat, row covers (for season extension), shade cloth, varieties and cultivars, water management
• Education and Training: demonstration, farmer to farmer, networking, on-farm/ranch research, participatory research, volunteer training
• Farm Business Management: community-supported agriculture, cooperatives, farm-to-restaurant, labor/employment, value added
• Natural Resources/Environment: biodiversity, carbon sequestration, habitat enhancement
• Pest Management: allelopathy, cultivation, mulches - general, mulching - plastic, prevention, row covers (for pests), sanitation, soil solarization, trap crops
• Production Systems: organic agriculture, permaculture
• Soil Management: composting, earthworms, green manures, organic matter, soil quality/health
• Sustainable Communities: community development, community planning, employment opportunities, ethnic differences/cultural and demographic change, leadership development, local and regional food systems, partnerships, public participation, quality of life, social capital, sustainability measures, urban agriculture, values-based supply chains, climate resilience

The most pressing issue for the food system is impacts from climate change. It is incumbent upon this farming generation to work at the grassroots of food production among those populations that are most precarious and thus most vulnerable to climate effects. Beth Neff of the MARSH Cooperative seeks to develop strategies for climate resilience in a low-income neighborhood through a cooperative approach that supports the community economically and socially while exploring innovations in climate-responsive sustainable urban agriculture methods.

MARSH’s program model is based on the integration of food system components – a network of urban agriculture plots, a licensed kitchen, and sliding scale grocery cooperative – managed by the participants. This integrative approach localizes food resources, improves both economic and logistical access, advances positive health outcomes, promotes human agency, reduces ecological impact, virtually eliminates food waste, and builds community and social value through a relational economy. In partnership with Laura Belarbi and Laura Gatlin of the Food Patch, Beth Neff proposes to establish an expanded workers cooperative to farm four varied locations that will make more food available, test climate response strategies, and build a foundation for resiliency in a neighborhood that is most vulnerable to climate impacts.

FINAL REPORT ADDITIONS

The problem we are addressing remains the same from the first year of the grant project i.e. the application of a workers cooperative labor model for food production in response to climate change. 

Our solution has been multi-pronged. First, we needed to establish the parameters of a “workers cooperative.” This required multiple conversations around issues of leadership, collaboration, democratic decision-making, knowledge and time resources, delegation, and personal/group goals. Second, we needed to educate about and then balance the concerns of food production with the overarching attention to both the pressures of climate change and the development of a plan to build resilience. Finally, we needed to envision multiple strategies for sharing our own experiences while creating formats for exchanging information resources with others. 

Our research approach involved gathering information from the first grant year’s experiences and applying strategies for addressing the issues we identified in the second year. Education occurred both formally and informally, both ongoing and conclusively. We shared our project goals and outcomes on a daily basis with passersby at the gardens and with co-op members in the grocery store, with volunteers in the gardens and the kitchen and also with interns from local programs and universities in those same contexts, with community members gathered in meetings over the course of the growing season to discuss more general climate resilience, and then, finally, with farmers at our culminating Urban Farmers Climate Roundtable.

Our conclusions show that climate pressures are already urgent. Despite multiple strategies to address those pressures, food production has become even more challenging than it already was. Specific conclusions include:

1. Permaculture-style food production (integrated plant communities, various micro-climates, increased biodiversity, organic soil management, locally-adapted species, etc.) will be essential to resilient food supplies. Row cropping, especially with uniform species, is the least resilient model for healthy food production, both in terms of yield and environment, and human health.
2. Physical protection strategies are most successful i.e. mulch for weeds and moisture retention, insect screens and row covers for bugs, shade during the heat of the day for both plants and humans.
3. Expectations may have to adjust as time goes on. It may not be worth the investment of time, labor, and money to grow all the crops we’ve come to expect throughout the season. The food patch, in particular, showed the increased resilience of locally-adapted fruit varieties, which may mean shifting diets to fruits and vegetables with which we are presently less familiar but are less susceptible to climate pressures.

Our worker cooperative model helped us focus on what might be the most critical aspects of resilience to climate change: the human element. If we want more farmers growing nutritionally-dense foods that are available to the most vulnerable populations in urban areas, the existing default of individual farmers growing produce on large tracts of land will not achieve our goals. Instead, if we are able to work as a community-based group guided by climate values, we will be more likely to: 

• grow the foods that are both successfully adapted and that people will want to eat (and learn to prepare)
• manage diverse plots across the urban landscape that will make food significantly more accessible
• involve far more people in food production and bring them closer to the process, thereby improving quality of life in each neighborhood
• make food production less stressful and exploitive (especially under high heat-pressure conditions) by spreading out the responsibilities to a larger group and making well-being of the labor force a priority
• create models for flexibility and adaptability as conditions change
• avoid artificial or centralized food shortages, labor shortages, price instability, and ecological devastation
• grow more and better food

Our project seeks to strengthen an existing integrated food system using principles of climate resilience. We plan to accomplish this objective by:

1. Hiring and training a locally-sourced worker cooperative team to collaboratively farm four neighborhood plots in order to make a reliable and accessible supply of fresh produce available at a sliding scale cooperative grocery.
2. Comparing the four locations to apply and evaluate methodologies for responding to climate pressures (heat, insects, weeds, moisture levels) while also attending to social pressures of climate change and appropriate responses.
3. Building a climate resiliency template to initiate discussion at a workshop hosted by MARSH.