Building a Local Food Cooperative Through an Interactive Website

View the project final report

Commodities

Practices

• Farm Business Management: marketing management
• Sustainable Communities: local and regional food systems

Central Oregon is a vast arid region with short growing seasons, keeping diversity of products limited and rendering communication among ranchers, farmers and consumers inadequate. A cooperative network between producers and consumers would increase food marketing and production. This project proposes to create a virtual, interactive food cooperative website connecting small local farmers and ranchers with consumers. If the project succeeds, the local food economy will increase with a central place for information, products and events. Additionally, the website would contain a discussion forum for farmers to exchange information about crops and experiments, thus increasing site-specific knowledge for improved sustainable production.

An objective of this project was to form a virtual cooperative to bridge the gap between producers and consumers in Central Oregon.

Secondly, we aimed to make a place where local producers could pool their resources to meet local demands.

Lastly, we worked to create a viable system of information exchange.