“As it circulates the globe with ever-accelerating speed, money sucks oxygen our of the air, fertility out of the soil and culture out of the local community.”
-Inquires into the Nature of Slow Money, Woody Tasch
Join the Revolution! This was the message from the Midwest Slow Money Institute, which I attended on Monday in Madison, Wisconsin. Like founder of Slow Food, Carlos Petrini called us to revolution (Jodi and I heard this call along with five thousand food producers at the first Terre Madre five years ago in Torino, Italy), so did Woody Tasch, founder of the Slow Money Movement and author of the book Slow Money, investing as if food, farms and fertility mattered is calling us to another revolution. On Monday, Woody Tasch’s call went to a group of nearly a hundred investors, philanthropists, foundations, food entrepreneurs, government representatives and advocates of local food and sustainable agriculture and agricultural businesses from around the region.
The discussion centered on the solutions offered by investing in local small food enterprises (SFE’s) — solutions to many of today’s economic, social and environmental challenges. Carbon sequestration, urban sprawl, industrial farming, public health, water and soil degradation, agricultural consolidation, money drains and rural to urban migration were all connected with the need to channel investment into SFE’s through greater institutional, governmental and local involvement.
Great poets were quoted like Wendell Berry and E.F. Schumacher as well as Nobel winning economists and Wall Street giants like John Bogle of the Vanguard Group. Questions of growth, returns, models and meta-economics were discussed along with non-violence, preservation and restoration. Fundamental conflicts facing moving money from that which destroys to that which creates were summed up by this quote from Mark Cliggett, appearing in Woody’s book:
“I want to live in a community that has ten companies with 100 employees each, but I want to invest in one company that has 1000 employees”
Jodi and I have been a part of this revolution along with many of you, for a long time. In Madison I met others who strive with us to change the shape of our rural future. It was a reminder that our perseverance and our farm’s struggle to reach sustainability — financial and holistic — is reflected in the challenges faced by everyone living on this planet. Like farmers all around the world, Shepherd’s Way is surrounded by land owned by speculators and developers. The land is sprayed, mined and held not as an asset to be treasured, but on a bet to be leveraged. We as a nation need to reclaim and renew these lands, investing in our communities, in our world in a new way.
Through one of our efforts, our LLC, Farm Haven, we are trying to build a fund that can not only secure the future of our own real estate, but also help build an organic farming community around us. This is Slow Money. The great barrier, as Woody mentions, is it is easy to find a hundred entrepreneurs to talk about needing money, what we need to find are a hundred or a thousand or a million investors to talk with them. And each one of us, can be that investor, that revolutionary.
I am excited by our new Cheese CSA, this is Slow Money. Community Supported Agriculture, in all of its forms, was particularly singled out as a form of slow money building local communities and keeping food dollars in hometowns. I was pleased to hear that there are over 100,000 families belonging to CSAs in the United States. Then it was mentioned that there are 55,000 families belonging to CSAs in Copenhagen, Denmark alone, reminding us of what is possible, the almost limitless potential to change the world.
One of my favorite quotes comes from Margaret Mead and says:
“Never doubt that a small group of concerned citizens can change the world.
Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
As I look out my window at the sun setting over our west pasture, my boys playing in the yard, I am proud to be a concerned citizen, to be a farmer, a steward, a shepherd and I do doubt that we can change the world.
Steven
Steven Read
Shepherd’s Way Farms
8626 160th Street East
Nerstrand, MN 55053-2309
612-306-4210
swf1@earthlink.net
www.shepherdswayfarms.com
