Speech Commemorating the Opening of the Community Orchard

Thank you so much for asking me to come celebrate with you this afternoon this wonderful gifting of an orchard to your community, the college (South Seattle CC), and the city of Seattle. I confess that I often have dreams of being a West Seattleite – so much goes on here in terms of building community that I would be so excited to participate in - if I did live here. So I am truly honored to have been asked to speak on why this orchard – which may seem like a small gift in the larger scheme of things - is truly transformative. It’s the gift your community is going to remember as having made a difference. And I say that as an economist!

Now why would an economist – albeit a grassroots economist with dirt under her fingernails – think that a community orchard is so vital to change?

Francis Moore Lappe, the woman who revolutionized our ideas about healthy food with her book, Diet for a Small Planet, and her daughter Anna Lappe, who is a climate/food justice activist in her own right, have said – Every choice we make can be a celebration of the world we want. I want to share with you how I see this community orchard as a celebration of the world – and the economy – we want.

The world we want is one where we share resources and care for each other. Just as in a garden or orchard, where the animals, the plants, and the soil benefit from and participate in the cycling of water, energy from the sun, and nutrients, an economy to be healthy needs to circulate its resources. Fresh, healthy, tasty food for everyone is fundamental to a healthy economy. How exciting is it that this orchard will be – is already – circulating fresh fruit and vegetables throughout the community? This orchard is a fantastic celebration of a sharing and caring world and economy.

In the world we want, people value relationships over things. When relationships matter, the economy is one where everyone can find a meaningful way to contribute to meeting the community’s needs. What I’ve learned from watching my daughter grow up, and now my grandkids, is that children long to help. They are naturally happy when they are included in the tasks at hand. Good parents provide their children the opportunity to help so they can develop this capacity. By the same token, shouldn’t our economy provide people the opportunity to be productive on behalf of their communities – not just work for the sake of buying more stuff? The Community Orchard does just that – it provides an opportunity to do meaningful work in the context of meaningful relationships. It is a celebration of a world in which people value relationships over things.

The world we want will also be sustainable and resilient. In such a world, the economy works to sustain community and the environment, unlike the economy we now have which feeds off community and environment but doesn’t give back. In truth, what we usually think of as the economy is only a small set of the activities by which we produce, distribute and exchange the resources we use to meet our needs for a healthy and happy life. When you build an orchard, and even when you put on event to celebrate the opening of the orchard, you are producing, distributing and exchanging resources that the community needs to thrive. Sure you can buy fruit and vegetables at the super market - but you can’t build friendships or community and you are not caring for the plants and soil in exchange for the many services they provide such as generating bio-diversity and cleaning the air and water. The work you do here in this orchard is a celebration of the sustainable and resilient community economy we want.

The world we want to live in is in which the community and local government are partners – one that doesn’t put up barriers to people participating in the new economy. Yesterday, I read this story about a woman in a city that shall remain nameless (not this one!) who is being threatened – you are going to find this hard to believe – she is being threatened with jail for putting a vegetable garden in her front yard. Now, she only put the vegetables in after the town had already ripped up her front yard to put in a sewer line. And after she put it in, there were kids in the neighborhood coming over to learn about gardening. But the city she lived in found her in violation of local code that deemed only lawns, ground cover, shrubbery or “other suitable live plant material” were permissible for unpaved areas. Luckily, we don’t live there. Instead, we are lucky to live in a city that takes urban agriculture seriously and has adapted its codes to support urban agriculture. And it helps fund projects that teach people how to grow vegetables. This orchard is a celebration of a (forgive the pun) fruitful partnership between community and local government.

Finally, the world we want to live in is one that cultivates a strong sense of place and belonging. There is a huge danger from an economy in which people don’t feel like they are included. Why should anyone care what happens to the community’s resources, if they feel that they don’t have a place in that community or its economy. Community economies, that is, economies which are embedded in community, can provide people this sense of place and belonging by connecting what it is we have to what it is we need. Self-provision at the local level is the essence of a community economy. It is also the foundation for creating places where we all can feel that our needs are met – a place we can call home. I am sure that all of you feel that this orchard is home and that so many others in the community will come to know it and celebrate it as their home too.

Thank you again so much for asking me to celebrate the choices you have made on behalf of the world we all want.

I now want to introduce the woman who helps you do the magnificent work you do. She is your orchard manager, Laura Sweany.

Read more!  Network Weaving Training Program

Registration closed for 2011.  To find out about future trainings, contact Viki Sonntag (206 781 2726/vikis@ecopraxis.org) or Bill Aal (206 329 2201/waal@toolsforchange.org).

The Case for Building a Small-Scale Regional Food Distribution Network in NW Washington State

With the rapid growth of farmers markets and other direct sales market channels, it’s easy to assume that the challenge of connecting local farmers to consumers has been solved. Yet, while direct sales and farmers markets are the touchstones of eating locally grown food, they are not enough – on their own – to grow a sustainable regional food system. Putting local food production on a sound economic footing will also take an efficient, yet adaptable means of getting locally grown food to market.

This white paper makes the case for building a small-scale food distribution network in Northwest Washington as the next step in achieving community food security. Recent research points to three particular benefits of focusing on this need.

Increasing Efficiency: Currently, small sustainable farmers, who are the backbone of the local/regional food system, transport their own product to off-farm markets. Over three-quarters of the state’s small farms sell their product exclusively in-state but only 10% of those farms use distributors to do so.

Because small farmers carry fewer pounds per trip, make more trips, and use less fuel-efficient vehicles, their fuel consumption is equal or greater than that of conventional distributors on a per pound basis, even though the food travels fewer miles to market. On-farm sales also have large carbon footprints as many customers travel separately to the farms.

A distribution network that would coordinate delivery of the small volume lots that characterize local production would result in greater trip efficiency. Further efficiencies could be found by investing in distribution infrastructure, such as cold storage facilities, that would reduce the need for frequent trips.

Increasing Capacity: In a survey of Washington State small farms on their distribution practices, two thirds of the respondents cited not having enough time as a barrier to entering new market channels or expanding production for existing channels. Making it easier for farmers to distribute product would leave them more time to farm, thereby significantly increasing the supply of local food. As a case in point, in 2007, less than a third of the fruit and vegetable farm acreage in King County was harvested.

It is also clear that the more distant a farm is from the central market hub of Seattle, the less likely it is producing for the regional market. King County fruit and vegetable farmers sell 98% of their output into the fresh market, while Snohomish County farmers sell more than half of their output for processing. An efficient regional distribution system would diminish some of the disadvantages of being located at a distance from Seattle.

Increasing Access: Access to fresh food has emerged as a top health priority as the personal and social costs of treating diet-related diabetes and heart diseases has soared. Local food is about as fresh as you can get.

The demand for local food is there: nearly 3/4ths of King County households buy local food once or more a month and there is a significant willingness to buy local among many different segments of the population not already doing so. To meet this demand, we need to make it economically viable for food purveyors – restaurants, grocers, institutional buyers, and the emergency food system – to offer local food options. Streamlining small-scale distribution is crucial to this goal.

In a 2006 study, Central Puget Sound buyers cited the lack of an efficient delivery system for locally produced food as the major challenge to increasing local purchasing. For restaurants, the extra time and cost of multiple transactions with local suppliers is highly inconvenient compared to ordering from non-local distributors who carry complete product lines.

Why Now?

There are many indications that building a small-scale regional distribution network is the critical next step in achieving community food security. Right now, the lack of a small-scale distribution system – keyed to the needs of local farmers and their customers – is a bottleneck to increasing local production for local consumption. Without such a system, farmers are unlikely to meet the increasing demand for sustainably and regionally produced food.

What Next?

A small team will be formed to begin seeking input from local food economy stakeholders on how to put a small-scale regional distribution network into operation – in a way that supports small farmers instead of putting them into competition with industrial producers. If you are interested to participate in this effort, please contact us at: vikis@ecopraxis.org.

So how do we develop shared understandings across the boundaries arising from our different experiences? One way is to listen deeply to each other, allowing for everyone’s truth and making space for diverse expressions of those truths – yes, data and analysis, but also story, visual pictures, and creative action. We can also open doors to shared understanding through participating in the processes of knowledge creation.

In our work with communities around the Puget Sound region, EcoPraxis repeatedly hears of the need for data that will support grassroots community building and sustainable development. But technical and cultural barriers to using data for this purpose abound. Data democracy is about developing grassroots capacity to access, collect, analyze, interpret and use data in ways that meet community needs.

We will be on the watch for examples of this but one that comes to mind immediately is the research Sustainable Belltown is doing on container gardening. While growing food for their neighborhood food bank, they are also taking and analyzing data on the yield of these gardens. This data will be valuable as we explore urban possibilities to address climate change.

Spending involves a choice about the kind of future we want to have.  The report explains why we should care about our spendingchoices when it comes to sustainability.  The report describes the dollar flows and economic linkages of food-related businesses in the Central Puget Sound region of Washington State.  The research indicates that more and stronger local linkages provide for a healthier, more diverse and resilient community economy.

A model of a relationship-based economy emerges from the study.  Click here to read the study:  Why Local Linkages Matter: Findings from the Local Food Economy Study

The idea of EcoPraxis grew out of my many years work in knowledge and technology resource development.  In the 1990s, I led the planning and start-up of two manufacturing extension centers that helped hundreds of small companies and community-based organizations achieve their goals.  One of these centers - the Recycling Technology Assistance Partnership (ReTAP) - became a national resource for recycling technology-related tools and information.  Watching small enterprises struggle to grow to compete made me question the wisdom of the industrial growth model.

Shortly after receiving my PhD in economics in 2003, I began laying the groundwork for EcoPraxis.  My doctoral thesis, Speed, Scale, and Sustainability, looked at over-consumption in the advanced industrialized countries in relation to the “economies of speed” that came from the introduction of information technology into production.   Towards the end of writing my thesis, I began to see the opportunity to reorganize production for the promotion of our collective well-being through economic re-localization.  Influenced by the great economist Karl Polanyi,  I adopted the term “community economies”, coined by the Marxist geographers Julie Graham and Katherine Gibson, to describe the focus of my work.

In 2004 and 05, I led a number of community workshops on economics as if community matters and began building relationships.  Each project with others has offered a wealth of insights into the conviction that it takes us all.  As a result, EcoPraxis has placed a deliberate emphasis on developing frameworks and processes that are inclusive of diverse experiences and perspectives.

It’s been highly rewarding work.  One particular highlight has been the Local Food Economy Study I undertook for Sustainable Seattle which marked a turning point for EcoPraxis.  It was the first full-scale community-based participatory or grassroots research project I had undertaken, a definite departure from the research approach my economics professors taught!

In the last few years I have been particularly gratified by the growth of EcoPraxis’ network of collaborators.  EcoPraxis has benefited hugely from a strong and supportive board.  Our impassioned conversations have made us realize that EcoPraxis’ work is also about creating spaces for community learning to take place.  The next stage of EcoPraxis’ development will involve seeding experiments in sustainble community economic devolpment.

It is also hoped that the inception of this blog opens EcoPraxis to wider participation by creating a platform for meaningful conversations about how we can reorganize the production-consumption system for greater economic justice and sustainability.  Please join us in this conversation.

deep bows, Viki Sonntag, Founding Director