View source for Community Enterprises in the Food Sector

'''Report: Thinking and Practising Values: [[Community Enterprises in the Food Sector]]. By Jenny Cameron et al. Centre for Urban and Regional Studies. The University of Newcastle, 2008'''

URL = http://www.communityeconomies.org/papers/comecon/jcameron01.pdf


=Excerpts=


==Typology of Transactions==

There are a variety of alternative and non-market transactions. 

For example, Beanstalk and Food Connect are Community Supported Agriculture initiatives,
which means they develop direct relationships with farmers, rather than indirect
relationships that are mediated through the wholesale fruit and vegetable markets (see
Row 2). As will be discussed in other parts of this document, this direct connection
means that the enterprises recognise their interdependence with the farmers and
actively seek to build relationships that reflect this interdependence. Imago Forest is
based on a Community Supporting Agriculture model, which again is based on building
a direct relationship between farm producer and consumers.

There are also a range of non-market transactions. Fig Tree is characterised
by various forms of gift-giving. For example, neighbours and local restaurants gift their
waste to the chickens and the worm farm, a local mowing service gifts their grass
clippings to the compost piles. The garden itself is a gift for people to use—people
drop by to pick the evening’s salad, a home school group uses the site for educational
activities, the beekeeper who monitors the port keeps his hives on the site, people turn
up every second Friday evening or the last Sunday in the month for pizza cooked in the
pizza oven (and for the pizza, people bring gifts of food and the garden itself contributes
its produce). There is also self-provisioning with participants in the Sustaining our
Suburbs project growing fruit and vegetables for their own consumption.


==Typology of Labour Arrangements==

In terms of labour arrangements, people are “paid” for their labour in a
variety of ways. For example, City Cousins who are the distribution centres for Food
Connect are remunerated through discounted produce. At Beanstalk people
who volunteer (on tasks such as cleaning up, setting up, working on the newsletter)
receive free produce (usually 1 free box for each month of volunteering). At Fig
Tree people who are on the weekly roster looking after the chooks (chickens) are
remunerated in the eggs they collect. At Sustaining our Suburbs volunteers receive a
cash payment of either $30 a day or $15 for ½ day, not enough to constitute a wage but
a sum of money that recognises the contribution of volunteers. Most of the enterprises
also use volunteer labour, ranging from the actual labour of running the enterprise
(e.g. Organic Buyers Group and Food for the Future) through to behind the scenes
organisational work on committees of management (e.g. Fig Tree and Beanstalk).


In terms of the structures of the enterprises, Imago Forest and Food Connect can
be characterised as alternative capitalist enterprises. Food Connect has a company
structure, but with not for profit articles. So unlike other capitalist enterprises it
is not driven by profit-maximisation (and as will be discussed throughout this
document, there are other concerns that drive Food Connect). 

Similarly Imago Forest operates as a social business guided by a social ethic:
Julian Lee (Imago Forest): 

''- For me a social business would only charge the True Price for goods and services. This is calculated by working
out the actual costs of production, including labour and any overheads to keep the business running now and in the future. Not more. Not less. On books, the company may show a small profit but this is just to ensure its future stability. Its purpose is not to make money but to have demonstrable social outcomes."''

As an incorporated association with a strong emphasis on communal and selfdirected
work, Fig Tree is a non-capitalist enterprise. And Beanstalk and the
Organic Buyers Group are also non-capitalist forms of enterprise with a focus on
communal and cooperative principles.


==Diverse Economic Practices Shaped by Values==

The diverse economic practices that characterise these community enterprises
are shaped by the enterprises’ values, particularly their social and environmental
values. Indeed, this is a defining characteristic of community enterprises—
economic practices serve social and environmental goals.

To take one example, The Beanstalk Organic Food uses volunteering as its primary
form of labour, and has only one paid worker. For Beanstalk, the economic practice
of volunteering serves a number of social goals. 

As one member of Beanstalk
explains, organic food is only one element of the enterprise:

''- Rhyall Gordon (Beanstalk): [I]t’s not just about individual health reasons, it’s about healthy communities and people participating.''

For Beanstalk volunteering is a way of building healthy communities and
encouraging people to participate:

Rhyall Gordon (Beanstalk): [W]e’re mostly volunteer based and that in itself is an ethic and something we want to promote from a kind of community development point of view.

But volunteering also enables Beanstalk to achieve another goal—providing
affordable organic food:

- Rhyall Gordon (Beanstalk). ''The idea of participation, in terms of Beanstalk, it’s a big issue for us, and the purpose of participation, because essentially the fact that we have volunteering is the reason why we have affordable organic food.''

So in Beanstalk volunteering is an economic practice that serves multiple goals—
participation, community building and affordability.

Like Beanstalk, the other Community Supported Agriculture initiative, Food
Connect, also has affordability as one of its goals, but it uses a very different
economic mechanism to achieve this. In Food Connect consumers have to
purchase a minimum of four weeks boxes in advance, as this guarantees markets
and an income for farmers, even if crops fail. So unlike Beanstalk where consumers
can pay on the day (or a week in advance), Food Connect has to find a different
strategy to incorporate low income households. Through a scheme developed
in conjunction with Foresters ANA Friendly Society, low income earners can pay
weekly but over four months they pay an extra $2 a week. By the end of the four
months they have accumulated enough to start buying a month’s subscription in
advance. So this Food for All scheme gives low income households a chance to
catch up with other households and buy advance subscriptions.

For Food Connect the advance purchase of produce is a way of enacting the
Community Supported Agriculture goal of building strong relationships between
consumers and producers. 

Because Beanstalk has a pay on the day (or a week in
advance) system, it uses different economic practices to build relationships with
farmers, for example:

- Rhyall Gordon (Beanstalk): We’re very keen on the idea of Community
Supported Agriculture … and for us it’s just that idea of building better
relationships with the farmers. We’ve done quite few things already, quite
small, but I guess they’re first steps for us. Just this winter there was one
of our farmers who suffered quite a bit with the rains and we on average
were paying him about $400 a week. What he could supply to us dropped
and what we did was just to continue to pay the $400 so it was our way
of trying to support him through difficult times. And he returns that favour,
or whatever you want to call it, in many ways. So there’s a very good
relationship there and we want to try and develop that across the board.
And there’s different things we do as well in terms of working bees for
farmers. We go out and plant garlic and work in the farms and stuff like
that. And one time we went to a struggling farmer where there was a bit
of a crisis after floods and weeds and stuff like that. So as another form
of Community Supported Agriculture there’s an opportunity for a group of
labourers who can go out and support farmers, and that’s something we
want to expand.

So Beanstalk has helped farmers who are in difficulty by gifting money and
organising volunteer labour.

In these two examples, very different economic practices are being used to
achieve the same outcomes of affordability and fostering strong relationships
between consumers and producers. The one key difference is that Beanstalk
has a community development emphasis and encourages civic participation via
volunteerism. Whereas Food Connect has a social and economic justice emphasis
and provides work opportunities for marginalised groups. As part of this social and
economic justice focus, equity is a key value and this is reflected in the practice
of having only two pay scales for all workers ($15 or $17 per hour) irrespective of
people’s background and ability.

What is important here is not that one approach to Community Supported Agriculture
is better than the other; rather, the two approaches are equally valid with each being
shaped by the distinctive values of the enterprise (participation and volunteerism in
the case of Beanstalk, and social and economic justice and equity in the case of Food
Connect). These two enterprises therefore demonstrate ethical economic decision
making. In other words, they demonstrate how choices, or decisions, about economic
practices are shaped by the overriding values, or ethics, of the enterprise.

Each of the community enterprises represented at the workshop engages in ethical
economic decision making. For example, in Imago Forest, the practice of True
Pricing—of charging enough to cover all necessary costs plus a small amount of
“profit” to sustain the enterprise into the future—is an ethical economic decision
to foster a mutually beneficial and supporting relationship between farmer and
consumer. In Sustaining our Suburbs, the practice of paying volunteers a small sum
of money for a full or half day’s work is an ethical economic decision that reflects the
values of social and economic justice.

Ethical economic decision making is not something that occurs only once in the life of
a community enterprise; ethical economic decision making is an ongoing process. For
example, Fig Tree Community Garden started with the intention of developing a place
for people, where values could be nurtured and developed:

- Craig Manhood (Fig Tree): We actually started [Fig Tree] with no thoughts about money, it was more about the community involvement and what it gave to people in terms of values and what people learnt. An example of just a really basic outcome would be all the kids that just come and look at the chickens and go “Wow!” and that’s it.

The emphasis on fostering community, means that the enterprise is based on
economic practices like gift giving, with garden plots being shared and people
encouraged to take what they need (even neighbours and passer-bys who don’t
contribute to the gardening). At times, however, Fig Tree has contemplated taking
a more commercial and market oriented approach, such as selling more produce
to raise revenue for materials and equipment. But the concern is that this will
compromise the values and character of the garden:

Bill Robertson (Fig Tree): As soon as we start charging … does that kill
the magic?

So far, the decision has been to steer away from a commercial focus. In so doing,
the ethical economic decision has been to prioritise the social values associated
with gifting even if it compromises other aspects of the enterprise’s operations
(such as holding off on purchasing materials and equipment, or finding other
ways to secure needed inputs). Nevertheless, Fig Tree may well return to this
ethical economic decision and reconsider whether to develop more commercial
activities, and if so, how such activities might be developed so they match the
values of enterprise, or indeed, whether the values of the enterprise might need
to be modified to accommodate a more commercial orientation. These types of
considerations are the ethical economic decisions that community enterprises are
always engaged in.

These ethical economic decisions mean that enterprises can end up with an array
of economic practices—and not just practices like paid work, volunteering and
gifting, that sit comfortably with ideas of community. 


Ethical economic decision
making can sometimes mean accommodating what might be described as
economic misbehaviour, like theft:

Ann Hill (The Australian National University): What sort of values, like
equity, and trust, how important are those for Fig Tree?

''- Craig Manhood (Fig Tree): Oh, paramount. But then if people breach that, so what?''

- Bill Robertson (Fig Tree): We deliberately haven’t had a problem if
someone comes along and takes some vegetables then that’s good,
isn’t it? That’s what it’s about. We had one instance where we found one
person taking lots of pumpkins and selling them. But you know, so what.
Robert Pekin (Food Connect): Yeah we have the same attitude. If
someone’s broken in and stolen a lot of money well obviously they need
the money. That’s a social problem not their problem.


Ethical economic decision making can also mean taking a more hard line stance and
saying “No” to potential clients or negotiating relationships so they match the values
of the community enterprise:

- Robert Pekin (Food Connect): Yeah, if you’re dealing with politicians or
corporates, we won’t have anything to do with a corporate that doesn’t
want to be judged at those higher levels. So you can go to the mission
statement and look at the mission statement and point it out to them and
say … “Unless you’re willing to deal with us at that level then we’ll go and
talk to someone else”. So you’re always, all the time, being hard-nosed
about those higher values. And then lots of discussion comes out of that,
lots of learnings—even if nothing comes out of it in terms of a material
contract or partnership or alliance, it’s always pushing.
[For example,] we’re in a partnership with Connell Wager, a big
engineering firm that deals with lots of mines. And they want us to supply
fruit because we give them a tick in the Buying Local box, and also
taking all their food scraps back, and it’s a great resource. It completes
the cycle for us. It’s a fantastic win for us. But I’m not going anywhere
with them until we can actually have an impact with all of their CEOs, all
their management staff, about what real sustainability is, and a chance
to speak. So they said “Righto, we want you to come in at these various
times”. We want also to cater for them at the highest level. So we sort
of look at that top line … we want to filter our values up ... [and] through
that catering event they experience something different. That experience,
whether it’s through osmosis or through verbal, is something - we won’t
do anything with them until they’re open to saying “Yes you can do this
and yes you can do that”.

This ethical economic decision making is by no means easy, particularly when an
enterprise is reliant on external relationships, as one participant describes:
Pablo Gimenez (The Brotherhood of St Laurence): [Y]ou have to have
really good strong ethics and systems in place to be able to say “No,
we’re not going to take your money because of x, y and z”.

Most agencies will take the money and not even think about who they are
dealing with. And a lot of that is because of the pressure that they just
want to continue or there’s a lot of paid staff involved.

This dilemma is particularly evident in the UK with the move away from community
enterprises that are relatively autonomous to an emphasis on social enterprises as a
means of delivering funded services for government:

- John Pearce: I think in the UK but perhaps not unique to the UK, when governments start seeing social enterprises as a useful tool to deliver services then it puts people into quite a difficult situation because it compromises the independence that they seek, or have sought in the past.

With community and social enterprises attracting more government attention in
Australia ethical economic decisions about funding sources may well become more of
a concern in the future (see also Barraket, 2008).1
What emerges from the discussion is an understanding of how the diverse economic
practices that characterise the enterprises have been developed to reflect the
enterprises’ values. Through this ongoing process of ethical economic decision
making the enterprises are redefining what we usually imagine the economy as being.

They use regular paid work and market transactions, arrangements that sit in Row
1 of Figure 1, and they also use the diverse practices in Rows 2 and 3. They are
innovating with this economic diversity in order to foster interconnections between
people, sustain communities, address issues of social and economic inequity, and
develop environmental practices.

==Diverse Legal Structures Shaped by Values==

As well as innovating with economic practices, community enterprises innovate with
legal structures and governance arrangements as a means of reflecting values. 

For example, Food Connect is a Proprietary Limited Company (Pty Ltd), but with not for
profit articles:

- Robert Pekin: We’re a Proprietary Limited Company. And I’m the only
shareholder or I was [as employees are in the process of becoming
shareholders]. We wrote into the constitution that this business is not for
sale and this business is not to benefit anyone individually from a profit
point of view … And what we’ve created is a really unique little model.
We don’t have to have a board. Not for profits have to have a board. So
we have a Board of Concerned Elders who are then freed up to not think
about legal and fiscal responsibility to the rest of the community; us as
the employees all do that. So now we’ve got five people who are about
to become shareholders and then the rest of Food Connect will become
shareholders in that Pty Ltd with not for profit articles.

Some community enterprises like Fig Tree Community Garden operate as an
incorporated association (which again means that the enterprise is not for profit). Like
Food Connect with its Board of Concerned Elders, Fig Tree also innovates with the
requirements for incorporated associations in order to reflect the values of the garden:

''- Bill Robertson (Fig Tree): [W]e have the Annual General Eating rather than the Annual General Meeting, and Fun Raising Committees rather than Fund Raising Committees. That sort of language is really important.''


The other community enterprises have no legal structure. 

For example:

- Julian Lee (Organic Buyers Group): They’re just bunches of people who get together each fortnight.


This approach of informal governance is even supported by advisory groups:

- Rhyall Gordon (Beanstalk): And I spoke to the Association of
Cooperatives and we had a great conversation and at the end they
advised me that we probably don’t need to incorporate. There’s not any
advantages and in many ways there’s more risks. We’re going to have to
spend more money on insurance and so on.

So in each of these examples, the community enterprises are using their legal
structure or governance arrangements to match their values."
(http://www.communityeconomies.org/papers/comecon/jcameron01.pdf)

[[Category:Governance]]

[[Category:Business]]