The Lodestar Grassroots Food Co-Op:
From Dream to Market
Creating a Year-Round Food Producing Source for 5 Families
The inception of the Lodestar Grassroots Food Co-Op which officially began in 2011 was a conversation in our living room with neighbors who had small gardens. We were struggling to find a way to have fresh produce year round. We knew we would need some kind of greenhouse as well as a root cellar. We knew the project would require a good supply of water year round. As it happened, Lodestar Gardens purchased a large greenhouse, what is known in these parts as a High Tunnel – 35’X72’X15’ with a roll of Solexx covering. Everyone present agreed to help build the tunnel for the following planting year. It took another year to begin planting in the tunnel. Five households were stakeholders in the concept. The Lodestar Food Co-Op was born.
The immediate purpose for a mini co-op at Lodestar Gardens is to utilize existing space, facilities and human resources (labor) for the purpose of producing food for the grower-participants. Not money, but time and energy is the currency of exchange in this endeavor to create a source of year-round local food. Our Co-Op is self-organized utilizing a democratic process wherein all the participants have a voice in decisions concerning: what produce will be grown, how the food will be harvested, processed, and distributed, developing value-adding features to our activities, defining growing bed responsibilities, garden contact time commitments, and items of participant accountability.
Co-Op members have been growing in the Tunnel every season, winter and summer, since 2012. Food for labor, no fees, self-governing this Co-Op now serves as an incubator for future growers to begin their own gardens at their homes and to amass support to start their own food co-op in their immediate neighborhood.
Fourteen years later, we now have three former members who started their own co-ops with neighbors, family, and church groups. The ultimate goal would be that each co-op will grow a surplus of what it grows best and bring that surplus to market where the combined co-op produce can offer a variety of food to our immediate community. In what has been officially recognized as a food desert, an area devoid of adequate food for its population, we have created the potential for a food hub, independent of grocery store and food bank trucks coming up our mountain to deliver food from afar. The living room talk of having fresh produce year round that took place 14 years ago is a reality.
We offer free consultation for anyone who would like to start their own co-op in their area.