by David Parkinson
With all the interest in local food, isn’t it odd that there’s no not-for-profit organisation in the region which aims to help regular folks become more self-reliant in food production, processing, and storage? Many people are interested in learning how to grow more food and how to preserve and store that food but it can be overwhelming to tackle all of this on your own. Why not create a formal structure to bring people together to cooperate: to share knowledge, skills, and ideas; to own equipment such as a cider press or rototiller collectively; to work together to growing crops to be divided up among the participants? To unleash the creative energy of people who are passionate about local food economy?
We’re on the verge of filling that gap: by the time you read this, the Skookum Food Provisioners’ Cooperative will have applied for incorporation as a community service cooperative, the BC government’s designation for a not-for-profit cooperative. This means that all profits resulting from the activities of the cooperative will go to fund the operations of the cooperative, or to worthy community projects.
Once incorporated, we can sign up members and get to work. Within three months, we will hold a general meeting to elect directors from among our members. There’s already a buzz about the projects we want to take on: how about a common potato patch, for starters? We’ve also been talking with Anne Michaels, coordinator of the Fruit Tree Project, to see how we can pick and process even more fruit this year. The only limit is the imagination and ambition of our members!
Why did we decide to incorporate as a cooperative rather than a society? Cooperatives are member-driven organisations with a high degree of democracy and accountability, formed to bring people together to do things individuals cannot easily do on their own. Self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity are core cooperative values. Societies can also explicitly adopt these values, but a cooperative by its very nature must do so. We like that.
We are incorporating as a not-for-profit cooperative because we believe that food is a fundamental right that members of the community can and should control democratically and openly. Everyone wins in a strong and just local food economy.
The purpose of the Cooperative is to help its members acquire and share the knowledge, skills, and resources to grow, gather, raise, and catch healthful food as locally as possible; to preserve, store, prepare, and share the bounty; and to build a strong community and a diverse local food economy based on mutual support, fair prices, living wages, and respect for the natural systems which sustain life.
In a nutshell, we hope to create a thriving network of people helping people to share ideas, acquire knowledge, learn new skills, get access to shared tools and equipment, and come together to produce and preserve more food for everyone. We want to lower the barriers preventing people from taking control of their own food: spending time, acquiring new skills, buying tools and equipment… all of these will be so much easier with a supportive group of fellow foodies seeking to become more self-reliant while creating a community that feeds itself.
Want to know more? Please email us at
info@skookumfood.ca.
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