Slow Money Part II: What is the solution?

The farmer says to the investment banker- "why not stay a while? Let's talk beets"

Slow Money pertains that the solution to decreasing soil fertility, bloated stock markets, and over produced commodities is one of small and local investment. Slow money is what happens after we have figured out that industrial agriculture and industrial investment have left our soils, farms, and communities depleted. Slow money quite literally "slows" down money to a place where it can impact local economy and support local farmers in a very real way. It takes investment and finance out of huge unwieldy world systems and puts them back into small and recognizable local systems.

Woody Tasch started as a venture capitalist and entrepreneur, and knows intimately the underbelly of conventional financial system. Ultimately he recognized that the system he was working under was not ideal, and slow money is an attempt to reconcile that. There are many kinds of capital, and slow money attempts to recognize and develop social capital as well as financial capital. What this means is that the idea of investing changes from a double digit return, to a return in social cohesion, a return in fertile land, and a return to integrated local food. The idea is that many people invest a little bit, or even a few people investing quite a bit, in order to see these things happen. The principles; as taken from the website are as follow

"I. We must bring money back down to earth.

II. There is such a thing as money that is too fast, companies that are too big, finance that is too complex. Therefore, we must slow our money down -- not all of it, of course, but enough to matter.

III. The 20th Century was the era of Buy Low/Sell High and Wealth Now/Philanthropy Later—what one venture capitalist called “the largest legal accumulation of wealth in history.” The 21st Century will be the era of nurture capital, built around principles of carrying capacity, care of the commons, sense of place and non-violence.

IV. We must learn to invest as if food, farms and fertility mattered. We must connect investors to the places where they live, creating vital relationships and new sources of capital for small food enterprises.

V. Let us celebrate the new generation of entrepreneurs, consumers and investors who are showing the way from Making A Killing to Making a Living.

VI. Paul Newman said, "I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer who puts back into the soil what he takes out." Recognizing the wisdom of these words, let us begin rebuilding our economy from the ground up, asking:

* What would the world be like if we invested 50% of our assets within 50 miles of where we live?
* What if there were a new generation of companies that gave away 50% of their profits?
* What if there were 50% more organic matter in our soil 50 years from now?"

By supporting local farming we support local economy, and the health of our food system and also the health of our community. Rather than sending our money in overseas stock trades, we are sending our money to family farms and a vibrant agriculture.

Find out more by checking out Tasch's book or the website www.slowmoneyalliance.com.

Slow Money Part 1 "What is the problem?"

So a farmer and an investment banker walk into a bar….
What would they say to one another?

This is the question that forms the foundation of the Slow Money movement started by Woody Tasch. We live in a time in which large farms and big business are par for the course and yet our soils are becoming depleted and the quality and nutrition of our foods lessen with every pesticide application.

Soft commodities (agricultural products that are perceived to have the same quality no matter who produces it) account for a large portion of the stock market and an even larger percentage of what farmers in the United States are growing. The issue is partly due to poor policy. In the farm bill farmers are paid subsidies based on per bushel quotas, and there are virtually no subsidies for farmers growing fresh produce outside of corn, wheat, and soy. These are often over-produced and then manufactured into stranger yet food-like products (cue high fructose corn syrup). Yet, the expectations of consumers and investors has been one of ever cheaper food and higher returns, so the subsidies continue to flow and farmers continue to grow more food faster. It all adds up to a system that recklessly seeks profit before sustainability. The USDA subsidies the top 10% of recipients with 74% of the entire allotment of subsidies. This means that the big farmers, the ones holding the largest tracks of land with the most technology get the greatest amount of money to continue doing what they are already doing- growing global commodities of corn, wheat, and soy. Farmers with thousands of acres would find it difficult to have the time, nor inclination to walk their land and identify the source of pest problems or create modes of growing companion plants together to avoid them in the first place. It is more efficient to grow acres and acres of mono-culture and then spray the entire thing. Eventually this kind of intensive industrial farming erodes the soil as well as being a questionable practice for the health of workers and consumers.

The buy low sell high mentality of investment, the mentality that drives the farm bill and commodity trading, has to change in some way if we are going to change the way food is grown. Big business principles which in the last half century have directed the movement of money have begun to show an inherent weakness. In past year, the financial meltdown bore witnesses to institutions that were thought to be bullet proof crumble before our very eyes. The current recession teaches us that we cannot expect the same return on investments that was standard even a few years ago, and that a different kind of investment strategy must evolve. The kind of unlimited growth preached by the stock market is simply unsustainable. There is also the sense of meaninglessness in the practice. If investors sole purpose is to accumulate as much wealth as possible, then what? They have no connection to the place or processes that helped create their wealth. I may be an optimist, but I believe that people have an innate desire to be part of something bigger. If money makes the world go round, why not make it go round in a trajectory that honors our land and local economies and people?

Two of our Feed Denver principles had the privilege to attend the Slow Money conference in Vermont this past week. They came back inspired and ready to put some of the Slow Money principles to work. Could you invest some of your money to see local and sustainable agriculture work profitably? There are opportunities right here in your own city. Feed Denver is working to create city wide urban agriculture, one that will provide healthy fresh foods grown by people, not machines or wall-street.

Written By: Julie Malinsky, Feed Denver's Jill of all trades http://hapticityandcitizen.blogspot.com/