Slow Money – Investing As If Food, Farms, and Fertility Mattered

From the web site of Slow Money Alliance (SMALL for short):

In a world in which there is no such thing as money that is too fast, a company that is too big, or intermediation that is too complex, we find ourselves asking:

Can investing in local food systems offer an authentic alternative?

If organic farming and small food enterprises are key to the health of the economy, society, and the soil, why do they receive so little funding from government, philanthropy, or capital markets?

Could a million American families get their food from CSA’s (Community Supported Agriculture)?

This is a call to action, a call to design new capital markets built not around extraction and consumption, but around preservation and restoration. The vision: billions of dollars a year supporting tens of thousands of independent, local-first enterprises at the base of the restorative economy.

Slow Money’s mission is to support small food enterprises that preserve and restore soil fertility, appropriate-scale organic farming and local food communities;

To catalyze increases in foundation grant-making and mission-related investing in support of sustainable and local economies; and,

To incubate next-generation socially responsible investment strategies, integrating principles of carrying capacity, care of the commons, sense of place, cultural and biological diversity, and non-violence.

Central to the mission is the building of regional stakeholder networks – consisting of food entrepreneurs, NGO leaders, farmers, and investors committed to financing local food systems.

Slow Money institutes bring together 50 to 100 of these individuals in each region to assess strategies for investing in local food systems in their communities.

The Slow Money Alliance is building the social capital that will enable the effective deployment of financial capital. This network of early-adopters — comprised of leaders in sustainable agriculture, organic food, social investing and philanthropy — is providing seed capital and strategic support for the core operations of Slow Money.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T28HuOcNNw[/youtube]

Over time, the Alliance will provide critical dealflow, coinvestment, and technical assistance relationships.

“I’ve been saying for years that we need to feed the soil, not the plant–Slow Money is about feeding the soil of the economy.”
–Eliot Coleman, farmer and author of The New Organic Gardener and Four Season Harvest

Away For The Weekend and Not At Work!

Finally… PROOF! Sherri and Ron somewhere else. At the same time. Together.

Here we are at the end of the jetty at Surfside.

Angleton must have been a pretty cool place to grow up. You could ride your bike everywhere, including the beach!

Our weekend turned out well. The weather was great, if a bit windy. I think I like the beach in winter, though the water is too cold to get in for very long.

We had great seafood at a place called the Red Snapper. Not much for ambience, I guess, although the painted OSB walls were an upgrade (after hurricane Ike) from the painted plywood that Ron remembered.

We were there for the food, anyhow, not the decor.

And it was all really good.

Started with fried oysters (not for me… yick, but Ron said they were great) and some crab-stuffed jalepeno poppers. Next was Red Snapper a la Greque, and finished with Key Lime pie.

The only thing that could have been improved was the iceburg lettuce salad. It’s evidently difficult in that area to get something green to eat. We’re spoiled, but we survived… and went back for lunch the next day!

The Awakening Conference

Wow. It’s not often we get such an amazing slate of folks as are gonna be in San Marcos next month.

The Awakening Conference will be held at the Embassy Suites Hotel in San Marcos, February 26 – March 1.

There are way too many to mention (this page would just look like one long list), but here are a few:

Dr. Patch Adams

Rhonda Britten

Dan Millman

Don Miguel Ruiz

Neale Donald Walsh

Sophie Uliano

Marianne Williamson

Dr. Joe Vitale

And if you register online, you can save $50!     For more info, call (toll free) 877-347-7799.

If you can’t attend, take a look at Dr. Joe Vitale’s new Awakening Course to download to your computer.