Sunday, October 4, 2009

Starting a Farmers Agricultural Cooperative in TN.

Wow! A lot has been going on here! Besides preparing for winter and doing Fall projects, homeschool, etc., I have been helping a little with a huge project that my husband has been working on for several months!
This month that project is in full swing and Praise The Lord it is starting out really well! The project is to start a Farmers Agricultural cooperative in this county that will give tons of jobs to this county and surrounding counties and maybe take off across the country! It really amazes me to think about all the people who have a job, by just having a processing facility in the area and anyone who wants to grow stuff can grow as much as they can handle, and sawmills can make crates and pallets, and it just goes on and on! Really, anyone who wants to work Can!
We hope to have a processing building where produce can be delivered by the farmers/growers, it can be crated and then shipped to farmers markets, wholesalers, etc. The processing building would be run off of a solar energy, which we would install since we happen to be in the solar installation business! We have already installed a lot of solar stuff and one big system for a house, my husband has the experience in electrical, and a lot or engeinering etc. I am really enjoying learning about the solar and believe that it will play a huge part in future energy. The prices for solar systems are very high, but if more companies made and distributed solar, I think it would go down a lot.
Anyways, last Thursday night was the first meeting. It was just husband and I who set it all up, which was a lot of work! We introduced this idea and the effort to the people of the community. About 50 people were there and they were very excited and engaged! PTL! By the end of the meeting 4 people volunteered as the steering committee and we picked one as the head chair of the committee. My husband had a meeting with the head chair yesterday, they are having another meeting Mon. And we hope to have a huge Charter membership drive over the next week or so and another meeting for gathering members and signatures of support. Right now we have to have all the support that we can get to make this happen!
Prayers that this all works out the way God wants it to are appreciated!
And if you know of anyone near this area who would like to support this effort please let them know about it!
Here is an article that my husband got published in the local paper for the last meeting, if you would like to read it!

1 comment:

  1. Good luck! I can imagine how challenging this will be, but I think any efforts that rebuild local infrastructure and sense of community are well worth the effort.

    ReplyDelete