Social currency MUDA makes organic food accessible to many families in Brazil
The Muda Other Economies Network (Rede Muda Outras Economias) created a model where people can earn the MUDA social currency by performing conscious actions or exchanges on the platform. These coins can be used to buy organic food in several places in Brazil, such as Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Anápolis, and Florianópolis.
The Muda Network, a development network that seeks to experiment with other economies based on joy and abundance, found, in the difficult times of the pandemic, a mechanism that manages to nourish its community through action with CSAAs (Community that Sustains Art and Agroecology). MUDA’s 2021 impact report reported a 153% growth in membership, and along with that, more than 2,000 organic baskets were distributed across its network.
CSAA derives from the term CSA (Community that Sustains Agriculture), which is a method of producing and marketing ecological foods in which consumers become co-producers with farmers. Consumers pay a monthly fee to receive a weekly basket of seasonal foods (according to production). This payment is not considered an advance purchase but a financial support for producers, strengthening and encouraging family and ecological agriculture. This model makes this consumer-producer relationship closer and guarantees the destination of food. In this way, farmers can involve and engage co-producers in the production process, forming a group of people with a common purpose: a community that sustains agriculture.
In the case of MUDA, the term CSAA was created by its members and partners to describe the experience of collectives that combine the CSA production model with artistic work and agroecological agriculture. Thus, the concept of CSAA for MUDA adds to this model the importance of supporting the artistic work associated with planting and harvesting and indicates agroecology as the primary reference for ecological agriculture. Another feature of CSAAs is that they accept social currencies as payment.
“I love the connection of agroecology, health, art, social currency… that’s a powerful environmental legacy at work here.” Karla Córdoba-Brenes, Co-founder of Cambiatus
MUDA is a community that has its own social currency, where exchanges are made through the Cambiatus platform. Today, MUDA works to support the CSAAs through a partnership with the philanthropic institution Saúva, which carries out the financial support in Reais so that the baskets produced by the CSAAs can be made available on the MUDA platform. Thus, its members can purchase agroecological food with the social currency and become co-producers of the CSAAs.
In times of the COVID-19 pandemic and with the increase in food prices, the availability of baskets of organic food co-produced by community members and CSAAs has brought a new perspective to the people and families who have suffered from the crisis in the increase of the price of food. Currently, Muda has six partner CSAAs spread across Brazil, and, by the year 2021, more than 2,000 baskets of organic food were distributed among community members, which naturally led to the interest of more people and reaching 4,628 members in July 2022 (153% growth compared to 2020). Likewise, the number of offers in the community store also grew, as well as the number of actions claimed that remunerated conscious activities with MUDAs.
Today MUDA is the fastest growing community on the Cambiatus platform and has over 4,600 members, making it the oldest, most active, and resilient community. It has been able to reinvent itself over time, survive the pandemic, be creative during challenging times, and connect with other organizations such as CSAAs and their many partner projects.
Learn more about the MUDA community through the Cambiatus platform or its website. Want to support us? Please write an e-mail to us at mudaoutraseconomias@gmail.com.
