Can Platform Co-ops Disrupt and Fix a Destructive Food System?
You know the backstory by now!
The ecosystems that support human life on earth are increasingly under pressure. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres concluded in a speech recently that “The state of the planet is broken” and that “Humanity is waging war on nature”.
Climate change is far from the only visible effect of the breakdown. Around us biodiversity is collapsing. 1 million species are threatened by extinction. 40% of all insects are threatened!
We are running out of time, or to put it in another way, we need to act now!
It turns out that our current food system, our consumption and production, is one of the main causes. Can’t we trust the food sector, the industry, to do the right thing and help us out of this mess?
Short answer: no
Incumbents are locked into dysfunctional, one-way, linear, profit-obsessed ways of mishandling food. They damage the health and well-being of economies, environments, and communities.
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them. — Einstein
As business as usual is becoming less and less of an option we need to find new ways of changing a system that is stuck. We believe that cutting down on carbon emissions doesn’t cut it. Doing less bad is not enough, we have to start making good! That is at the core of the notion of a regenerative food system. Regenerate, recreate, rebuild what has been lost. Create more than we consume. Restore the damage that has been done to earth. Rebuild and regenerate our connection to place, to soil and to each other. Move away from economies of extraction to co-created economies of shared value. Built on trust, community and sense of belonging.
Shiro is a local first food supply chain network
We like to imagine a world where food production is the solution rather than the problem, where caring for Planet Earth and each other is the sustainable business model.
In January we begin prototyping and developing what we call Shiro — a supply chain platform and a multi stakeholder cooperative focused on local food.
Shiro will be an open source platform, owned and managed by all active participants from local consumers to regional wholesalers.
Shiro moves beyond food as a commodity and people as consumers. Participation on the platform means an active food citizenship to support the development of a democratic, socially and economically just, and environmentally regenerative food system.
We envision a platform that allows for many local initiatives to link up and become truly an ecosystem that supports regenerative development.
Shiro builds from the bottom up, not from the top down
Local first, that is our focus! Then region and city. After that national and international where possible.
It’s about scaling out, not scaling up! It’s about rejuvenating communities and creating thousands of jobs in thousands of small coops and companies. Let’s eliminate middlemen to achieve affordable food for consumers and increased profitability for producers. The vision with Shiro is a local economy where value is circulated rather than extracted, where locally created value stays local!
Shiro bridges the gap between producers and consumers
There is gap in local food systems, a gap between producers and consumers, between supply and demand.
Producers find it difficult to make ends meet
- Selling online is complicated and not well suited to food products
- Running an on farm store takes time, costs money, requires marketing, etc
- Chain grocery stores rather not work with small producers
- Local produce markets, direct restaurant sales, CSA programs, they all have advantages but also major drawbacks.
Consumers would like to choose local products more but often ends up visiting the chain grocery store out of time constraints, convenience etc.
With Shiro we want to bridge the gap between producers and consumers, enabling new streams of products and services within the food system. We want to move away from centralised economies of extraction to co-created economies of shared value. Built on trust, community and sense of belonging.
Shiro connects supply and demand and matches existing offers with consumer needs and wants. When value is unlocked it stimulates creation of new business models through a virtuous cycle of supply/demand discovery and co-creation.
A multi sided matching engine at the core
Shiro uses ValueFlows and REA – models for distributed economic networks where resources flow from agent to agent via events. Objects such as resources, events, agents, proposals, intentions, actions, commitments and processes can be combined in novel configurations to facilitate a multitude of business scenarios.
Agents in our network are the consumers, the producers, food hubs of different kinds as well as everyone involved in the logistics that lets the ecosystem thrive.
Shiro will support new business models as well as established:
- Direct sales (store, webshop)
- Community Suppported Agriculture (subscriptions)
- Buyers clubs (group ordering)
- Pre-ordering
- Etc.
Built on Holochain, the next generation application platform
Holochain is an open-source development framework and networking protocol. It allows for truly serverless applications with high levels of security, reliability, and performance. Holochain is modular, resilient and encrypted by design, handles value and transactions securely like a blockchain but without the scaling issues.
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If the Shiro ideas resonate with you, contact us to find out how you can get involved!
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