Biocoop, France: co-op control of the food chain by active consumers

Biocoop, France - blog by Jade Bashford 

One motivation for people engaged in community farm land trusts is to build democratic and ethical control of the food chain. Most citizens and many farmers and aspiring farmers are denied access to land ownership – which prevents participation at the root of the food system. CLTs are one response to that problem.

Obstacles to participation of small, citizen led and ethical stakeholders continue along the food chain, most strikingly apparent in food retailing. Food retailing in the UK is powerfully dominated by multinationals and their influence extends to their suppliers, and their suppliers’ suppliers; mills, abattoirs, wholesale markets, dairies and so on.

In France, the term ‘consom-acteurs’ refers to active consumers. Consumers who are more than passive recipients of goods.  Consumacteurs have collaborated with ethical producers and small retailers on a massive scale to build ‘Biocoop’. Biocoop controls 15% of the organic market and runs 300 shops, with a turnover of over 450 million Euros. It is growing rapidly.

The 'Biocoop' network is not a chain or a franchise but a federation of over 300 independent consumer co-operatives and shops with shared ideals, objectives and structures.  They have discovered that the best way to get organic consumers a good deal and compete with supermarkets is to work together. By co-operating they are able to offer many of the advantages of centralised distribution while reducing its damaging side effects. Biocoop provides a vital market, particularly the small and medium sized farmers who have neither the capacity nor the will to work with supermarkets.

The federation was founded in 1987 by a pioneering group of co-operatives and is united by its common principals, the 'three conventions', to which all members have to adhere. The conventions govern relationships with consumers, staff, other 'Biocoops' and producers. The conventions emphasise the social and environmental objectives of the federation and the need to encourage consumers to take an active role and interest in the contents of their weekly shopping basket. Most shops are open to the general public, but in the consumer co-ops members have a discount and the right to be on the management committee and participate in regional or national bodies. Most importantly they can influence the way the shop is run and its future direction.

The original co-ops in the federation were founded around twenty years ago to support individual organic producers or to operate buying groups to jointly purchase local organic produce. They operated in a variety of locations from garages to barns, some opening small shops after establishing a strong local membership base. One of the co-ops saw the necessity for establishing a national organisation and visited all the founder members before they jointly established Biocoop France in 1987.

Groups of consumers or individuals can present a proposal to start a new 'Biocoop' to regional co-ordinators who will examine the financial, social and ethical aspects of the proposal. The process involves consultation with existing shops in the network and each new shop will undergo a trial period when its performance and adherence to the conventions will be tested. Consumers are therefore given the opportunity, wherever they are, to take an active role in gaining access to quality organic produce and influence the development of both their shop and the national network.

Each Biocoop has access to regional and national product lists which favour producers with specific social and environmental objectives, they are also free to source locally and have independent agreements with individual producers. The range of produce therefore varies between the shops, reflecting local, regional and seasonal variations and there is a deliberate emphasis on local, fresh and seasonal produce. All shops have to stock organic products where they exist and are only permitted to stock non-organic where there is no available line. There is also a large range of 'Fair Trade' produce in each shop e.g. tea, coffee, chocolate. Education of its members and consumers about what they are buying is an integral part of Biocoop's policy. 

Each Biocoop shop has a clear local identity together with the recognisable characteristics of a national network, both of which are key factors in their appeal and success. Consumers are able to identify with an individual shop, have confidence in both the products and the manner in which they have been traded and can shop in a sister co-op whenever they visit another region. Most importantly it is encouraging people to become ‘consom-acteurs’ – active consumers, with a key role to play in the food chain.

Thanks to Clive Peckham for his research.

Viable Biodynamic Farm Business Models?

Alan Brockman is a veteran biodynamic farmer, having farmed 300 acres of beautiful Kent near Chartham since 1953. Meeting him at Perry Court in early April sparked some key questions.

Firstly about Biodynamic Farm Land Trusts. He told the story of his friend Gotthilf Goyert who set up the Verein Rudolf Steiner Stiftung fur die Landwirtschaft at Atleiningen, Rheinland-Pfalz in 1994. This holds seven farms in trust and farmers can nominate their successors when leaving. (www.neuhof-goyert.de, info@neuhof-goyert.de)

Secondly, Alan talked about the challenges of running a biodynamic CSA, saying, ‘If you can’t sell it, you can’t grow it!’ Perry Court has worked with a succession of CSA schemes and some of the learning includes : the importance of a good grower, sound control of the business and financial management, the need for a local community of support and local customers rather than distant markets, the value of working with other biodynamic farms like Plaw Hatch and Tablehurst e.g. supplying them with BD grain, the higher added value of on farm processing such a making chicken food pellets to sell to a BD egg producer and milling flour, and the importance of identifying high value added food-processing opportunities like BD baby food.

He said one key challenge was to show what an ordinary biodynamic farmer can do to survive without any extra help. How can farms stand on their own two feet?  He said that either the option was to build up supportive communities around BD farms or to develop national networks for distributing processed food, Finally, he asked,

‘ What are viable biodynamic farm business models for today?’

Any answers?

The BLT Action Research project will be planning a March 2012 workshop with Jade Bashford of the Soil Association CSA Project on Direct Marketing for Farm Viability as one response. Clearly, setting up a Biodynamic Land Trust is one task, but another  key task is improving biodynamic farm business viability.

Local vs National Farm Land Trusts?

I met with Neil Ravenscroft  to discuss the setting up of the Biodynamic Land Trust, and to invite him to become an advisor. We had an important discussion on the pros and cons of a national farm land trust versus  local farm land trusts, which will be one of the themes of the action research.

The arguments for local land trusts include local knowledge of the land and bioregion,  mobilising local support and involvement which results in gift work for running the land trust and  the farms, with low land trust running costs. Small is beautiful and locally accountable. 

However, a national farm land trust can use long term ground leases, so that farms can be leased to farmers and/or CSA's which themselves are locally connected and accountable. A body of   expertise can be built up for facilitation, advice on legal and organisational structures, financing, technical support, and the land trust can be a back stop for the assets of local land trusts should these for whatever reason wind up. This body can also advocate nationally for farm land trust friendly policies, funding,  tax benefits,   research, education and information.  

A biodynamic land trust, though it may also include leasing to organic , permaculture and other forms of sustainable agriculture, is also  by definition  a specialist,  niche activity. And, as Sjoard Wartena of  Terre de Liens in France argues,  a national body has less overheads than many small land trusts-and the Soil Association now has a national Soil Association Land Trust

Neil is a director of Table Hurst and Plaw Hatch CSA, as well as a land agent, farmer and Professor at the University of Brighton- as well as triggering EU wide research into community connected farming now led  by Terre de Liens,  he is also researching the learning from CSA stories in Britain and much else.

Plaw Hatch and  Tablehurst are inspiring biodynamic,  community supported farms near Forest Row, East Sussex. Farming up to 500 acres, with an annual turnover of around £1.5 mn, much of it sold via their award winning butchery and shop, the farm business is capitalised to the tune of over £160,000 by around 400 shareholders in a community benefit co-operative constituted as an Industrial and Provident Society. They lease their land from St Anthony's Trust, a pioneer land trust. A case study will be put on the Biodynamic Land Trust Website.

However, it would be interesting to hear people's views on the pros and cons of national vs local farm land trusts? 

A Land Trust Platform across Europe?

Giving a talk on Land Trusts at 10.30pm in the middle of Milan on Friday 25th March was an unusual experience!

As a director of Stroud Common Wealth, I was invited to Berlin in October 2010 and then 24-26th March to Milan Polytechnic to present land trusts to a networking conference of Experiment City Europe. This is a new European platform for co-housing, to share learning and action for cooperative, collaborative, collective and sustainable housing cultures. (See www.wohnportal-berlin.de and www.experimentcity.net)

I learnt that land trust ideas and practises are spreading, and met Rolf Novy-Huy of Stiftung Trias, who has been pioneering a land trust in Germany for a range of innovative community, social business and housing projects. Trias buys the land and the leases it for 99 years to viable projects. Each cooperative project is another building block in laying the foundations for a sustainable society. Rolf sees important challenges facing us such as how to develop non-speculative land uses and how to conserve fertile land resources, not to mention the global land grab. (www.stiftung-trias.de)

So we discussed how to spread the land trust learning and how we can develop our ideas, values and methods. Small organisations like Trias and the embryonic Biodynamic Land Trust are hardly yet able to deal with the potential need for land for sustainable solutions locally, let alone on a European wide scale. However, working in networks helps to exchange knowledge, share ideas, develop new ways of doing things, develop partnerships and strengthen solidarity.

So we agreed to organise a learning exchange, probably to be held in Stroud, Britain. This will be very helpful for the BLT, as we can invite a variety of bodies working to develop farm land trusts in the UK and across Europe such as Terre de Liens in France, and the Stiftung Edith Maryon from Basle.

One key question will be how best to raise capital for biodynamic land purchase from gifts, shares and loans-how to make the most of our resources?

Biodynamic Land Trust Action Research and Feasibility Project

The purpose of this blog is to share the thinking and research arising from action researching the feasibility of a Biodynamic Land Trust in Britain, starting in March 2011. Readers may well be biodynamic farmers, trainee farmers, organic farmers and market gardeners, members of community supported agriculture bodies considering how to secure land, researchers, policy makers, and those wanting to support biodynamic food growing as customers, suppliers, investors, donors and supporters.

The benefits for readers is that you will both get regularly updated on progress of the Project, such as new case studies or pilot farm buy out projects. You will have the opportunity to respond and add your thoughts, questions and experience. This blog will be linked to a website, which should be up and running by the beginning of April 2011. Feel free also to contribute your own blog on the themes of biodynamic farmland trusteeship and ways of securing land for biodynamics to the editor. Case studies of different ways of securing biodynamic farms through trusteeship would be welcome from around the world. There will be a set of case study research questions in the Case Study section of the web site for guidance. Feel free to suggest links and recommend the blog to others interested around the world! As Dolly said, learning is like muck, the more you spread it around, the more things grow!

The Biodynamic Land Blog will be updated regularly. This first blog describes what the Biodynamic Land Trust Action Research and feasibility project is about. So why a land trust?

Firstly, the principle behind land trusteeship is that land is a commons, a common pool resource, to be treated as a right rather than as a commodity to be bought and sold on the market. As Aldo Leopold writes in The Sand County Almanac, ‘We abuse the land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.’

Land trusteeship goes way back to common land traditions. In Stroud, for example, we enjoy Rodborough and Minchinhampton Commons, several hundred acres of open space. Commoners can graze cattle there, and it is enjoyed by dog walkers, golfers, kite fliers, hikers, picnickers, the famous Christmas dog tree, the highwayman Tom Long’s Post and bird watchers. There are sites of special scientific interest, and the freehold owner, The National Trust, has established some hillside grazing schemes with belted Galloway cattle to enable rare plant and flowers species such as orchids to grow.

Gerard Winstanley reaffirmed the land as a commons and the right to dig after the English Civil War. He wrote in 1649 after the Diggers were evicted by land owners from St George’s Hill, Surrey, that ‘The earth shall become a common treasury to all, as it was first made and given to the sons of men.’ He was saying, like Ruskin, Tolstoy, Ebenezer Howard, Ghandi, Steiner, John Stuart Mill and many others that land is a shared resource, a commons to be stewarded equitably by society as a bundle of rights, rather than a commodity to be bought and sold on the market. So one aim of the biodynamic land trust project is to enable permanent access to biodynamic farms and land for food growing for farmers, market gardeners and communities in Britain through securing land for biodynamic land trusteeship.


Why is there a need for action researching the feasibility of a UK Biodynamic Land Trust?

There is a crisis in farming, as small and medium sized family farms continue to go out of business. The average age of farmers is increasing and farm incomes are decreasing. Farmers are often isolated in fragmented communities and the costs of buying or leasing farms prevents entry to young farmers. Many have the skills and motivation but little capital. At the same time, the demand for good locally grown organic food increases and people want to re-connect with local farms and build sustainable rural communities, as evidenced by the growth of CSA’s in Britain.

Greg Pilley and Martin Large of Stroud Common Wealth carried out an action research project to successfully pioneer community farmland trusteeship from 2005-7. The successful community buy out of Fordhall Farm from 2005-7 was the lead project. Since then, an increasing number of CSA’s have been buying land and capitalising the farm business through community share offers, and the Soil Association has set up its own Land Trust.

Biodynamic farmers, though, kept asking the specific question of, How to secure land for biodynamic food growing through land trusteeship? Do we need small local BD land trusts with their overheads, or a national one? Or a combination? Which model is more effective and efficient? How can existing BD farmers ensure their farms keep biodynamic when they get too old to farm and want to pass their farms on? Can a BD land trust help here? How can young biodynamic farmers get access to farms? How can communities help capitalise biodynamic farms? How can existing large-scale biodynamic farming organisations like Camphill preserve their farmland?

Given that biodynamic farms like Temple Wilton, New Hampshire, USA, and Plaw Hatch and Table Hurst Farms in Sussex helped pioneer farm land trusts, how can their learning inspire putting more acres into biodynamic farming through land trusteeship? Biodynamic farms are special, each with a unique story and sense of place and the potential to animate the local rural community through the shared sense of long-term trusteeship.

As third generation tenant farmers of Fordhall Farm, we see community farm ownership as the way to secure the land for continuing community benefit-for food growing, wildlife, access, enterprises, heritage, education activities and offering a ‘green lung’ to Market Drayton.

—Charlotte and Ben Hollins, Fordhall Farm


The Biodynamic Land Trust Action Research and Feasibility Project

The aim of this project is to enable the development of a UK biodynamic farmland trust for the purpose of sustainable agriculture and horticulture.

We will research how existing farm land trusts work, in Britain, the USA and Europe; provide opportunities to share knowledge and pool experience; evaluate the range of benefits of land trusteeship for farmers, the biodynamic movement and the community including customers; identify and evaluate best practise; create an Action Resource Pack for implementation; enable pilot farm trust buy outs and build a feasible, appropriate BLT (Biodynamic land Trust) implementation plan, in partnership with the BDA.


Project Activities

The project will:

• Research farm land trust case studies and good practise
• Research viable farm business models as alternatives to conventional models
• Establish collaboration, learning and action between farmers, community connected farm initiatives and other relevant, supportive organisations
• Work with 2-3 farm and market garden projects as pilots for putting land into trust
• Organise a conference on the why, what and how of farmland trusts
• Research biodynamic farm succession and inheritance questions
• Research what helps and hinders community share issues for farm land purchase, and for capitalising farms
• Research appropriate legal and governance structures for the BLT for holding land in trust, ground leases and tenures
• Make a feasibility study report to the BDA with recommendations for a viable BLT
• Develop a group of people with the skills and knowledge to provide technical assistance and facilitation for biodynamic farm and food growing land acquisition and farm business development
• Produce an Action Resource Pack
• Disseminate learning through a website, articles, blog, talks and workshops

What will be the result of the project?

We expect to see a range of outcomes including:

• Ways for communities to participatively plan land use
• Mechanisms for enabling young entrant biodynamic farmers to access permanently affordable farms
• Pilot new organisational and legal structures
• Farm tenancy agreements, ground lease and social land use agreements for a range of community benefits
• Increased co-operation with other farmers and associative working with enterprises and customers
• New ways of raising land purchase capital, working capital and financial support
• Development of biodynamic food economies - getting a higher and a fairer return for products
• Bio diverse farms accessible to the public
• Reconnection of farms with local community
• More access to farms for education, work, care, leisure, training
• Building of farmer and community capacity, trust, social inclusion and support networks
• A viable Biodynamic Land Trust that acquires, secures and stewards farm land in perpetuity

Biodynamic Land Trust Action Research and Feasibility Project Resourcing

The project is made possible by the generous gift of a donor, which will also help seed fund securing initial pilot farm buy out projects so as to establish the Biodynamic Land Trust.


Project Advisors and Partners

The project is carried out in partnership with the Biodynamic Agricultural Association, and is supported by Stroud Common Wealth.


How can I get involved?

You may want:

1. Help to consider the long term future of your farm or land, and the option to put it into a biodynamic land trust
2. More information: see www.biodynamiclandtrust.org.uk (coming soon) or blog
3. A presentation, workshop or facilitated planning event to introduce the option of putting land into trust to establish or secure a new local biodynamic farm
4. To attend a working conference or workshop (See BDA events and website)
5. To invest and or give capital for securing farmland into trust
6. To offer relevant technical, land, professional services to assist the work of the Biodynamic Land Trust
7. A Resource Action Pack (from Summer 2011)
8. To respond to blogs or send your in own proposed blog, or article for consideration

Contact

Project leader Martin Large

Biodynamic Land Trust Action Research and Feasibility Project
Hawthorn House
1 Lansdown Lane
Stroud, Gloucestershire,
GL5 1BJ