Re: Sustainable Cooperatives

I'm with Helen on co-ops!  I belonged to one when I lived in Virginia.  And although the co-op thing isn't that prevalent here in Tucson, I have been participating in Community Supported Agriculture.  What do you get?  Good, wholesome, mostly organically produced fruits, vegetables, grass-fed and free-ranging meat and poultry, and fresh goat cheese, produced using sustainable practices.  What do you have to give up?  Choice - you get what is harvested each week, so you are required to be flexible in your ability to prepare different, and sometimes unusual produce.  You also may get tired of the same thing weeks in a row.  But, to me it's worth it to eat fresh food that isn't shipped all over the country, food that's grown where I live - in my 'place', and a way to support the local growers.

I also visited an Arizona winery recently and was so pleased to see that the grower and producer was using sustainable practices to produce his award-winning wines.

I think it's a matter of supporting what is already in place with sustainable products, as well as new enterprises, and in that way, letting the status quo grocers, producers, marketing people, etc. know that there is support for something better, and maybe they should change their ways!