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Farming production -Community production, preservation & storage - Local food exhange

2K views 4 replies 4 participants last post by  tankman1989 
#1 ·
Farming production -Community production, preservation & storage - Local food exhange

Greetings,

I was thinking about next year and whether or not I was going to plant a garden again. My last garden produced so much that I just couldn't keep up with the output, it was ridiculous how much it grew and how little I could consume in comparison. This led me to look into canning, freezing and preserving which was a whole different thing than gardening and much more work. I found that I didn't have the desire to do both, unfortunately so much was given away or went to the compost pile. I wonder how many first time gardeners find this out as well.

So this is where my thinking came in, good or bad, IDK.

There seem to be people who do not have the land to garden but they may be able to do canning or preserving. I was wondering if anyone had arrangements where you would take your excess produce to someone local who would collect excess produce and preserve it however they and or you decided. In exchange they could take some of the preserves or consume the fresh produce.

I would think this would be the ideal division of labor and ideal for many situations. It is basically a lower level of commerce and bartering but on a solely product/produce level. This could be done with many other products like beekeeping - one person manages hives the other(s) manage the produce - honey and wax.

Obviously the ideal way to to do the garden produce preservation would be to have a local shop where people could drop off produce whenever and obtain receipt of goods where they could later come back and get their products in canned (or whatever) form.

This setup would free up someone who had more desire to garden to have a larger garden and the person with a shop or store to grow as needed with either employees or people working in trade.

Would most of you be willing to put you produce in a common "pot" and take the output from everything that is local? Maybe if you had an excellent way to grow Roma tomatoes you could harvest a few lbs a day and take them in trade for a head of lettuce, cucumbers, broccoli, etc. Maybe you take your harvest, obtain store credit and get produce year round. I would think that this could be done on a "club" basis without any state or federal intervention as long as you didn't start charging for anything, then it wouldn't really be commerce. This way the local farmer could take raw milk and get their produce.

So, what do you think? Could this work as a gardening club or something? A local food exchange maybe?
 
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#3 ·
The only downside to this I can think of is the assumption that the person doing the preserving or canning knows what they're doing.

Other than that, not a bad idea.
 
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#4 ·
You'd want to make sure it's not just anyone participating, but people you trust. You certainly don't want someone canning up all your food for you, but they only are doing it for pay (or whatever you're going to trade them), and therefore not being too careful with how they can it (since they're not going to eat it), and you end up getting sick.
 
#5 ·
All are good points and I agree with them. I was thinking about creating a local gardening exchange or club, maybe with a stand at local farmers markets where people can drop off and pick up goods.

As was said, the procedure of preserving is of utmost importance and must be done correctly so it would have to go to trusted and experienced memebers but I think it could work if done correctly.
 
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