A Different Flavor of Food Truck

When I say food truck you may visualize tacos, coffee, or a burger. What about vegies and fruit?

Some clever entrepreneurs are  bringing farm fresh produce to those in both urban and rural areas. They are calling themselves Mobile Farm Trucks or Mobile Farmers’ Markets, and they don’t just cater to high-end shoppers, but provide low-income residents with affordable, fresh produce, grown using sustainable and/or organic methods.

For example, in New York City, the Holton Farms Mobile Farm Truck has taken to the streets with a progressive mobile farm stand, that will operate throughout New York City, to serve as the public and restaurant wholesale clients. "The Farm Truck allows us access to neighborhoods throughout the Five Boroughs without having to open a store.”

The Farm Truck is run by sustainable farmers who partner with other farms and artisan producers to bring other products to its members including ice cream, cheeses, breads, coffee, grains, and soaps. They are accepting Food Stamps and discounting their prices by 20 percent for low-income New Yorkers.

Last year, Maine’s Jordan Farm started a Mobile Farm Stand that travels to senior housing sites in South Portland and to Portland and Scarborough businesses. Using a renovated school bus, they offer the same fresh produce that is available at their farm stand in Cape Elizabeth.

My 2 cents:
Wouldn't it be great if at lunch and after work we could shop from the Mobile Farm Truck parked in the corporate parking lot. Saves time running to the market after work and supports local farmers.

To read the entire article
http://planetgreen.discovery.com/food-health/mobile-farm-trucks-bring-the-produce-to-the-people.html

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The Sharing LifeStyle and How to Legally Define it

This good idea is a "twofer":
1. sharing instead of owning to make your $$ and energy go farther

2. supporting a type of law that helps facilitate cooperation instead of promote contention.

I strongly recommend you read the entire article instead of just reviewing my summary. This is  big one.

The author, Janelle Orsi calls this sharing law which would help people like Lynne:

• Lynne lives in an urban cohousing community and shares ownership of a car with two neighbors. Every day, she fluidly shares, borrows, and lends (rather than owns) many household goods, tools, electronics, and other items.

• She is a member of a cooperative grocery, through which she receives significant discounts in exchange for putting in a few monthly work hours. She grows vegetables on an empty lot and sometimes sells the veggies to neighbors.

• She has a successful rooftop landscaping business, which she launched using 20 microloans and investments from friends and family. She often barters, doing odd jobs in exchange for goods and services.

• She also owns a 5 percent share of a hot springs retreat center outside of town, which she acquired through sweat equity.

To learn more about this lifestyle and the legal challenges that will arise as more of un embrace this concept read the full article:
http://shareable.net/blog/birth-of-sharing-law

Janelle has also written a book on the subject, you could purchase it, or try and get it thru the paperback book exchange (an earlier post).
http://www.nolo.com/products/the-sharing-solution-SHAR.html

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Indian CEO Puts Helping Others Above Bottom Line

This is a truly inspirational story. I hope business schools will start to emphasize these types of success stories as they work with young MBAs. Make sure you watch the video as he explains what he thinks is important to a successful company.

25 years ago, Amitabha Sadangi was so poor he couldn't afford 2 meals in one day. He worked hard to put himself through school despite his deep poverty, so that he could get a good job and become wealthy. Today, he is a businessman giving up wealth and fortune to tackle irrigation and poverty in India.

Amitabha Sadangi's vision is to empower even the poorest farmers to irrigate their land. He believes that giving rural farmers a chance to pull themselves out of poverty is the way towards sustainable and dignified development. All you need is a $1 and a dream...and a lot of hard work.

Watch the video:http://www.karmatube.org/videos.php?id=1976

Read more about his company: http://www.ide-india.org/ide/index1.shtml

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Wal-Mart buys more food from small local farms

I am always encouraged when a "good idea" makes it's way to a box store like Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart is planning to double the sales of fresh produce from local farms in its U.S. stores by the end of 2015, this would lift local produce to 9 percent of total produce sales in the country.

Wal-Mart also said it will require that palm oil from sustainable sources be used in all of its private-label products by the end of 2015. The company sells hundreds of products that use palm oil. Concerns had been raised that some producers add to global warming by felling forests.

Environmentalists contend that using locally sourced agriculture and supporting small farms is one way to preserve local jobs and prevent dwindling farmland from being lost. It can also help reduce the use of resources such as fuel to transport food over long distances.

Wal-Mart joins a growing list of corporate and charitable organizations lending support to sustainable agriculture programs and small and local farmers.

I am not a big fan of Wal-Mart, but I think they got this one right. Since they are such a major force in the economy their efforts to support local farmers are to be applauded, now when they start offering health care to employees it will be even better.

Read the complete story here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39643023/ns/politics/

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Recycling Plastic into Oil

A Japanese company called Blest created a small, very safe and easy to use machine that can convert several types of plastic back into oil.

You put in plastic bags, styrofoam containers and bottle caps and out comes gasoline, diesel, or propane. I hope that someday soon plastic bottles and styrofoam containers will be eliminated, but until that day we have to do something with them. Recycling them would be so cool.

I want one of these machines....

Here is the video and article.  Watch the movie and be amazed. the article is pretty long, but worth your time. http://ourworld.unu.edu/en/plastic-to-oil-fantastic/

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