By Lindsay Atwood,
USDA Rural Development
ot many
people in
the United
States
would
willingly do a job that does
not even pay a living wage,
much less be excited about
it. But five people in
southern Idaho are doing
just that, along with
numerous other volunteers,
and they can hardly contain
their excitement.
What kind of job could
possibly be so exciting as to
lure people away from
much more lucrative jobs?
For these men and women,
the answer is starting and
running a cooperative that
benefits their local economy
and the future of their
region.
Idaho’s Bounty, a
relatively new online food
co-op that brings together
both producers and
consumers, is a dream come
true for many people in
south-central Idaho. “Our
aim is to support local
farmers and strengthen our
food shed,” says Judy Hall,
the cooperative’s director of
grant writing and a resident
of Ketchum, Idaho. “There
were a lot of questions in
our town about our viability
in the future, and we were
all looking at where we’re
heading as a community into
the future.”
“Local food — local
agriculture — plays a really
big part in the sustainability
and viability of our
community,” she says. Hall
was not alone in this
sentiment. After writer,
lecturer and conservation
scientist Gary Nabhan gave
a speech challenging
residents to develop a local
food system, people took
action.
James Reed made it his
job as a volunteer to find
out who was growing food
in the area. Reed, now the
co-op’s director of
operations in the Magic
Valley, started meeting
regularly with other
volunteers to develop a plan.
This collaboration —
and the recognition that
such a project could not be
undertaken alone — was key
to the establishment of the
co-op. Hall says the
counties just to the south of
her home in Blaine County
have a climate favorable for
agriculture. Prior to the
formation of Idaho’s Bounty,
their only markets were the
seasonal farmers markets or
the commodity markets
outside of the region and
state. Blaine County on the
other hand, has abundant
financial resources, but not
agricultural resources.
“The health of our
neighboring counties to the
south is directly related to
the health of our county,” Hall says. “We need to be in
relationship with each other.”
Reed agrees that working together is essential. “If we all
work together as a cooperative, we can build a fantastic local
economy,” he says. “We can do that much better than if we’re
all out on our own.”
Getting started
Volunteers eager to meet Nabhan’s challenge made a trip
to Oklahoma to learn as much as they could from a similar
cooperative operating there. The trip confirmed their belief
that a local food co-op could work in southern Idaho, so they
called a meeting in February 2007 for anyone interested. The
response was extremely positive.
“We were able to find supporters in the community who
really believed in food security issues, rural development and
the local economy,” Reed says.
Working with Hagerman I.D.E.A. Inc. and the Wood
River Resource Conservation and Development Council, the
co-op applied for a Farmers Market Promotion Program
grant from USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service to help
get the new operation up and running. “The process of
writing a grant forced us to get our act together and create
goals and objectives and a practical plan for this dream
instead of just talking about it,” Hall says.
There was now a concrete plan for the co-op, but they had
to look elsewhere for the money needed to start the
operation. “We wouldn’t hear about the grant until
September,” Hall says, “but we were coming up on the
[growing] season, so we just said, ‘We’re going to do this.’
That built credibility with the producers. They said, ‘Wow,
you’re not just talking. You’re actually doing something! You
are moving food.’”
With help from a private donor, Idaho’s Bounty was born
as a pilot project in May 2007, although it was not officially a
cooperative until September.
How it works
The concept of an online food store of locally produced
foods is relatively new in the co-op community. It is similar
to that of nationally recognized online grocery stores, such as
Stop and Shop’s Peapod, but with a twist. “We work on a
two-week cycle,” Reed says. “All the producers put up on the
Web site what they have available. Then the consumers have
a week to go online and order from the available food. It’s
first come, first served.”
From there, consumers are able to pick up their food every
two weeks at one of several local drop sites. The producers
are guaranteed a local market, and the consumers are
guaranteed fresh, local produce, meat, dairy and other
products.
To become a member, producers and consumers pay a
minimal one-time fee, and producers must agree to the coop’s
standards and practices. Additionally, producers and
consumers are charged a 15 percent fee for the goods they
buy or sell, which enables the cooperative to distribute the
food, do marketing, handle all of the money and taxes and
pay for any other financial needs of the co-op.
For a co-op that has existed less than a year, it is
experiencing remarkable success. It currently has 21
producers and almost 400 members, and
demand for locally-produced food is
skyrocketing. “I honestly believe we will
never be able to produce enough to
supply the demand,” Reed says. “I think
as we are able to ramp up supply,
demand is going to be ramping up faster.
The industrial food system just isn’t
cutting it any more.”
One example of this is eggs. Hall
asserts that the co-op simply cannot
supply enough eggs to its customers.
“People really love the farm-fresh
pastured egg,” she says. “Different
farmers who might be doing dairy
farming or large produce crops have
started up with laying hens. They know
how to do it, they have the property and
the land and this has opened up markets
for them. What Idaho’s Bounty did was
publicize that people wanted to buy the
eggs.”
Lessons learned
Helping to coordinate both supply and
demand is one of many things co-op
leaders have had to learn along the way.
“It’s really tricky, because we can’t go out
and sell food that isn’t there, and yet we can’t convince the
producers to ramp up their production if we don’t have a
market for it,” Reed says.
One of the ways the co-op is working to increase
production is to extend the growing season using
greenhouses. Marketing to consumers has been limited
because of the already sizeable response, although the co-op
is doing some customer education and recently hosted a
dinner at a local restaurant using only Idaho’s Bounty food.
The pricing of their food is another aspect of the business
that Reed describes as a work in progress. “What we want to
A third lesson — and one with a very
steep learning curve for the cooperative
— involves creating and perfecting the
online ordering system, which Hall says
“has taken a lot of work.”
Idaho’s Bounty used the Oklahoma
food co-op’s ordering system as a model,
but has expanded and customized it to
meet local needs. Hall describes Idaho’s
Bounty as more convenient than a
farmers market, because members can
shop from the convenience of their
kitchen for five straight days in a
shopping cycle.
“Ten years ago, old folks like us
weren’t comfortable enough to go order
food over the Internet,” Reed says.
“Well, now we are. We even order our
movies over the Internet.”
Looking toward the future
For a co-op as progressive as this one,
many of the hopes and dreams are
remarkably steeped in preservation: of
the earth, of the farming way of life, of
the connection between people and their
food and of better eating habits.
Hall describes how Idaho’s Bounty is
making food less anonymous. “We’re breaking down the
anonymity and the separation, and people love that,” she
says. Rather than buying food at a grocery store that may be
shipped in from thousands of miles away, consumers have the
opportunity to know the people producing their food.
Personally, Hall loves knowing that supporting Idaho’s
Bounty is good for her and good for the earth. “I’m
motivated as a person who’s concerned about my own body
and the body of the earth, about health for myself and health
for the planet,” she says.
Reed agrees that fresh, locally farmed
food is better, noting that studies have
proven the superiority of its quality.
Local farming, he asserts, is also a better
way of life. “If farms and dairies are
huge, then we don’t have agricultural
communities. We have agricultural
industry, and there’s no real social
structure,” he says. “I think that farming
is a very noble occupation. I think it
builds good character. It’s just a
neighborly way to live.”
In the months and years to come,
Idaho’s Bounty has big plans for their
co-op. They want to become financially
sustainable without government help,
although they are extremely grateful for
the help that USDA and others have
given for their start-up. They want to
bring the next generation into
sustainable farming by developing a
strong local food economy. And they
want to help other co-ops develop
similar local food businesses in their
own regions. “We are an open source,”
Hall says. “We will share what we have
learned with anyone who wants it.”
Echoing a common cooperative
sentiment, the leaders and members of
Idaho’s Bounty are concerned about
more than just themselves and their
own local communities. They do this
because they truly believe that food
cooperatives promoting sustainable
agriculture and good eating habits are a
better way to do business and a better
way to live.
“I believe that individuals want to
make a difference, and buying local food
is a way, because eating is something we
do every day,” Hall says. “We can make
a difference every day by the choices we
make about what food we buy, knowing
where it comes from and supporting
small farms that grow this food. In the
face of sometimes overwhelming
problems in the world, supporting local
farms is a step you can take as an
individual for your children and yourself
that matters.”
