What is It?
Building the Agricultural City is an informal collaboration among individuals and organizations that are helping to create a self-reliant and sustainable economy and culture in the Driftless region. These individuals and organizations may not realize that they are helping to create such an economy. They did not establish their business or farm with that in mind. Nevertheless, their work contributes to that end.
The Agricultural City would be, in effect, an ark, a cooperative network of farms, businesses, industries, towns and cities that will help us survive our turbulent times—times that almost certainly will become more difficult.
What do the Collaborators Do?
One. A collaborator will lend its name in support of the vision of a self-reliant and sustainable regional economy. The fact that a collaborator lends its name to the concept strengthens the vision. The more collaborators that endorse the vision, the more likely the public will be aware of our need to become self-reliant.
Two. In order to promote the vision, the collaborators will need to spread the idea through radio and television interviews, newspaper opinion pieces, films and broadsides, a presence at local fairs, etc.
The growth of the number of collaborators across the Driftless will make collaborators aware of each other’s existence. Those with common needs (say organic farmers decide they need a mill) may decide to create a cooperative.
Growth is Organic, Not Planned
First, there is no need for more thana minimal organization to push the vision forward. In fact, a heavily formalized organization would be counter-productive, depressing creativity with bureaucracy. Second, the process should not have a master plan; instead, it needs to grow out of the informal relationships of collaborators and their shared needs. This should be a process whose outcomes grow as we learn more about our needs and capabilities.
A Project in Process
For the last four months, community leaders in Decorah, Elkader,, Guttenberg, and Strawberry Point, Iowa have been gathering to discuss projects to increase northeast Iowa’s self-sufficiency. These include municipal owned utilities, community development banks, micro-lending circles, and worker owned cooperatives.
The Book: Building the Agricultural City
Click here to link to the crowd funding campaign: https://igg.me/at//agcity
All of us collaborating on this project gratefully acknowledge the people who have (to date) supported the publication of the book: Tabita Green, Julie Fischer, Roger Isaacs, Craig Hultgren, Murray Hudson, Robert Karp, Maggy Gilbert, Chuck Osgood, Norma Jean & Daryl Bosma, Eva Theiler, Alice Swenson, Bill & Susan Hogan, Monique * Phillip Hooker, Rod Haynes, Kate Gilbert, Alan Lerstrum, Bruce Jordan, Marilyn Gootschalk, Jessica Stonecypher, and Barbara Massman.
Learn more on FACEBOOK: “Building the Agricultural City”
Robert Wolf 