User:Jeb
True Fan since August, 2009
- http://twitter.com/h2jeb
- http://www.linkedin.com/in/jebateman
- jebateman(at)gmail.com
I don't remember if it was Twitter or Facebook where I first found this project, as I resisted using those until early in 2009. Perhaps it was a link through Appropedia which I found a bit earlier. Anyway, the OSE vision appears quite similar (and more evolved) to what I've been thinking since 1999 or so. Independent farms can support truly free people. The addition of open source hardware development including Linux driven CNC and 3D printing is new and very exciting to me as I was trained in Mechanical Engineering, and yet I have so far never gone to work in that field as I became unimpressed with big companies making junk or worse. After school, I started an internet hosting and consulting business and developed some open source tools in old Frontier on MacOS9. I worked on various composting and gardening experiments at the same time, and had some interesting taxi driving experience to throw in on the side. OSE is a great project; possibly the next big thing, and I hope to scale a tiny manufacturing business with inspiration from some of the ideas here.
(Need to redo this in standard QA format sometime -- I joined before we had the survey.)
Brainstorming
I've been meaning to write up a proposal for "Community Owned Agriculture" (as opposed to Community Supported Agriculture) for some time, and recently found I'm not alone in thinking this either - http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2009/06/resilient-community-energyfood-ira401k.html
Before detailing the concept further, I'd like to come up with an optimal name:
- Community Owned Agriculture (COA) - similar to well known CSA term, with a twist.
- Community Owned Permaculture (COP) - important distinction toward integrated outcome.
- Community Owned Permaculture Enterprise (COPE) - One way to COPE with Power Down reality?
- Community Owned Permaculture Investment (COPI) - Important to copy (COPI) far and wide?
Any other candidates? Please edit this page to add them above, and let me know what you think the best term to use for involving community members toward investing and financing local permaculture farms. I see this possibility as a real accelerator toward building the productive local farms and seed banks we need asap.