Surviving as a small rural business

Neily at the peak · Post by **Neily at the peak** » 05 Jan 2006, 22:49

Bearing in mind that I only discovered peak oil in Feb 05 and since then I have been educating myself, here is what my wife and I intend to do. We run a small village shop and post office and employ 8 people.

1. Go on a green energy tariff. We use around ?6000 per year electric
2. Reduce borrowings.
3. look into energy efficiency, come on l.e.d's you can light the shop.
4. Will not be investing in lot's of new refrigeration going against the trend in convenience retailing
5. When recruiting employ people who live within walking or cycling distance.
6. Buy a farm to vertically integrate the businesses as much as possible
7. Start supplying local produce where possible.

I know we are only running a small business in comparison with some of these C.E.O's but small businesses may be able to spread the messages to bigger ones.

Any other ideas for how to survive in business would be appreciated.

Neily-at-the-peak

isenhand · Post by **isenhand** » 06 Jan 2006, 10:04

If possible, you cold look at producing your own food if you have a bit of land for that. Also you could try networking. By that I mean linking up with local farms and consumers. There are various schemes that you could try where the consumers agree to by directly from local farms. The goods could be dropped of at your local shop (a service you offer for free as it gets people into your shop who will most likely buy any extra they need from you). There are other linking schemes like this that you could try where you have an agreement with people where they pre order stuff and you stock what they ask you.

Anything of interest? I can expand on this if you wish.

Neily at the peak · Post by **Neily at the peak** » 08 Jan 2006, 22:48

isenhand wrote:If possible, you cold look at producing your own food if you have a bit of land for that. Also you could try networking. By that I mean linking up with local farms and consumers. There are various schemes that you could try where the consumers agree to by directly from local farms. The goods could be dropped of at your local shop (a service you offer for free as it gets people into your shop who will most likely buy any extra they need from you). There are other linking schemes like this that you could try where you have an agreement with people where they pre order stuff and you stock what they ask you.

Anything of interest? I can expand on this if you wish.

Isenhand

We are already looking into a collection scheme for locally produced organic fruit and vegetables and last summer made an attempt at growing some veg on our very small veg plot for home consumption. The thing is I think that the contribution to change in society that we can give is much greater as a business serving a community of around 1500 people than as individual consumers.

More ideas and developing your earlier theme would be appreciated.

Neily-at-the-peak

genoxy · Post by **genoxy** » 10 Jan 2006, 17:06

Hi Neily,

Try the following link, they are located in Devon.

http://www.wholesome-food.org.uk/index.htm

Goodluck with it all!

isenhand · Post by **isenhand** » 12 Jan 2006, 08:05

The idea behind an holonic society is to integrate as much as possible local production with the local community so that you meet local needs as much as possible from local sources. The ideal being that all food, energy and waste management is contained in the local community. You then extend outwards to other communities only if you really need to. Such a community would then form a building block for a new type of social system.

A local village shop is not quite a holon in this scheme but some of the basic ideas could be adapted by trying to integrate the shop with the local community so that the shop becomes the means by which local needs are met. One possibility is to join up with local farmers. If you have small farmers in the local area who are struggling to make a living then that?s the sort of farmer you could aim at as they would be more interested than a large farm that sells enough as is. You would need to know what your customers want to buy then you arrange for the farmer to produce it. You could also let the customers know what is produced local (often a small farmer sells a high quality produce to a large company rather than local because local people don?t always know its available). You may need the customers and farmers to sign up to the scheme (perhaps by joining a food club?) so that the farmers produce goods a certain price and the customers agree to buy at a certain price. You may also need to produce a local food directory so the customers know what is available. Things are then delivered to your shop and then you distribute it to the customers.

You could extend this a bit by forming an organisation with customers and farmers to buy up farm land locally so that it is owned by the village and produces what the village needs. Maybe like a coop or a small federations of individuals and companies? The farmer would then be working directly for the ?village coop? (for want of a better expression) and the customers who are also part of the ?village coop? would place orders and the local village shop being the place of distribution. This would then be heading more towards the idea of a community as a holon.

Another thing you could do is talk to local organisations such as the parish council to present the idea of community and meeting local needs locally and how the local village shop is an important part of the community in an effort to get people to understand the importance of the local community and the shops part in that. The more people that understand the significance of the local shop the more likely they are to support the local shop and of local shames.

In addition to all that there is also reducing costs and debts which has already been looked at.

Anything of interest in all this? Anything that can be modified or adapted to your specific situation?

Neily at the peak · Post by **Neily at the peak** » 15 Jan 2006, 23:26

A lot to chew on there Isenhand. My initial reaction is that I am afraid our customers would need a crisis to happen to get on board with some of it. However the gently, softly approach could work. I will mull over your ideas for a few days and let you know of any progress. Many thanks for the time taken for your reply.

I am currently re-reading the growth illusion by Richard Douthwaite, it is food for thought on what economic growth has done to communities.

Genoxy thanks for the link to the WFA, they identify that organic is not the complete answer, I could not agree more as food miles are probably more damaging overall.

Neil

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 16 Jan 2006, 06:42

Neil, "Short Circuit" is another excellent book by Richard Douthwaite. He has rather obligingly made it available for free online here: http://www.feasta.org/documents/shortcircuit/

isenhand · Post by **isenhand** » 16 Jan 2006, 10:00

Neily at the peak wrote: I will mull over your ideas for a few days and let you know of any progress.

Please do. Bear in mind, however, its nothing I?ve tried to things will be experimental and you know your own situation best but I hope something works for you.