Tag: self-reliance

Want to Localize? Participation Is Required!

In a globalized business ecosystem, the market can be anywhere in the world and the customer is merely a transaction entry in a database. However, as a business ecosystem localizes, the market becomes the community and the customers are the people who live there. They have faces and names. They are known for who they are to one another: relatives, friends, associates, acquaintances, neighbors, and community members. And if self-reliance is their motivation to localize, they have a vested interest in applying their resources to relieve their dependence on the globalized ecosystem for their basic needs. In other words, they are prompted to participate.

Participation by community members is the key determinant in how fast and to what degree a business ecosystem localizes. To accelerate localization and impact the local economy requires that community members do as many of the following as they choose:

  • Buy local whether they think it’s a good deal, financially, or not–it may very well not be!
  • Believe in the principles and values associated with self-reliance as the motivator
  • Advocate on behalf of localization within the community as a way to achieve self-reliance
  • Influence legislation regarding taxes, regulations, and subsidies to favor localization
  • Invest in local businesses as entrepreneurs, resource providers, and stakeholders of all kinds

As you can see, there are many ways community members can choose to participate in localizing their business ecosystem. In fact, there’s really no reason why a community can’t expect 100% participation by all of its members in that each one makes a CONSCIOUS, INFORMED DECISION whether and in what ways to participate.

The presentation, Achieving 100% Participation in Local Agriculture Systems (click on link in title to view / download from Slideshare) I delivered during the grant projects encapsulates this concept. As an example, slide 15 defines “100% participation” in more detail:

In addition, my posting, How Do You Participate in YOUR Local Economy?, introduces the “100% Participation in Local Economies” diagrams and further explores the five ways in which community members can participate as initially outlined above. An example of the first diagram is embedded below:

Because of the direct association between participation and successful localization, a market network strategy that engages and encourages community members to take action is both necessary and quite different than one that attempts to tap into a global market. This will be the topic for my next posting. Meanwhile, have fun ramping up your participation!

Originally posted to Sustainable Local Economic Development by Steve Bosserman on Saturday, August 11, 2012

Introduction to Key Terms: Local and Localization

As one might infer from the title of this blog site and the objectives of our grant proposals, the concept of “local” featured heavily in the design and development of our projects. Local is one of those terms that carries multiple meanings. In some respects, it waxes nostalgic, recalling seemingly slower-paced times when we were more available in the present to do things that mattered for ourselves and those we cared about. Ah, if only we could return to that era.

Well, maybe.

For others, though, local translates into dull and boring and may even haunt some with the spectre of unwanted meddling, close-mindedness, and meanness that severely limits possibilities. We should get away and stay away.

Yet, there are those for whom local carries a more expedient meaning about survival over the long run. We belong to a community in which all our members commit to establish a sustainable course for this and many generations to come.

Of course, the truth for each person is a unique blend of these three. Local becomes a personal sense of place. It has a familiarity that says whoever is here belongs here; this is where I can do my best; this is where we can make our stand. It provides a measure of safety and security whereby I, along with my fellow community members, have the means among us to meet our basic needs and more. It establishes a foundation of community-centeredness and fair-mindedness for all to draw upon, yet encourages each of us to exercise personal freedom to pursue our individual goals, live our lives fully, and make a positive difference for ourselves by whatever criteria.

In this context, localization is the process by which members make their community that place where they and their families want to stay because there is nowhere else they would rather be. Localization is a community’s drive toward self-sufficiency and commitment to sustainability. It is an act of collective responsibility.

With this sense of “local” and “localization” in mind, community members direct more of their focus toward achieving self-reliance. This prompts them to take greater responsibility to meet their basic needs through the use of their own resources rather than importing from others much further away. Using terms introduced in my previous posting, such a shift in responsibility redraws the boundaries of the business ecosystem within a radius much closer to home. This opens the door for the development and application of business models that support the successful start-up and expansion of small-scale enterprises throughout the community and region. The net result is that more transactions occur locally, which keeps the wealth of the community at work for the community and goes considerable distance toward making the community the place to be and stay.

As a community localizes its business ecosystem, it produces more of its basic needs in terms of gallons of water, calories of food, kilowatts of energy, units of housing, articles of clothing, quality of sanitation, etc. This, in turn, spurs numerous opportunities for entrepreneurial activity specifically in agriculture and bioscience. Given these were focus areas for our grants, we could tap into the energy generated by the push for localization and the use of agriculture, particularly in food systems, as the economic development engine to advance our projects. In fact, our experiences with those dynamics in the course of our projects became the subject of multiple postings such as Which Food System Do You Use to Get Your Calories? over the past four years. Look for several more along similar themes to be referenced here in future posts under the Sustainable Local Economic Development heading and tagged as “localization.”

Originally posted to Sustainable Local Economic Development by Steve Bosserman on Tuesday, August 7, 2012