Montana Co-op enthusiasts meet to plan
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RONAN — It’s spring, and people are craving baby lettuces, peppery radishes and rhubarb pie. With fresh local food in mind, consumers and producers met on April 17 to discuss forming the Montana Co-op.
Karl Sutton, program manager at the Mission Mountain Food Enterprise and Co-op Development Center, speaking to about 40 folks, said Jason Moore came to the MMFE last year and expressed interest in a co-op. The idea surfaced last spring, Sutton said, and since then a steering committee was formed including Barbara Leonard, Linda Peterson, Kathy Waring, Larry Robertson, Sutton and himself.
The steering committee has worked on the business plan.
“Generally, co-ops take at least a year to form,” Sutton said, especially a complex one like the Montana Co-op.
The co-op would match growers with consumers, all of whom would be members of the co-op and plans to incude an on-line catalog.
Co-op models they’ve looked at are the Idaho Coop, the Oklahoma Coop and a coop in Madison, Wisc., involving machinists and engineers. The committee has a goal of 2013 for production to begin although some producers attending felt they could begin this year.
Membership will be $20 for consumers, and the steering committee will decide how much producers will pay. Members were asked to join the co-op immediately since the group needs start-up funds. If the co-op doesn’t get off the ground in six months, the money will be refunded. Guest speaker and rancher Wally Congdon, who owns and operates Big Sky Natural Beef in Dell, spoke to the group. He said co-ops are the last hope for local agriculture.
“Looking the guy who buys your beef in the eye,” is a big part of the local agricultural experience.
“Do local, be local,” he urged.
Defining agriculture, Congdon, also an ag lawyer, said it’s the practice, process, procedure, and science of growing food.
“It’s all art; we just forgot it,” he added.
“You have to ask consumers what they need,” Congdon said, and sometimes it takes six to eight months to get that product and sometimes a lot longer.
“Raising a steer is not something you do in two minutes,” Congdon said.
Congdon said he has four years in each steer he raises. The first 12 months are the pregnant cow and the newborn calf, and the next three years are raising the calf, feeding it grass and hay and keeping it healthy until slaughter.
To eat an apple off an apple tree takes about four years, Congdon said, reiterating that the production side doesn’t happen quickly. Consumers can place an order ahead of time, as a group Congdon knows recently placed their order for beef for a Fourth of July event.
Announcing becoming the first member of the coop, Peterson urged others to sign up, since the more members, the better.
Leonard looks at the co-op as a way of healing the nation and the economy, starting with something simple: food.
People interested in the co-op should contact Jason Moore at 469 628-1396.
