Nextdoorganics
This project also has a Changeshop where you can read more about its latest progress.
Allez à Changeshop: Nextdoorganics.
At Nextdoorganics, we are working hard to support the future of locally produced
food. Our vision is that of a distributed farm system operating in urban and suburban
neighborhoods. We believe that in order for a food supply to be sustainable it must be
economically viable and integrated into the community. To that end, we have created
a business model which can achieve these goals. It’s about using resources we already
have in a responsible, sustainable, efficient way. We are building a network of local
urban and suburban farmers who can share resources, knowledge, risk and profit.
A propos de vous
A propos de vous
Prénom
Kris
Nom
Schumacher
Profil sur Facebook
A propos de votre organisation
Nom
Nextdoorganics
Site Web
Pays
États Unis, RI, Providence County
Pays dans lesquels ce projet crée un impact social
États Unis, NY, Nassau County
Votre organisation est-elle une
Entreprise
Depuis combien de temps votre organisation opère-t-elle ?
Moins d'un année
Innovation
Titre du formulaire de participation
Nextdoorganics
Quels changements pensez-vous apporter ?
At Nextdoorganics, we are working hard to support the future of locally produced
food. Our vision is that of a distributed farm system operating in urban and suburban
neighborhoods. We believe that in order for a food supply to be sustainable it must be
economically viable and integrated into the community. To that end, we have created
a business model which can achieve these goals. It’s about using resources we already
have in a responsible, sustainable, efficient way. We are building a network of local
urban and suburban farmers who can share resources, knowledge, risk and profit.
Quelles sont les principales activités mises en place par le projet ?
Currently, we are developing land on several acres outside of Providence, RI to establish a center of excellence where we will perfect the most efficient methods of small scale farming and train future farmers in these techniques. We are also actively recruiting farm organizers and land owners in Metro NYC who we will join in our efforts to grow food and flowers locally on a network of small plots. In addition we are working on programs in schools and municipalities which will offer on-site food production, local agriculture education, health and sustainability awareness.
We will be selling produce and flowers produced in our local network directly through farmers’ markets, weekly deliveries to homeowners, and direct to consumers from pushcarts on urban streets. Additional produce which cannot be sold direct will be sold to local groceries and restaurants and/or donated. Our volunteers and landowners will be compensated primarily through free produce and flowers, and our farm organizers will be salaried employees. It is our intent to establish a profitable and easily scalable model which can be replicated in any area with a high enough population density.
In short, over the next several years, the primary activities will recruiting and training a network of farmers, and growing and selling produce to support this network.
En quoi votre initiative est-elle innovante ? Dans quelle mesure apporte-elle une contribution originale dans son domaine ?
At Nextdoorganics, we are seeking to implement a change in sustainable local agriculture through the use of an innovative open-sourced business model which empowers people to take control of their own food choices and enables a profitable way for people to make a living while supporting improved health and food availability as well as improved ecosystems. By kicking the middle men out of the equation and providing a shared base of knowledge and resources, Farm organizers can use the land available to them in suburban and urban settings to create their own farm clusters. By spreading the resources across many micro and small scale farms, we can cut the hurdle costs for these food entrepreneurs and enable them to get in at whatever level they want, while offsetting the risk of unbalanced harvests, weather conditions, sales softness. Our model makes it easy for a household to get help in maintaining a family garden while saving on grocery costs and making some much needed extra income, or if they are very ambitious, it allows for them to make it a full time endeavor by creating a farm cluster utilizing the backyard and/or rooftop plots of their neighbors and other interested landowners.
While sustainable local farming is clearly a topic that has received much attention, and the concept of a distributed farming system has been around to some degree, there has never been a full for-profit model which uses this to ensure that long term profitable jobs will be created, regardless of the public’s desire to fund such activities through non-profit grants.
A quel étape votre projet en est-il ?
En place depuis moins d'un an
Comment décririez-vous la population auprès de laquelle vous travaillez ? Parlez-nous, par exemple, de la situation économique, des structures politiques, des normes et des valeurs, de l'évolution démographique, de l'histoire ou des précédentes expériences d'engagement communautaire.
Our goal is to build and support networks of small-scale sustainable food producing plots managed locally, providing community-based food and labor education and exchange. We believe that engaging local populations in the growing of their own food provides fundamental and wide-ranging opportunities for health improvement, social engagement, economic empowerment and nature stewardship.
The demographics of our community is really a full cross section of American society, as a lack of quality local food sources is an issue that effects us all, and our mission is to create a fundamental change in food production and distribution. That being said, we are focusing our initial efforts in areas of high population density in order for our sales channels (which will become our primary funding source going forward) to become established quickly. We are active in several Long Island towns, Brooklyn and Queens, and Providence County, RI. In every neighborhood where we have put our message out, we have received a very positive response. So much so that we have a backlog of volunteers willing to work for free to help us achieve our vision.
We hope to recruit farm organizers from the neighborhoods that we work in. In Queens and Brooklyn, this is a mix of immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean and young urban professionals. In Long Island and RI, this is primarily suburban landowners. The vision of Nextdoorganics is not color specific but is focused on creating a broad based shared network where the unifying attribute is a desire to improve our food system.
Racontez l'histoire du fondateur et ce qui l'a inspiré à démarrer ce projet
Once when I was a child, my Grandfather, a lifetime farmer, referred in passing to the manicured highway islands of the East Coast with disgust as “wastelands.” At first, the comment didn’t make sense to me, as it conjured up images of Mad Max. When I moved to the suburbs in 2005 I remembered this and the need for a new model became obvious to me.
Not to begrudge people soft lawns, which can be achieved through environmentally sound methods, but the American Lawn culture creates a harvest of lawn mulch which is most likely the most inefficient and expensive use of that available land possible. At the same time, middle men and large scale distributors take more and more of the profits while the prospect of farming as a career choice becomes less and less appealing. If we could just redirect a portion of the available land resources, this would be a major step in the right direction.
Being a busy professional in NY, I had difficulty in sustaining a garden, even with my rural agricultural background. I knew that if we were to make this change, it would need to be with a new model that could enable contributions of all levels from people who could contribute a lot of time and from people who could contribute only land or money. I also know that communication, branding, and sales distribution had to be very professional and developed in a collaborative way so that it would be a resource which would tie the whole network together. So in 2010 I partnered with an expert in communications and community organizing, and Nextdoorganics was born.
Impact social
This Entry is about (Issues)
Décrivez les résultats positifs obtenus par votre projet ainsi que la façon dont ils sont mesurés.
We are in the early stages of development, so most of our goals have yet to be realized, but we have successfully established our initial farm site, which is now generating a positive revenue stream through farmers market sales and we have engages a number of volunteers who are working on building local clusters in long island, Brooklyn, and Rhode Island. In the measurement of success, we take a triple bottom line approach, which is an equal focus on financial, environmental, and social returns. Our results can not sacrifice one for another, and each of the three must be positive before we can judge our efforts a success. Ultimately, the measurement of our success will be through a) acres of land resources redirected towards sustainable agriculture, b) number of farm organizers employed, and c) number of families fed with affordable, healthy chemical free local produce.
Combien de personnes ont été touchées par votre projet ?
Moins de 100
Combien de personnes pourraient être touchées par votre projet au cours des trois prochaines années ?
1,001-10,000
Quelle va être l'évolution de votre projet lors des trois prochaines années ?
Over the next three years we hope to rapidly build up our network and scale up operations. We hope to support 15-30 acres of land in distributed urban/suburban production, which would in turn support a number of full time employees and numerous volunteers and part time workers, plus feed upwards of 2,000 families per year, with a strong focus on communities with limited current availability to fresh produce. As our customer base grows and our production supply of food increases, we would also like to add more methods of delivery and street vending capabilities, and increase partner opportunities with small CSA farms and food entrepreneurs. Once our networked model is fully established, the only limiting factor on growth will be cash flow.
Viabilité
Quels sont les obstacles qui pourraient entraver la réussite de votre projet et comment comptez-vous les surmonter ?
There are a number of known risks in agriculture, and while large corporate farms rely on subsidies and chemicals to reduce these risks, our method of risk control is based on the open network design of our business model. Being that we operate in a cellular manor, any negative effects of sales softness, weather events, or equipment failure in one area can be absorbed or offset by the whole network.
While we are still growing, we are at higher risk of not being able to continue due to inadequate cash flow or crop failure at our primary site, but this is a known risk in any small scale farm and we have already begun to generate revenue, so the high risk period will be over soon.
There is a larger potential barrier to success at individual cluster sites where local governments may pose as blockers to land use, and on a national level, the embedded interests of the corporate farm lobby continue to attempt to maintain the status quot through misguided restrictions on local agriculture. We will need to achieve a critical mass in order to be completely free from this risk and get the restrictions removed through advocacy. In the meantime we are seeking to be 100% compliant in order to minimize the risk that this will impede our success.
Quels sont vos différents partenariats ?
Our business model is build on the basis of partnerships. Aside from the landowner / farm organizer / Nextdoorganics partnerships, we are also seeking out and developing partnerships with green development companies to establish sustainable agriculture in new developed communities, and we are also building partnerships with other CSA farmers who would like participate in risk pooling activities.
Actuellement, quel est votre budget annuel (USD) ?
$10 001‐50 000
Expliquez vos choix.
Our current budget is through a personal investment of the founder, but we are establishing positive revenue flow, which will be used to fund future cash requirements. Our 2012 annual budget is expected to be approx. $100k and we anticipate this growing exponentially with our revenues and network acquisition. The current land in production is capable of producing enough produce for $100k worth of revenue, and we plan on tripling the amount of land used for 2012 (already available fields at our R&D center). To support this level of sales, we would need expenses and salaries totaling $150k or more, but would be phased in over the course of the year (thus only $100k for 2012). The remainder of the profit would be used to push for growth of our networks.
That being said, we are looking for additional funding sources to cover our cash flow needs in expanding our R&D center before we start seeing the associated revenue in June 2012.
Comment pensez-vous pouvoir consolider votre projet au cours des trois prochaines années ?
We are continuing to look for ways to improve revenue and profitability, and the primary need in order to make this happen is to be able to hire a full time farm organizer to devote the time needed to establish a large scale farm cluster in the area.
Enjeux
Quels problèmes liés à l'emploi votre projet tente-t-il de résoudre ?
Veuillez sélectionner trois réponses par ordre d'importance
PRIMAIRE
Manque d'efficacité
SECONDAIRE
Compétences/formations insuffisantes
TERTIAIRE
Accès à l'information et aux réseaux insuffisant
Veuillez décrire la façon dont votre projet s'attaque spécifiquement aux problèmes cités ci-dessus.
By pooling equipment, financial, and knowledge resources, we enable people in an urban environment who are interested in agriculture the opportunity to participate to whatever degree they are comfortable with. Information access is critical, and part of our model is to always provide this free.
While small scale urban and suburban agriculture is typically labor intensive, that labor is paid for it's efforts, and the use of the land is more efficient than typical large scale corporate farming, and aside from being healthier, produces much greater yields from the same amount of land.
Additionally, we will be creating training opportunities for our farm organizers and others who are interested in learning how they can apply these production methods for themselves or for profit.
De quelle façon comptez-vous accroître l'impact de votre organisation ou de votre projet ? Veuillez sélectionner trois moyens potentiels par ordre d'importance
Croissance géographique: au sein du pays d'origine
SECONDAIRE
Renforcement de l'impact existant grâce à la mise en place de services complémentaires
TERTIAIRE
Influence sur d'autres organisations et institutions grâce à la diffusion de meilleures pratiques
Veuillez indiquer les activités actuellement en place ou devant être mises en place dans un futur proche pour stimuler votre croissance.
Our growth plan is to expand within the North East region first, and then to leverage our success by offering our model as an example, and partnering with agricultural entrepreneurs from across the country who would like to establish regional branches of the Nextdoorganics model, which we will support through training and use of our sales networks and electronic / web based resources. Additionally, we hope to expand to include healthy food entrepreneurs into our network and product offering.
Êtes-vous en collaboration avec : (plusieurs réponses possibles)
Si oui, dans quelle mesure ces partenariats ont-ils contribué à la réussite de votre projet ?
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