Tag: Happiness economics

anthropology · behavior · community · creativity · environment · health

Making money off the land

Beth Kelley2 Comments
A swaledale ewe on the rolling fells of the La...
You may be looking at a model of your next lawnmower. Image via Wikipedia

After the last post about dumpster diving, I thought we could focus on something a little more fresh, like growing your own food. Or your own sheep.

From renting out goats and sheep in order to naturally trim lawns and hillsides, to teaching other people how to raise chickens and bees, “urban homesteading” is becoming a way of life that is not only natural and makes people feel good, it’s also profitable.

As an uncertain economy and a stagnant hiring climate continue to freeze people out of the traditional job market, a number of entrepreneurs like Mr. Miller, many of them in their 20s and 30s, are heading back to the land, starting small agricultural businesses. And in the process, they are discovering that modern homesteading offers more rewarding work, and possibly more security, than entering the white-collar fray.

Mr. Miller, who supplements his income by working on a local farm, has resisted raising his prices because he wants his services to be available to all. And while Heritage Lawn Mowing is not yet in the black, he says he has found a better way of life.

“It’s a gateway to that whole rural dream,” he said. “And with the type of recession we’re having, there’s stability in it.”

Other yeoman start-ups are charting a more traditional path to profits.

Carrie Ferrence, 33, and Jacqueline Gjurgevich, 32, were in business school at Bainbridge Graduate Institute in Washington State when they noticed that many local neighborhoods were “food deserts,” without easy access to fresh local produce and other grocery staples.

Their answer was StockBox Grocers, a company that repurposes old shipping containers as small grocery stores. The company won $12,500 in a local business plan competition and raised more than $20,000 online in a Kickstarter campaign to finance its first store, which opened in the Delridge neighborhood of Seattle in September.

“It’s a tough job market, and you have really few instances in your life to do something that you really love,” Ms. Ferrence said. “It’s not that this is the alternative. It’s the new plan A.”

Read more: Sheep Lawn Mowers, and Other Go-Getters (New York Times)

What is it that is so appealing to this (my) generation about growing gardens, knitting, and owning a sheep-rental mowing company? Why are we so drawn to this idea of keeping bees, growing our own vegetables, and sewing our own clothes? I have some ideas, but I’d be curious to hear yours in the comments below.

Related articles
behavior · community · culture · environment · happiness · Social

“The Economics of Happiness” documentary argues buying local will save the planet, ourselves

Beth Kelley
Helena Norberg-Hodge
Helena Norberg-Hodge, director of "The Economics of Happiness" and founder of ISEC. Image via Wikipedia

I am a huge fan of buying local (although I could be a lot better at it). This film makes an interesting argument that buying local is not only good for the environment and the local economy, but also connects us back to our spiritual sense of community.

Economic globalization has led to a massive expansion in the scale and power of big business and banking. It has also worsened nearly every problem we face: fundamentalism and ethnic conflict; climate chaos and species extinction; financial instability and unemployment. There are personal costs too. For the majority of people on the planet, life is becoming increasingly stressful. We have less time for friends and family and we face mounting pressures at work.

The Economics of Happiness describes a world moving simultaneously in two opposing directions. On the one hand, an unholy alliance of governments and big business continues to promote globalization and the consolidation of corporate power. At the same time, people all over the world are resisting those policies, demanding a re-regulation of trade and finance—and, far from the old institutions of power, they’re starting to forge a very different future. Communities are coming together to re-build more human scale, ecological economies based on a new paradigm – an economics of localization.

more via The Economics of Happiness | Full Synopsis.

I have seen this same community/spirituality argument proposed as well with farmers in Hawaii trying to preserve traditional knowledge of taro planting, as well as other indigenous groups in South and Central America, and all over the world, so it is interesting to see this documentary maker make the argument on a larger scale, saying it can benefit all of us. I tend to agree.

I also like the idea of “grandmother universities,” which fit in well with the current trend of DIYers.

Has anybody seen this film, or know more about it? It’s sponsored by the International Society for Ecology & Culture, and directed by Helena Norberg-Hodge.