The Stalk Market paid our first farmer in #Bitcoin!
Our Soil Supporters pay in USD and we give our farmers the option to be paid in fiat or BTC, as a way to get them familiar and onboarded with their own lightening wallets. And we had our first taker!
#regenag #food #meat #farming
SUCH good feedback and reflections!!
Very frankly, the whole concept and business is new! Really open to all ideas on how best to structure it quantatively.
As of right now, we act as the operations arm for a number of farms out here in Boulder County. Helping to connect the "consumers" (a word we don't really like, so we call them Soil Supporters") with farmers (or "Soil Stewards") to help with the marketing, distribution, and financial movement.
We work with a compost company out here called Compost Colorado, and they have members (individuals and organization) who drop their food waste off with them which is then picked up and brought back to the farms. By layering in the food pickup/drop off with this business we can do distribution at a very low cost since we're already going to farms, houses, and stores.
As for the shares, we don't really structure in terms of equity. One day we'd love for carbon tracking tech to actually be good enough to have that data be the way we determine regen ag effectiveness but it's not quite there yet. So right now we are incubating this entire model and idea through Yellow Barn Farm (the demo site and biz incubator) and Drylanda Agroecology Research (DAR, a non-profit that does holistic land mgmt at Yellow Barn and other sites).
If DAR knows their entire budgetary needs to manage the 80 acres at YBF, we can effectively know what their ops cost is to produce X lbs of meat, veg, eggs, etc (except that eventually we really want to move away from lbs since it's not a very good way to gauge value). That translates to how many "shares" we can offer to the community at a specific rate.
So let's say 150 people pay $200/m or $2k year. That's $300k that can help fund DAR's ops cost and YBF's infrastructure upgrades. The food is then just a by-product of the "tools of the trade" of DAR's regen ag process and because their costs were covered by the service fee the members paid, the members then receive the "dividend" of food once that comes available.
I know it's a lot but super appreciate the thoughtful response and feedback. We know it's a total paradigm shift so any and all thoughts are helpful on how to tailor and simplify the message 😄
The Stalk Market Times 🌾
Read our first newsletter on "Farming-as-a-Service"
https://shoutout.wix.com/so/03OgfWyqL
#regenag #farming #land #stewardship
Thanks for sharing.
The deep intention is to focus back on the soil instead of solely on the end-product.
That by reframing it to pay for the service of ecological management rather than just for the production of the food as a product, we can get back to the root cause of so many issues we see within the micro and macro food systems.
And that the idea of it all being a play on the stock market (quite an extractive system) and our goal is to put money directly into farmer's pockets so they can regenerate the land. And the food is a helpful by-product of regen ag.
But deeply appreciate any and all feedback on the concept! It's meant to push buttons and get us talking about soil, food, and community :)
Stalk Market has received our first #Bitcoin "seeds"! 🌱
We have the first investor in the Stalk Market - where the coin is corn 🌽, our steakholders are bullish 🐮, and the stalks just keep growin' up 🌾
This initial investor has seeded the Stalk Market with 11m sats, which will be "planted" in the community at Yellow Barn Farm in Colorado to familiarize the team and farmers with Bitcoin.
🚜
We are the stalk brokers that help people make good investments into a diverse portfolio of Soil Stewards, who holistically manage land, bring soil back to life, and feed people whole & nutrient-dense foods.
This isn't a get rich quick scheme. This is an investment for the future. It requires long-term vision, able to see the value of seeds now and be patient for the abundance to come.
And the Stalk Market will help ensure investors receive healthy divends of that harvest, or that your gifts can be given back to people who can't afford yet still deserve high-quality food.
🌱
Food should be free.
Food is a basic human right.
Food is to be in service to the land.
Food is a service.
Farming is a service.
Farming-as-a-Service.
Refocus the attention and the resource towards the SERVICE (not product) of good stewardship of the land. And the food is a gift that can be given away.
A gift.
Not taxed. Not monopolized. Not patented and owned. Not manufactured. Not modified.
Whole. Holistic. Integrated. Accessible. Abundant.
A Gift.
💧
Anyone can support this mission, from anywhere in the world.
If you want to help us sprout and grow, follow and zap us on Nostr. We'll plant the seeds for you 🌾
Visit www.stalk-market.com to learn the whole story.