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Advice on community organizing idea, keeping it communist. (lemmygrad.ml)

submitted 15 hours ago by blackbread@lemmygrad.ml to c/asklemmygrad@lemmygrad.ml

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I live in a small Canadian village that imports most of it's leafy greens from the US. They're neither fresh nor cheap, and with Trump's new tariffs, people might be willing to consider alternatives.

Here is an idea for a turn-key hydroponic operation I feel could be implemented where I live: https://www.thegrowcer.ca/featured-farmers/filling-a-community-need-valemount-learning-society

I'm looking for advice on structuring/education/outreach for building a new community organization around this idea while ensuring the organization is and remains thoroughly communist.

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[–] cimbazarov@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

I'm totally inexperienced when it comes to organizing so take this with a grain of salt, but you might want to just focus on solving the issue at hand before making some rule for communist purity. That way you can be more far reaching in gathering a community around it.

If you are personally a communist and you set a good example in your community then naturally people may follow. But starting from the top down with communism is probably not going to help and might put your project dead on arrival.

[–] blackbread@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

This is good advice.

My worry is that this hydroponics setup probably costs a lot and requires continual upkeep and volunteer labor. Thinking about it, I guess when I say "remains communist" I mean that there exists a community body that is responsible for it, plans for its upkeep (& replacement cost & expansion, etc) and calls forth the volunteer labor to run it. I fear without that ethic the project could devolve into a plain old business.

I don't want to be an individual who goes around soliciting funds and volunteers for a social project, only to have it end up as a rug-pull-transition to becoming a private business.

[–] nephs@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 2 hours ago

There's some legal framework in commonwealth countries around cooperatives you might be interested in.

I never figured how to structure securing funds for worker owned cooperatives, but it could be a consumer owned cooperative, paying upfront costs associated with the equipment in exchange for the goods as they are produced. And then volunteer work could be granted shares/ownership, so the exceeding produce become actual wages, then the consumers can be bought out by workers, and it becomes a worker owned cooperative? Just brainstorming here.

And, of course, all decisions being democratic between participants.

Still, it might be useful to have some form of owner (you) dictating the way. And then have it converted to collective ownership by however you prefer to grant it.