Montana Co-op to take farmers markets online

Montana Co-op presented their virtual farmers market project to a group of about 30 residents, farmers and gardeners at the Essential Stuff Project’s monthly meeting at Clementine’s on July 18.

The co-op is based in Ronan, but their goal is to bring together all the goods produced in western Montana on to one user friendly website.

“They didn’t give a standing ovation, but it was the closest we had at any of our events,” ESP secretary and web editor Catherine Haug said. “Most of the people that came were producers who wanted to bring their foods to the consumer, so many of the questions were about producer issues.”

Connecting consumers with producers is part of the big picture for Montana Co-op. According to Montana Co-op founder Jason Moore and permaculture consultant Kelly Ware from Bigfork, only 3-7 percent of Montana’s food is locally grown whereas 50 years ago the number was close to 70 percent.

Moore and Ware also said if Montana were able to increase that total to 15 percent it would mean an increase in 9,000 jobs and $225 million in revenue throughout the state.

“In rural Montana the main streets are dying,” Moore said. “Once the grocery store leaves, the local people have to drive to the nearest town and while they are out they are buying things they would buy in the local community and the local community continues to go downward.”

The more participants Montana Co-op gets, the more successful it will become. The organization is seeking members on both the production and consumption sides. The cost is $20 for a lifetime membership that allows a person living in Montana to sell anything they produce.

Because the co-op is classified as a farmers market, sellers are not bound by the same restrictions as full-scale stores, this means home kitchens can be used.

So far the co-op has producers in Lakeside, Somers, Dayton, Bigfork, Kalispell, Whitefish, Columbia Falls and Ronan.

They hope to arrange “food hubs” in as many places as possible where customers’ orders from local producers can be picked up. The hubs can be located anywhere, at someone’s home, a store, or even just a parking lot like a regular farmers market.

The primary difference is that the Montana Co-op will make it possible for customers to get all their locally made goods in one location at one time. And, their goods aren’t limited to just food, anything that’s made locally could potentially be sold on their site.

Moore said that money spent locally is circulated five times within that region, but once something is bought outside of the state, that money is out of the local economic system.

“One of the problems I see is that a lot of the people here shop at Costco and I see them as death,” Haug said. “I would like it (the virtual farmers market) to be death to Wal-Mart and Costco.”

Montana Co-op is based on the Oklahoma Food Co-op’s design which started 12 years ago. It sells over 4,000 products and has 33 drop-points throughout the state. The Oklahoma Food Co-op provides the software for the online farmers market free of charge to any upcoming co-ops looking to take their markets online.

“There has got to be a new understanding of agriculture because the industrialization of agriculture has completely denaturalized our environment and made a desert,” Ware said. “This is a call to action to band together and create something great.”

Another goal for food co-ops, besides promoting local food consumption is also promoting healthier food alternatives and limiting environmental impacts by reducing transportation.

While the valley is already known for its cherries, the co-op will also tap into producers such as Loon Lake Pottery and Gardens for vegetables and herbs as well as small and larger-scale regional producers of milk, cheese, eggs and anything that a co-op member produces enough of to sell.

Because the food sold at co-ops is not shipped long distances it means less need for preservatives and less fuel burned getting it from the farm to the kitchen table.

“Our health is at stake, getting all this pesticide and GMO from who knows where,” Ware said. “It is really important to know who your farmer is and how they are growing or caring for their livestock, and if that is as close to nature as possible.”

For more information on Montana Co-op, go to montanacoop.com or contact Jason Moore at 285-1149 or info@mon tanacoop.com.