Saturday, March 7, 2009

Resilient Communities: Food Security + Local Currency


From John Robb's Global Guerrillas comes this comment and this link.

We need to start thinking these through -- and acting upon those thoughts -- before events smack us in the face.

MBV
III

Thursday, 05 March 2009

RC JOURNAL: Food Security + Local Currency

Jason Bradford, has an excellent story on his group's efforts to start a local currency for his town of Willits, California. Worried about local food security (as in one day after a systemic breakdown, the grocery store's shelves are bare), they devised an excellent scheme to build up local reserves. They founded a reserve currency backed by specific quantities of dried rice and beans called the Mendo Credit.

The story provides an excellent description of the bootstraping process required to get this type of effort off of the ground and rolling.

Posted by John Robb on Thursday, 05 March 2009 at 10:24 AM

5 comments:

jon said...

junk gold and silver coin is probably the best temporary currency available.

it can be backed by whatever you like it to be. you can turn it into any world currency anywhere (why you'd want to once you had it, i don't know) because it still has its melt value.

paper only keeps its wipe value.

Melissa "Darla" In Texas said...

I am glad I am not the only one who reads Rob's Global Guerrillas. Been getting his updates for a couple of years, now. Good Information!

Melissa In Texas

Anonymous said...

Encouraging food stocking by making it a reserve "currency" is a good idea. Gold and silver have little utility - other than melting them to make bullets.

Care must be taken that the beans and rice are real, and not fiat. Fiat notes redeemable in beans and rice is no better than paper backed by the "full faith and credit of the US." In other words, this should be a barter system for food, not the creation of "currency."

CorbinKale said...

Interesting idea. I hope it works. I will tend to keep my food futures stored at my own property. I don't have to go get it, and I don't have to trust someone else to watch over it.

I bought large amounts of sugar and salt in 25lb bags from Sam's Club. As long as I can keep it dry, it will last. My brother pointed out that if I was going to use any of it for barter, I would need a packaging scheme, because walking home with a pound of loose salt in your pocket is not practical. Sam's Club provided the solution. Bulk Ziploc bags, in various sizes. Those would be good for ammunition, foods, medicine, etc.

pdxr13 said...

Gold and silver coin are the best currency **possible**. They don't require backing by an armed .gov man to give them value, although being minted by a reliable Mint is a good thing (the US Mint is still a top-quality operation, even with copper/nickel alloys). Silver coins represent the sweat of miners/refiners/minters somewhere and can't be faked, as long as traders insist on the actual coin at the time of transaction (not a paper "promise to pay").

I love that: Melt value vs. Wipe value.