Making sense of co-ops

KENNEBEC JOURNAL Morning Sentinel
03/01/2009

Making sense of co-ops

BY KEITH EDWARDS
Staff Writer

http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/news/local/6006711.html

AUGUSTA -- Co-op proponents ranging from fishermen to financiers gathered Saturday to share tips on how to get together, to get ahead.

Or, in today's economy, at least get by.

By joining together with other like-minded people in a co-op, speakers at the 15th annual Changing Maine conference said, you can get things done an individual could never do.

And accomplish those things in a way you believe in, even though doing so may not be the cheapest, easiest route. Such as, in the case of the fisherman, making more of an effort to conserve the resource than fisheries regulations require. Or, for the financier, providing low-interest mortgages to members of Maine's Indian tribes who couldn't get such loans otherwise.

Or buying and even preparing organically-grown food.

Co-ops are generally owned by their members, who share the responsibilities and rewards of group ownership.

"It's such a different experience than going to the grocery store, people actually talk to each other," Alison LePage said of getting food through Food Now, the growing Portland Food Co-op's food buying club. "It's a great model and enables people to access the food they want to access. When you get a group of people together with a common goal, it's amazing what you can do."

The food-buying group, which buys only from natural food-suppliers, started in 2006. It's first order, LePage said, was just over $600. The last order of the group with about 75 active members was about $8,000.

About 80 people gathered at the Pine Tree State Arboretum for the annual conference, which, this year, had a theme of "The Co-op Model: Transition to a Democratic Economy,"

Glenn Libby, representing a fishermen's co-op based in Port Clyde, said the group of about a dozen fishermen has begun community-supported fishing, similar to community-supported farms, in which consumers buy shares of, in the case of the fishermen, their catch.

Libby said it's a conservation-minded group, and members must use special gear, beyond that required by state and federal fisheries regulations, to try to reduce by-catch (catching fish they didn't intend to catch).

Last summer the fishermen's co-op had 200 shareholders who bought fish through the program.
Libby said the fishermen get a better price for their catch than they generally would selling to a fish processing company.

But co-ops are not without challenges.

"It has been an incredible amount of work," Libby said. "It's hard to keep the fishermen onboard. You've got to show them results. They've got families to feed, bills to pay."

Susan Hammond, of Four Directions Development Corporation, a tribal program making housing and business loans to Native Americans, said the organization fills a gap created because regular banks are hesitant to make home loans to tribal members because the tribal land is owned by the tribe, so it can't provide collateral.

In contrast to the trend of skyrocketing home foreclosure rates, Hammond said the organization has put about $4 million to work helping tribe members purchase homes and, "We've had no loan losses, no foreclosures. If you provide affordable financing for people, they're going to pay it back."

Organizers of co-ops for housing and employee-owned businesses also shared their experiences with others looking to learn how to form and run co-ops.

Keith Edwards -- 621-5647
kedwards@centralmaine.com