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limba: RomanaEnglish

Sacred Bee Keeping

I have a tendency to be critical (internally towards myself, and externally towards others), it can come across as tough and judgemental but I do not intend it that way. It is, in me, an expression of striving to discover and do better. Though in many ways Cutia Taranului is a successful project, in the back of my mind there is a continuous conversation about what isn’t good enough and how to do better.

One direction these thoughts go is the relationship between Cutia Taranului and the greater natural ecosystem that underlies it (and all of us). It is a bit of a strange subject for me to address, because my relationship with the natural ecosystem is indirect. It is a relationship that manifests through the producers who partake in the project since they are the ones in a direct relationship with nature.

My views on how to relate to the natural system present some difficulties:

  • I have only a little experience with gardening or farming. As a result, what knowledge I do have is not yet embodied within me. Therefore I cannot offer it with authority. I can only offer it to others, who do relate to nature more often and more directly, as an invitation for them to explore.
  • The knowledge that feels most true to me often goes against popular norms and assumptions. It tends to make me unpopular (though to be honest that depends on who I am talking to).
  • When an established producer is presented with information that brings into question their own embodied and established experience, it can be challenging for them to take in new information. I acknowledge that difficulty: knowing is one thing, applying knowledge is another.
  • New information often points to a path of change. What if the changes have a negative effect on a producer’s livelihood? What if those changes require a producer to make an investment (of time, effort and money)? This leads to a different challenge altogether: how to embrace change in a healthy way?

Bee-keeping is one area where I have questions. I don’t intend to go deep into bee-keeping in this post; I do want to acknowledge that 1) bees are critical to our food supply (without pollination there is no food) and 2) it increasingly seems that there is a bee-crisis all around the world (from mysterious disappearances of entire swarms to collony-collapse-disorder).

From the information I have gathered it seems that most of the problems with bee-keeping originate in … well … how bees are kept. When bees are treated as a honey production system, compromises are made to their well-being. It seems to me that when those compromises add up, they become the systemic problems that we are witnessing with bees.

With that in heart and mind, I’d like to share with you these videos from Sandira & Annelieke in Portugal. They offer a glimpse into bee-keeping that is very different from mainstream bee-keeping. In this story of bee-keeping the bees are at the center, not honey production. These videos offer a glimpse into a world of bee-keeping in which there is a mutual and sacred relationship between bees & humans; a relatonship in which the essence is the depth of the relationship itself and not what is produced by it. I was deeply moved by these videos and want to share them with you:

Hand Made Textile Bags from Gergely Family

The use of plastic bags by Cutia Taranului producers seems to be a popular subject of conversation. It is something we want to see improved throughout Cutia Taranului.

A few months ago Gergely family decided to do something about it. They made (hand-made) at their own expense of material and work (at no cost to members) textile bags and started delivering their produce in them. We applauded their initiative.

A few weeks ago Eniko and Janos shared with us what has happened since. Some members forgot about the bags, lost them … and did not return them for reuse. So Eniko and Janos made replacement bags … and those also disappeared. For some members they were making bags for the 3rd or 4th time. They were finding themselves continuously making bags to keep up with members who lose bags. Now they informed us that they are making a 5th around of bags and that they can’t continue to do this.

So where does that leave us?

  • Do „we” as a group (in this case the group of members of this specific box) REALLY care about plastic and recycling?
  • Do „we” care a little bit, but aren’t REALLY willing to put effort into it? In which case what does „caring”mean?
  • Are the who people speak out about this a small minority who really care? Do the rest of the people not care? (And given the nature of social media I wonder if those who speak out really do care or are they finding satisfaction through speaking?)
  • Can we encourage people to act more responsibly? If so how?

What would you do in this situation?

Impressions from 1st Cutia Taranului Community Meeting

What follows are my personal impressions. It IS NOT an official summary. It IS an invitation for other participants to add their impressions and reflections as comments to this post. Also I relied on my sometimes incomplete understanding of Romanian with some translation help that was available to me. Things may have gotten lost in understanding and translation.

On September 23rd (2018) we had a first community meeting. We invited producers and members (past and present) from Cluj to come together to an open conversation about Cutia Taranului. My wishes for this meeting were to meet face-to-face and get a direct sense for the members of Cutia Taranului (who we, as organizers, don’t get to meet) and to see if there is potential for connecting with a group of people who would be able to get more involved with the shaping of Cutia Taranului in the future.

The response to our invitation email was weak. Around 10 members showed interest, 7 said they would attend, only 3 showed up. In attendance were also four producer families and a couple of friends of the project. The meetings took up the full three hours we allocated to it.

We did a round of personal introductions and in doing so established „rounds” as a basic method of communications in the meeting. As the meeting progressed, especially when we reached a kind of tipping point in the conversation, it was challenging to hold a conversation in rounds.

We did a round of sharing what each person had on their mind (wishes, concerns, ideas, etc.) regarding Cutia Taranului. I gave, as an example,the subject of packaging (reducing the amount of throw-away plastic used in packaging). I explained that we (the Cutia Taranului administrators) neither have the resources to deal with all the potentially interesting and valuable subjects that come up. I also explained that we do not want Cutia Taranului to be a centralized echo-system: in this case where everyone looks to us to decide on what is important and to provide solutions. The point of this meeting was to see if it would be possible for participants in the echo system look to each-other: members to producers, producers to members, members to members. Despite emphasizing that packaging/plastic was just an example, others seemed to latch on to it.

Some subjects came up, including:

  • plastic in packaging
  • knowing in advance what is going to be in the box
  • allowing members to order customized boxes
  • members going away on vacation (especially in the summer time)
  • „skip a week” – enabling members to efficiently notify producers about being away.
  • including recipes in boxes

The conversation gravitated towards the issue of (lack of) flexibility of box content. This was because:

  1. There were so few members.
  2. The members that were present were relatively new to Cutia Taranului (a few months / weeks)
  3. Two of the three members wanted to talk about the lack of flexibility in selecting contents of boxes and expressed a wish to be able to order whatever they want.

In an attempt to embrace the circle as it was, I felt that  an underlying theme in the subjects that were coming up was relationship and the ripples that our wishes and choices send out into the world. When the circle came back around to me I tried to integrate my thoughts (in a spirit that I usually express also on the Cutia Taranului blog: the cost of choice, lover earth). That seemed to irritate one of the members (= a third of the members preset) and that irritation dominated the last third of the conversation.

We took a short break to ventilate the circle, to drink some water and to allow people to connect informally. When we came back from the break, I asked Andrei (one of the „friends of the project” in attendance, and a permaculture designer) to open the circle. He pointed out that in the previous rounds someone said (and no one contested) that there are three „stakeholders” in Cutia Taranului: producers, members and us (organizers). Andrei pointed out that there is a fourth entity: the larger ecosystem we all partake in. I don’t know how that comment was received by the people present, but for me it was in alignment with the wider subject of relationship I was speaking to: I believe we need to learn to be sensitive to implications that go beyond what directly seems to affect us in the short term.

I was grateful that we tried to make this meeting happen. I was grateful for the producers who made an effort to show up and expressed themselves. I was grateful for the members that showed up. I was disappointed that so few members showed up. I was tired at the end.

Some of my personal echoes from the meeting:

  • For now, I am personally not motivated to do this again (though everyone in the room, when asked in the circle, indicated they would like to meet again). For me, without more members, this format is not effective. Maybe producer-only meetings? Maybe member-only meetings?
  • I do not have a sense of how it may be possible to get more members involved? I realize people are busy; that food may not be as high a priority it is for them as it is for us; that it is OK for people to want food to be a non-issue in their lives . Maybe it is too soon to get members involved? Maybe we need to wait until an explicit wish appears from members to get involved?
  • I feel such a conversation, should it happen again, needs to be re-tuned. I realized that I am not really interested to hear what people want Cutia Taranului to be unless they want to be involved in creating it. There aren’t „free resources” available to respond to „requests” – we really cannot „take requests”. I do believe there is a possibility for more people to get involved and create more things together.
  • Learning to be together, to really listen, to speak clearly, to make choices together … this takes time and can only be learned together. That means that if one day we do come together, we need to be ready to give this process plenty of space and time to mature into something valuable and pleasant.

Meeting participants are welcome to add their meeting impressions and thoughts as comments to this post.

The Cost of Industrial Choice

The figures in this post about industrial food production vs. small-scale local production it felt complementary to our discussion about the cost of choice:
(the original text includes links to research resources for the data).

„Consumers pay $7.5 trillion each year for industrially produced food. But between a third and half of this production is wasted along the way to the consumer or at the table: spoiled in the field or in transport, rejected from grocers because of blemishes, or left on the plate because of over-serving.

Conversely, households in OECD countries consume about a quarter more food than is needed – leading to obesity and related health problems.

The total food overproduced each year is worth $3.8 trillion – a combination of $2.49 trillion worth of food waste and $1.26 trillion of over-consumption …

When the wider environmental damages – including contaminated soils and water, greenhouse gas emissions – are added to the health and social impacts, the harm done by the industrial food chain is almost $5 trillion (see footnote 193). For every dollar consumers spent in supermarkets, health and environmental damages cost two dollars more.

… over the last century, the industrial food chain has not introduced a single new crop or livestock species to production but has cut the genetic diversity of our crops by 75 per cent, reduced the number of species by about one third, and reduced the nutritional value of our crops by up to 40 per cent.

The industrial food chain works with only 137 crop species and five main livestock species … By contrast, the peasant web is breeding and growing 7,000 different crop species and 34 livestock species”

Dear Romanians, your country is a special place because of its established and still living peasantry tradition. Keep it alive. At every opportunity you have give preference to local food over 28industrial food.

By Original: lyzadanger Derivative work:
Diliffhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/lyza/49545547, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link

 

Yoghurt Culture

„Archaeologists believe that human collecting of honey predates our cultivation of the soil … When by chance or intention honey is mixed with water, fermentation happens. When the honey is pure, it acts as a preservative and inhibits microscopic life. But honey diluted with water becomes a stimulating medium for airborne yeast to land, feast upon, and reproduce exponentially, bubbling and vividly alive. Within a short time, the honey-water will be mead, its sugars having been converted to alcohol and carbon dioxide by the action of tiny beings invisible to the human eye.

… It can be regarded as the ancestor of all fermented drinks. The production of mead does not require fire, and possibly it has been part of human life for even longer than controlled fire. Imagine the wonder and awe our ancestors must have felt as they first encountered fermenting honey-water in the hollow of a tree. Were they scared by the bubbling? Or just curious? Once they tasted it, they must have liked it and drunk more. Then they started to experience a light, giddy feeling. Surely some divine spirit granted them this substance and the state it induced.

… The learning of techniques to ferment alcohol and thus enter sacred states of altered consciousness is a defining characteristic of human culture, made possible by the life-cycles of humble yeast cultures.

… mead-making marks the passage of humanity from nature to culture.”

from Wild Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz

If you learn to recognize it fermentation is everywhere. It is in the ubiquitous Romanian winter pickles and cabbages (sauerkraut), borscht, cheese & kefir & most other milk products, bread, beer, wine, soy sauce & miso, tea, coffee, cocoa, vinegar … so much of our nutrition is a product of fermentation! Today I’d like to share with you all a story about Yoghurt.

A few months ago Iulia heard from Madalin (a Bucharest producer) about his success in making Yoghurt. She then organized a conference call where Madalin shared his process with a few other interested producers. Horvath family, from Cluj were also on the call. For approximately two months their members have been enjoying a surprise of a small bottle of Yoghurt in their packages.

A few days ago Iulia came back from Cluj with a sample of that Yoghurt. It is delicious. It has a nice consistency and a delicate flavor that mixed wonderfully with the fruit salad that Iulia added to it. One bottle of yoghurt was enough for our two servings, but then it was gone … and I wanted more. To be honest we did have another bottle, but when I say I wanted more I really meant to say I want it to be available to us all the time.

The first thought that came to my mind was of my old industrial mentality: „How can Horvath family ramp up production and make more?” Then I realized that thanks to the nature of fermentation they don’t need to. We can make as much Yoghurt as we want!

Disclaimer: The oh-so-simple instructions work oh-so-well with naturally made living products. These instruction may not be applicable for industrially produced, lifeless, store-bought produce.

To make Yoghurt all you need is a little Yoghurt and some fresh milk (the milk that is delivered by the Horvath family is raw). All you need to do is add some Yoghurt to fresh milk, place it in a warm place (~20c, it will still work in a lower temperature but will take longer) and … wait! Within ~24 hours the consistency of the milk will begin to change. It is ready when … no need to look at your watch … it reaches a consistency and flavor you like. When it is ready, set aside a bit of Yoghurt and add it to another batch of milk. You are an independent yoghurt producer.

We don’t need large industrial food production that need strict regulations to provide us with low-quality food. We do need lots of small producers who care deeply about their produce and their customers because their life depends on it. Can there be a better way to embody that view then by every family becoming its own producer.

This also touches on our recent theme of the cost of choice. In an industrial mindset the burden of production automatically falls to the producer. Suppose we all wanted to have more yoghurt. That would mean that Horvath family would need to purchase larger fermentation containers, enough to be able to produce numerous generations of yoghurt for a steady supply. They would need to arrange a warm space to hold them all. They would need to sterilize them between uses. They would need to tend to the new „production line”. They would need to purchase and package many more bottles (creating more waste). They would need to finance all these additional tools, space and effort, and all that would at best yield a marginal difference in their income.

With yoghurt we have a sweet opportunity to experience something we don’t often get to experience as urban creatures. We don’t need to all agree to becoming yoghurt consumers. We can all become producers for whatever we want to consume. That small bottle of yoghurt is, if you want it to be, much more than a product, it is a seed for you to plant and nurture in your home, in your life. It is a teacher, if you want it to be, of a profound meaning of culture.

 

The Cost of Choice

We (and our producers) get asked a lot to make exceptions. Can I have the box delivered only once every two weeks? Can I have the box with less potatoes? Can I have not have the box for a few weeks when I go on vacation? Can I have the box the way I want it? The answer is NO and we would like to explain why.

We understand why members want to have choice and we acknowledge that it is a reasonable request to make. But having said that I am going to ask you, the member, to step outside of yourself and put yourself in a producer’s shoes (I promise to come back to you).

Being a Producer

Imagine you are a vegetable producer. When you are established and well-organized (which can take a few years!) you have a full work load. Your days are constantly full caring for the plants and weeds and water, caring for your workers, harvesting food and delivering it to the city.

Already in planning their seeding and planting producers have their members in mind. Knowing that they are serving a fixed number of members they can plan their planting with more precision and yield better results. For the producer there is no more guessing what will sell and what will not sell in the market. They are no longer thinking about growing this and that plant, but about assembling a complete and useful box to feed  you and your family. As a member of a box food is grown for you. Allowing everyone to order what they want would bring back uncertainty and waste.

Now lets zoom in on the harvesting, packing and delivering. If, for example, you have 30 identical boxes to pack, you settle into an efficient rhythm. You know how many sacks you need to harvest from each vegetable. You know how to layout out boxes or bags. You know what goes on the top and what goes on the bottom. You get into a packing routine that is simple and flowing. You pack 30 identical boxes into the car, drive to the city and at every stop pull one box out (it doesn’t matter which because they are all the same) and hand it over to the member.

Now lets introduce choice. Before harvesting, the producer needs to review each and every vegetable on the list and see how much should be harvested based on what people want this week (it can change every week). Then, when packing each box, the producer needs to make sure that every member gets what they ordered. The packages probably needs to be marked with names. Then, when packing the car the producer needs to consider his route through the city and pack the boxes in such a way that first boxes to be delivered are pack last (so that they can be taken out of the car without having to move a lot of other boxes).

You can see that the work gets much more complicated, with much more potential for mistakes. Introducing choice requires more work. How much is that work worth? Would you be willing to pay more for all that work? Would you be willing to pay more for choice? How much more? If we, as a community, are not willing and able to pay more but still making such demands of our producers, then essentially we are asking the producer to do more for us. This is NOT possible.

something is cracking under acumulated pressure

We have seen producers stress under these pressures and we are seeing it happening now as I write these words. This is why we strive for simplicity, consistency and continuity. We do not see any other practical way to make available to you a constant stream of quality, local and affordable food.

Industrial Food Standards

The standards of choice, variety, comfort and price we have come to expect around food have been set by a system of industrial food production, distribution and marketing. That is what you get when you go to the big supermarket chains which are taking over our cities (and gradually villages). You get parking, shopping carts, long opening hours and long aisles of shelves stocked with an overwhelming variety of low quality food produced far away by slave labor, with little consideration for anything else but profit.

These industrial standards are already so deeply embedded in our consciousness that we take them for granted. But we shouldn’t … in fact we cannot take them for granted. If we do we are essentially agreeing to the industrial food standards and will end up depending on them to exclusively control our food supply (because no small, local producer can meet these standards).

When working on Cutia Taranului I try to focus on constructive actions and avoiding giving attention and energy to the faults of the industrial food system. Creating better alternatives seems more useful and is more pleasant than examining what is currently broken. However I have been holding on to two articles for a few months, both in English and both related to giant food retailers in the USA. These stories give us a glimpse of what the future may hold for us if we too continue blindly down the path of industrial food production.

The first article What Happened When Walmart Left describes a recurring, systemic and intentional pattern where a Walmart opens up and brings jobs to a community and becomes a communal center (where people meet and connect). It creates a deep dependency between it and the community and then consumes the community and leaves.

“They developed a system that just made us worse off, and then they took even that away from us.”

The second article How Kirkland Signature Became One of Costco’s Biggest Success Stories describes how Costco uses its dominant retail position to corner producers (themselves huge business, nothing like a Cutia Taranului producer) and force them to either drive prices down or cut off business ties – this of course being a „success story” because in the end all that matters is profitability:

„Kirkland Signature, Costco’s store brand, is challenging manufacturers hoping to earn or retain a coveted spot at the warehouse retailer … Costco often introduces a new Kirkland product when its buyers or executives believe a brand isn’t selling at the lowest possible price … Before developing a Kirkland product, Costco usually gives a brand-name supplier the chance to make the Kirkland version, too, say company executives.”

Being a Member

So, coming back to you (as I promised), the member. It’s not that we don’t want to give you choice, we do, but we don’t think its possible, not now. If a box has too much for you and we, for example, ask you to find someone to share it with, it places a responsibility and effort on you. Can you feel it? When you ask the producer to bring you less food you are redirecting that responsibility and effort onto the producer. Can you feel that? Now multiply that many times over … because like you many other members want to make exceptions. Every time you, and others do that, it accumulates and you contribute more pressure to an already pressured system … until something cracks and breaks.

We talk to the producers a lot about this. Unfortunately, it seems that most producers will agree to take on the additional pressure and will do so with a (false) smile. They do so for many reasons. Some are embarrassed to say anything. Some are afraid to lose you as a member. Whatever the reason, the end result of you not taking responsibility for some of the effort, leaves it on their shoulders. And they carry resentment, and they stress & worry, and work hard, too hard, and they get sick … until something breaks. When that happens you, together with all the other members of that box, will stop receiving fresh, locally produced food delivered to your door.

Maybe one day we as a society will become more aware of and learn to value what it takes to produce good food. Maybe one day we will come to realize that there is no such thing as cheap food. Maybe one day we will realize that the prices we’ve become accustomed to are a lie because they don’t include hidden subsidies and do not represent the true cost of poor nutrition (such as the costs of health-care and medicine that are required to complement it). Maybe one day we will reconnect with the precious role food has in our lives. Maybe we will learn to better allocate resources towards good, local, sustainable food production. Maybe we will be able to use those resources to introduce more comfort, availability and choice. But that is not where we are now.

For now we are two facilitators and a few families (producers) doing our best to offer you an alternative in less than favorable conditions. We ask you to acknowledge and embrace the fact that you have a role in this beyond handing money over to your producer, when you receive the box. Your role is to figure out how to comfortably inhabit your place in a relationship built on simplicity, consistency and continuity. If you make an effort we will have a relationship, if not it will disintegrate.

Keep Food Alive

When we first connected with Crisan family they were in a process of winding-down the farm. They had sold off most of their sheep and were having an increasingly hard time getting their pork meat to market. In addition to the farm they were operating a flower shop in the city to complement their income. They now provide three different types of monthly meat boxes to dozens of families in Cluj.

Yesterday Paul Boros completed his first round of weekly deliveries. Paul is passionate about permaculture and has single-handedly created the most colorful and diverse box we’ve seen in Cutia Taranului. When we spoke to him he shared with us that he was about to leave Romania because he could not find a way to translate his passion into a livelihood. Cutia Taranului was to be his last attempt, before leaving.

We were in touch with a potential new producer with a similar story, she was giving up on staying in Romania and was about to leave for work in another country. A few days later (no a box wasn’t launched) she was gone.

Yesterday Iulia came across this story of Irina Toma who grows organic blackberries and was sharing how she is being pressed by large-scale resellers to sell her top quality produce for dirt-cheap prices (so that they can resell it for 3 times as much to stores who will package it in fancy, organic-labeled boxes and sell it for twice as much, most likely in other countries).

We want you all to know that when you join a box, really join a box – including the commitment and responsibility that comes with receiving a box regularly and staying with a producer for years – when you do that you are reversing those eroding forces which are diminishing our ability to feed ourselves. It may not seem like it to you, as a single individual member. But when we look at you all together, as a whole, that is what is happening.

When you join a box you choose to keep local food production alive.  When you joined the Crisan family boxes, their life and farm was turned around. When you joined Paul’s box you said to Paul „we appreciate your passion and your food, please stay”.

To us this is a vivid reminder that we have so much potential power in our hands to shape our world into the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.

Joining a box takes a little longer

We’ve recently introduced two changes to the process of joining a box. In the past all you had to do to join a box was to fill out a form. The two changes we’ve made are:

  1. BEFORE filling out the form we ask you to review a kind of agreement, a „declaration of intentions”.
  2. AFTER you submit the (still) simple registration form we send you an email with a confirmation link you needs to click to confirm your registration request.

The email confirmation after registration is a technicality we should have done from the beginning. We did not have the tools to do it. Now we do. But it is more than a technicality. By doing this we, you our members and us, agree to create an open channel of communication between us. Currently our communications are minimal and mostly about coordinating with producers. But more communications needs are slowly coming to the surface, making an open channel vital. Simply put, we don’t want you to find yourself in a position where a decision that effects you has been made in Cutia Taranului without you knowing about it (and in the future, we hope, without you participating in it).

The declaration-of-intentions is a more conscious and purposeful change. We’ve been observing the flows in and around Cutia Taranului for some years. We’ve witnessed flows that are good for Cutia Taranului (and everyone involved in it). We’ve also witnessed disruptive flows. The agreement is an expression of what we’ve learned. It takes a few minutes to read through it. Reading it, we hope, will create a better understanding of what Cutia Taranului is trying to become and what is your part in making it. It makes our invitation to you and your decision to join more clear and intentional.

This is also a good opportunity for past members (who have not met the agreement) to meet the agreement that new members are now encountering (the agreement may have additional clauses for specific boxes) – see it below:

Declaratia de intentii

1: Ce este aceasta?

Prin aceasta declaratie intentionam sa ne asiguram ca Cutia Taranului este potrivita pentru dvoastra si ca dvoastra va potriviti cu Cutia Taranului. Este o incercare de a crea o intelegere comuna si o aliniere a dorintelor noastre si dvoastra.

Aceasta va lua cateva minute din timpul dvoastra.

2: Ce este Cutia Taranului?

Cutia Taranului ofera acces la hrana buna si locala, punandu-va in legatura cu producatori care pot sa va ofere o „cutie”. Cutia e astfel alcatuita incat sa puna la dispozitie o varietate de produse de calitate pentru dvoastra si familia dvoastra.

Cutiile au pret si continut fix (nu puteti alege continutul cutiei), insa continutul se schimba in functie de sezoanele anului. Pe langa cutiile de baza, unii producatori va pun la dispozitie produse suplimentare pe care le puteti comanda si primi alaturi de cutia dvoastra.

Cutiile sunt livrate de catre producator direct la usa dvoastra. Unele cutii sunt cu livrare saptamanale, altele se livreaza lunar sau o data la cateva saptamani. Exista si cutii create pentru sarbatori speciale si sunt livrate o data pe an.

Cand va alaturati unei cutii intrati intr-o relatie pe termen lung cu un producator. Cutia Taranului nu este locul unde sa cumparati hrana o singura data.

3: Relatia

Cutia Taranului reintroduce relatia in circuitul hranei dvoastra. Relatiile iau timp pentru a se forma. Speranta noastra este ca dvoastra sa va bucurati de cutia pe care o primiti si sa alegeti sa fiti alaturi de producatorul ei pentru o perioada lunga.

Relatia este ceva ce nu exista cand faceti cumparaturi in lanturile de hypermarketuri. Nu stiti cine detine magazinul, nu stiti cine pune produsele pe rafturi, nu stiti cine produce mancarea, nu stiti cine e persoana de la caserie.  Nu stiti, nu va doriti sa stiti si probabil nu vreti sa stiti.

Cand va alaturati Cutiei Taranului ajungeti sa cunoasteti producatorul si speram ca ajungeti sa faceti parte din familia lor extinsa. Aceeasi oameni care produc mancare o livreaza direct catre dvoastra. Puteti vorbi cu dumnealor.  Puteti adresa intrebari. Puteti sa le spuneti ce simtiti in legatura cu cutia, produsele, relatia dvoastra. Aveti posibilitatea sa relationati.

Cand ei, producatorii descopera un nou produs dvoastra de asemenea veti descoperi acest nou produs in cutie. Cand ei traiesc abundenta si dvoastra veti experimenta abundenta (cand, de exemplu, Natura le ofera multe vinete, in abundenta, dvoastra de asemenea veti avea multime de vinete). Cand ei experimenteaza greutati veti simti si dvoastra asta (cand, de exemplu, o furtuna cu gheata distruge rosiile in gradina, in cutia dvoastra vor fi mai putine rosii sau deloc).

Producatorilor din Cutia Taranului se ingrijesc de dvoastra si ei va vor oferi sansa ca si dvoastra sa va ingrijiti de dansii.

4: Grija

Credem ca grija este ingredientul fundamental in Cutia Taranului.

Noi ne ingrijim de producatorii pe care ii facem disponibili pentru dvoastra. Producatorii nostri au grija de munca lor si de relatia cu sistemul ecologic care ii sustine (sol, apa, animale, etc.)

Ne ingrijim de dvoastra. Producatorii nostri se ingrijesc de dvoastra.

Piesa care completeaza puzzleul sunteti dvoastra, membrul cutiei. Fiecare interactiune cu producatorul este o oportunitate de a fi cu grija: cand primiti cutia, cand platiti pentru aceasta, cand oferiti feedback, chiar si cand renuntati la cutie (din orice motiv). Fiecare interactiune poate fi plina de grija sau fara grija.

Credem ca este imposibil sa avem hrana buna fara sa avem grija. Asadar, va cerem sa va ingrijiti, sa va pese si dvoastra.

5: Cand va alaturati unei cutii

Am facut sa fie simplu si direct sa va alaturati unei cutii. De indata ce ati terminat sa cititi aceasta declaratie de intentii va vom ruga sa completati un scurt formular cu informatiile dvoastra de contact. Cand trimiteti formularul completat, informatiile vor ajunge automat la producator si acesta va va contacta telefonic pentru a va saluta si a confirma cererea dvoastra de inscriere.

Puteti sa va alaturati la mai mult de o cutie. In fapt, o parte din membrii nostri s-au alaturat la mai multe cutii pentru a acoperi mare parte din nevoile de hrana ale familiilor lor (de exemplu: legume, carne si produse lactate).

Va rugam sa va reamintiti ca intrati intr-o relatie. Aceasta relatie nu este de tipul „cumpar o singura data”.

6: Cand sunteti membru al unei cutii

Bucurati-va de hrana proaspata si locala! Producatorul dvoastra si noi, organizatorii proiectului, incercam sa cream o experienta placuta pentru dvoastra.

Incercati si dvoastra sa creati o experienta placuta pentru producatorul dvoastra. Fiti acolo pentru livrare cand ati agreat sa fiti acolo, la timp, pentru a primi cutia. Pentru producator, livrarea este o mare parte din munca. Va rugam sa incercati sa faceti ce tine de dvoastra pentru a usura munca lor. Aveti la indemana bani potriviti pentru a plati cutia. Daca apreciati ce primiti si cum primiti, recompensati-ii cu un zambet, lasati sa se vada aprecierea dvoastra, poate ii si imbratisati uneori.

Daca viata pune la dispozitie anumite provocari (dupa cum se intampla de obicei) care va impiedica sa primiti cutia, va rugam comunicati cu producatorul dvoastra. Faceti asta cat mai curand posibil, cat de clar puteti si cu consideratie fata de modul in care influentati viata producatorului.

Cand va alaturati unei cutii, hrana este crescuta si produsa pentru dvoastra. Producatorul planifica productia pentru a acoperi nevoile pentru un numar limitat de membri, incluzandu-va si pe dvoastra. Va rugam sa  va asumati responsabilitatea pentru schimbul in bani pe care il faceti cu producatorul dvoastra. Daca nu puteti primi cutia la o livrare, va rugam sa fiti constienti de implicatiile pentru producatorul dvoastra si sa actionati cu grija si responsabilitate.

7: Renunarea la cutie

Puteti sa renuntati la o cutie oricand.

Cand apare acest moment transmiteti pur si simplu acest lucru producatorului dvoastra. Daca e posibil, va rugam sa le oferiti feedback si sa impartasiti cu dansii motivele pentru care renuntati. Feedbackul dvoastra poate fi de ajutor si ne ajuta sa devenim mai buni.