At the Sustainable Economies Law Center, we support creativity and innovation in many ways, one of which is to uplift homemade food enterprises. So, it wasn’t easy to come to our decision to not support AB 626. AB 626 is a bill that was drafted at the behest of tech company executives and lobbyists to prioritize their interests above the interests of home cooks and consumers. After being stalled for several months, the bill passed a vote of the full Assembly in January and will soon be up for a vote in the Senate Health Committee.

The media has been reporting a lot lately on “the dark side of the tech revolution” (KQED) as you may have noticed. The New York Times Magazine described typical strategy among tech start-ups as striving to “metastasize from transaction enablers to, with sufficient success, participation gatekeepers.” An example of this is food-delivery apps like Seamless which tout convenient ways for customers to get food delivered from local restaurants, but in some cities the app has become so pervasive that “its customer base becomes too big to ignore, even for restaurants that struggle to afford its steep commissions” so a consumer-friendly app becomes just another means for consolidated corporate control of the food system.

We recognize that the fundamental paradigm of Big Tech is a problem: this paradigm which revolves around extremely rapid growth, monopolization, exploitation of workers and user data, disregard for important public safety and worker protection laws, and inhumane and unsustainable profit maximization.

So what’s the solution?

Our friends and allies have repeatedly called for a new revolution in tech that would make tech platforms democratically owned and controlled by users, proposing to make Facebook a regulated utility or a platform cooperative and proposals to buy Twitter to make it a cooperative. People have wondered: what if Uber were owned by the Uber drivers? Spoiler alert: venture capitalists, business executives, and absentee shareholders who own and control these tech giants tend to disapprove of such proposals so while they are exciting visionary ideas that stimulate important conversations, they are not likely to be realized in the near future.

But while an established tech giant becoming a user-owned cooperative seems far fetched, we’ve been engaged in another opportunity to change the paradigm of Big Tech and support the creation of more community-owned tech platforms. That brings us back to AB 626, the California bill that proposes to dramatically change the regulation of homemade food sales to be much more permissive; a bill that would represent a major shift in food safety regulations and likely set new precedent around the country.

The bill is backed by tech companies, including Airbnb and executives of the soon-to-be retired tech start-up Josephine, among other venture capital backed tech companies. There are numerous reasons to support the general concept of the bill: legalizing an industry that’s already active, creating more opportunities for small business ownership, supporting local food systems, and more. One reason we’ve historically supported legalizing homemade food enterprises is that this provides opportunities to challenge concentrated corporate control of the food system.

However, tech company executives and lobbyists have been making the decisions on the direction of this bill. The bill has been amended several times and more amendments could be on the way, but each version of the bill has failed to place serious responsibilities on the tech companies involved in transacting sales of homemade food and each version has failed to ensure adequate worker protections. We fear the imminent Uberization of homemade food if nothing is done to change course.

We have proposed a policy that would allow more sales of fresh homemade foods made in home kitchens with reasonable food safety requirements (such as safe food handling training, kitchen inspections, sanitary standards) and with the important condition that only certain types of legal entities could operate a web application or web platform that promotes sales of homemade food and takes a cut of each transaction. This is very similar to how California law has restricted certified farmers’ markets for decades: only certified farmers, nonprofits, and local governments may manage farmers’ markets (for-profit non-farm enterprises such as Walmart and Whole Foods cannot operate a farmers’ market) which helps protect the integrity of the farmers’ market as supporting farmers by providing a venue for direct producer to consumer sales of fresh agricultural products.

This is an opportunity to change the paradigm of tech: if this alternative vision were incorporated into California’s next expansion of homemade food legislation it could set a huge precedent in tech across sectors and around the globe.

We need your help! Forms of support needed range from simple letter writing to more active participation in a working group, community outreach, and more.

Read our much more detailed policy paper here.

Read more about the evolving political landscape of homemade food in California here.

Photo by siwiaszczyk

The post Supporting new cooperative tech paradigms to protect the homemade food economy appeared first on P2P Foundation.

The complex issues arising out of Silicon Valley are numerous, from sexual harassment in the workplace to exclusion of women and people of color from career opportunities to dismissing impacts of the tech industry on gentrification.

And these issues are not isolated, they are deeply connected by a pervasive and insular start-up culture and an economic paradigm over-reliant on venture capital. The false promises of the “gig economy” that these companies celebrate must be faced head on, including in the food system.

That’s why we cannot support AB 626, the homemade food bill that has been pending in the California Legislature for the past year. After being stalled for several months, the bill passed a vote of the full Assembly last week. At the Sustainable Economies Law Center, we work to support creativity and innovation in many ways, including by supporting homemade food enterprises. So, it wasn’t easy to come to our decision to not support AB 626.

Here’s the thing about legislation: it reflects the people who write it, and this bill was written by a tech start-up. . The most recent changes to the bill make it so that home cooks carry all of the liability while the tech platforms that promote the transaction and take a cut of cooks’ incomes cannot be held liable if anything goes wrong. Tech platforms wanting to take profits but avoid all liability is essentially the same story we’ve seen play out with Uber and Lyft denying any responsibility for liability when their passengers have been injured or even killed by negligent drivers. But AB 626 proposes unprecedented protections against liability for gig economy apps: it expressly shields web platforms from liability for any illness or injury associated with food purchased through its platform. As a point of comparison, since 2013, California law requires ride apps such as Uber and Lyft to carry $1 million per incident liability insurance to cover their drivers (separate from any insurance individual drivers may carry). Some cities, such as San Francisco, require Airbnb hosts to carry liability insurance.

Food system workers are already among the lowest paid and the most vulnerable workers in our economy and we need to rethink what the future of work looks like in a healthy, resilient community, especially in our food and farming systems. We don’t need a technological quick fix, we need a new paradigm that values all workers, regardless of their status as employees or contractors. We need a new paradigm for workers that protects their rights in balance with consumer preference for fast and convenient service. We need a new paradigm in our economy that provides real economic opportunities for everyone, not just the elite. And we need a new paradigm in policymaking, where grassroots food justice and workers’ rights organizations are at the table, not on the menu.

So we are urging the California Legislature to set a new course for homemade food sales through tech platforms, starting with rejecting AB 626 and bringing home cooks and community based organizations to the table to craft a bill that truly empowers workers of the next economy. We’ve put forth a proposal for an equitable homemade food economy that includes a new type of “gig economy” platform that is owned and controlled by the very users and workers that give the company its value: a platform cooperative.

Incidentally, last week on the heels of the pro-tech platform amendments, the start-up behind AB 626, Josephine, announced it will be closing down in the next few months. This opens the door to an even higher likelihood that some other entity, with far less of an interest as Josephine in supporting home cooks, will dominate the homemade food economy. There is no guarantee that the preferred platform for homemade food will prioritize workers’ rights, food safety, and economic justice. Unless we act soon.

Take action today!

• If you have not yet written to your legislator, find a template letter here. This is an easy and helpful way to get involved.
• Please sign up here if you have time to volunteer during the next few months.
• Read our detailed policy proposal here.

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The post The Future of Homemade Food is at Risk appeared first on P2P Foundation.

So we keep pondering community investing as a capital-raising strategy for farmers, ag. co-ops, and other food and farm enterprises, especially beginning farmers who often strive to implement sustainable agricultural and fair labor practices.

Although “direct public offerings” and other community investment campaigns have successfully raised capital for many community-based food enterprises including grocery co-ops, restaurants, artisan breweries and creameries, they are less common among farm enterprises. These strategies work well for local food businesses because, for one, people who don’t  think much about investing often feel a strong personal connection to their local cafe, eatery, or grocery store and will invest in a local owner’s business because of that connection. Most people have less connection with their local farm.

We don’t actually know of many agricultural enterprises that have successfully raised money directly (not through a national or global exchange) from the public in California recently. One example is Farm Fresh to You, a multi-farm community supported agriculture (CSA) business that operates multiple farms, and aggregates produce from many more farms, to deliver organic produce boxes to consumers throughout California.

So why aren’t farmers and agricultural cooperatives using community financing options more? We’re not really sure but we have a few guesses. One is that farming is a ton of work even and crowd-financing campaigns are also laborious. It might just be too much for one or a few beginning farmers to do both simultaneously. Another guess is that it may be more difficult to raise capital from the community in rural areas where people are more spread out. Another issue is likely rural poverty. There may be other reasons. In any case, we’d like to find out if community investment campaigns have the potential to transform financing for the beginning farmers of today and tomorrow.

What types of agricultural enterprises or farmers might be good candidates for community investment campaigns? Here’s a list of indicators:

• Farm enterprises seeking to raise roughly between $200,000 and $1 million for purchasing land, equipment, supplies, or for working capital;
• Farmers with experience in farming who can instill a sense of confidence in prospective investors;
• Farmers committed to organic, diversified, pasture-grazing, and/or other sustainable farming practices;
• Farmers who are active in the community and well-connected to their customers (i.e., through sales at farmers’ markets, CSAs, or on-farm tours and events);
• Farmers who are enthusiastic about the idea of asking their customers and community to become investors in their farm business;
• Farmers who can develop a clear and concise business plan, either working alone or with a business advisor;
• Farm enterprises seeking growth capital over a 2 to 3 year period (because community investment campaigns take some time to plan and execute they are not suitable for urgent funding needs);
• Farmers with strong communication skills. English fluency is not essential, but farm enterprises need at least one one person who can communicate, orally and in writing, in a compelling way about the business); and
• Farmers dedicated to the farming enterprise for a long period of time.

Like what you read here? See our Grassroots Finance page for more about what we’re up to and sign up for our newsletter here to get updates in your inbox. Also, coming up September 10 through 13 is the annual ComCap Conference in Monterey, California where members of the Law Center’s staff will be speaking along with other thought leaders, movers, and shakers in the community capital movement.

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The post Can Community Capital Finance the Next Generation of Farmers? appeared first on P2P Foundation.

When I started volunteering for the Sustainable Economies Law Center in 2011, I was under-employed and struggling to pay rent. A friend of mine and I were operating an underground supper club hoping to earn some extra cash to make ends meet. Having previously worked in commercial kitchens, I had witnessed firsthand some of the pitfalls of our food regulatory system. That’s why I was so energized to become one of the architects of the California Homemade Food Act, aka the “Cottage Food Law.”  As I started working on a bill proposal and putting the word out that I was working on a cottage food law for California, I was thrilled to meet so many other people who were as passionate about creating thriving local food systems as I was. We organized a truly grassroots campaign around the state. After the Homemade Food Act was passed, literally thousands of new businesses were lawfully permitted in California within the first year. The passage of the law was incredibly empowering for low income community members and under-employed folks to start their own micro-food business with very little overhead. We’ve always envisioned a future law that would allow a greater variety of foods to be made in a home kitchen and sold on a neighborhood scale, furthering community-ownership of the food system.

However, the bill introduced in February is “sponsored” by a Bay Area tech company that operates a platform for advertising and payment processing of homemade meals. We are both intrigued by the power of new tech platforms to transform the economy and also nervous about the unintended side effects of apps like Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb with regards to evasion of employment laws, various safety laws, and tax laws, plus the concentration of profits and power in the hands of a few elite tech entrepreneurs and investors. Our mission is all about creating people-powered economies, not absentee shareholder-owned economies. It’s important to us that any homemade food legislation be about creating thriving local food economies and empowering food system workers and eaters.

We are worried that this homemade food legislation may ultimately be designed to meet the needs of tech companies above the needs of home cooks, eaters, and other stakeholders, but we are optimistic that if we work hard to share our vision for a better food system with lawmakers, that we can help ensure the bill works for the people of California, not just a few tech companies and their investors.

What our Law Center is proposing is for California to adopt a greatly expanded homemade food law with a stipulation about management of sales channels similar to California farmers’ market law, but tailored to the realities of the internet age. We are proposing that any web platforms selling homemade food under a new regulatory landscape would have to be legally structured as nonprofit organizations, government entities, or as cook-owned or eater-owned cooperatives.

Check out our new policy proposal overview and background here.

We’ll continue to write and speak out about our vision for a community-controlled food economy. I hope you’ll join us.

The post Do Not Make an “Uber Mistake” with Homemade Food Laws! appeared first on P2P Foundation.