Sunday 29 August 2010

Cheshire Landshare

I've been extolling the virtues of co-operatives on this blog as an economic alternative to capitalist corporations. The beauty of co-operatves is that they are democratically run. There are no bosses and no shareholders to cream off the profits. Unlike capitalism, the workers enjoy the fruits of their labour. This has to be the economic alternative that the left needs - replacing capitalist corporations with worker run co-operatives.

I've been trying for sometime now to put my money where my mouth is and set up a co-op. Of course this is something you can't do on your own, you have to find like-minded people. Well, now the founders of Cheshire Landshare are beginning to make some headway. We are an industrial provident society soon to be for community benefit. Our aim is to acquire land in Cheshire for people to grow their own food, and keep livestock. Initially we are looking at getting some land for allotments but we have bigger plans long term.

We want to help communities in Cheshire increase their resilience in the face of climate change, increase bio-diversity, teach rural crafts, create employment and involve schools and the disadvantaged in our work. Its early days. So far we have obtained a small grant to help us get started and pay for the initial set up costs. We are hoping to get our first piece of land soon so that we can really get started. If you want to find out more visit our Facebook site.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This sounds great - best of luck to you all with it and hope your hhard work pays off

Harry Stottle said...

It all sounds very nice, but life's not like that. If capitalism is that bad, the only way to get away from it is to join a commune and abandon all the benefits of modern life.

@HT4ecosocialism said...

?? who is trying to get away from anything? Not me