Practicing Place Economy
Farmhouse Market & Evergreen Food Cooperative
Currently available on Sunday Mornings from 8:00 AM - 1:00 PM & during Farmhouse Sabbath.
Connecting local producers with local consumers to make buying & selling place economy goods and services easier for our community.
Are you a producer? To offer your products in our distribution, contact us.
The Farm at The Farmhouse
A center for agricultural production & infrastructure support for agripeneurial enterprise development.
We want to practice being in proper relation to our place while providing a model for other production to increase this impact.
Our land is used by various producers needing extra place or as a means for startup alongside of our own production to provide for our market.
Classes & Learning Opportunities
Exchanging information to develop place economy practices to create more sustainable households, organizations, and communities.
To see if there are any current opportunities, check out our Facebook events.
Support Place Economy & Do Some Shopping!
What is Place Economy?
From our place,
for the good of our place
Place - a common geographical area of proximity & influence.
Economy - how we enact our common life together for our survival.
Place Economy is a community living in proper relation to itself for the health of every part of itself for the indefinite continuation of itself.
For meaningful contextualization and to leave room for mystery, an exact definition is not possible. However, some key frameworks are:
Decentralized - A movement away from corporate status to a collaborative, local scale. Everything, ideally, would be from our place for the good of our place.
Sustainable - Done by the standard of nature as our model and in interdependence with each other, with fellow creatures, and with the biosphere. The primary question is, "If we do this, can it continue indefinitely?"
Healthy - The result of what we do should lead to the best version of ourselves as defined as wholeness - how the world is meant to be. This health ought to be visible in individuals, relationships, communities, social system, and the ecosystem.
Intentional - As natural, organic, homemade, & local as possible. Everything should be independent of the poor, easy, & fragile craftsmanship that is the product of an industrial economy whose sole goal and standard is profit.
The Goal of Place Economy
An Economic opportunity that exists to be a source of health for our community by creating an economy from our place, for the good of our place.
Can we work to create a decentralized economic system in our place by creating, networking, and supporting local homesteaders, agripeneurs, and producers of goods & services?
Can we reinvest in our place’s assets to reimagine our place's future?
Can we create health oriented, thriving enterprises that offer an alternative approach to community and an alternative option to the industrial economy?
We hope that by supporting, encouraging, and supplying economic life through products, services, & education, we can develop all aspects of our place; and that a rural place of health & vitality can affect our larger metropolitan area.
We want to develop, in our area of influence, a:
Communal
Health-oriented (i.e., the way things ought to be)
Thriving enterprise
To demonstrate alternative structures,
Offer healthy choices via consumption and production,
And continually form our community in regard to health, food, and culture
As an open space that develops all aspects of our community.
In an affordable, accessible, and inclusive way.
Products & Services We Would Like to See
Have a product or want to create one? Here's what we're looking for:
PRODUCTS WE’D LIKE TO SEE - [ not limited to selection below ]
Dish Soap
Butter
Laundry Soap
Coffee
Tea
Honey
Flour
Rice, Grains, & Legumes
Baking Supplies – baking powder, baking soda, cornstarch, cocoa
Cooking Products – vinegars, oils, animal fats, sauce bases
Eggs
Bread
Produce – fruits + vegetables
Meat
Meat Alternatives
Soy Products
Juices + Beverages – lemonade, tea, soda, milk, milk alternatives, energy drinks, kombucha, fermented drinks
Plastic alternatives – plastic bags, grocery bags, recycled paper bags, Ziploc bag alternatives
Dishes – disposable plates, cups, bowls, utensils / washable dishes
Paper products – napkins, towels
Flowers
Jewelry
Beauty Products – makeup, lotion
Furniture
Clothing
Oil & Diesel alternatives
SERVICES WE’D LIKE TO SEE - [ not limited to selection below ]
Construction
Photography
Electronic Repair
Body Health – Physical Therapy, Massage, Physicians, Pharmacy & Medicine, Personal Trainers, Hair
Craft Instructors – skills + trades (guitar, art, athletics, etc)
Accounting, Taxes, & Banking
Lawyer & Legal Assistance
Auto Repair
Counseling
Tutoring
Pest Control
Our Standards
Want to participate in our work in the Co-Op or Market? Here are the standards which we prefer of our products and services. As not every product or service will fit all of these, compromises are certainly understood, but we hope for each producer to being pursuing these standards as much as possible:
Ecologically sound and socially conscious.
Contributes to the health of all aspects of our place.
Primarily for our geographic proximity and the people who live here.
As homemade, organic, natural, and local as possible.
Produced without stuff made in labs or resources / materials that cannot exist indefinitely.
Minimal packaging.
In application to creation, raised or utilized humanely.
Owned, produced, & distributed locally - should not be sale of another business' products or based on a corporate / regional scale or beyond. Ought to be as self-sufficient from our place, as possible.
What is Our Place?
An area of geographic proximity and influence is a bit ambiguous, but we feel that the identity of our place is best understood based on how people identify with where they live.
Because we don't want to completely draw lines (a place is always more fluid that constructed boundaries based on GPS coordinates), we think the identity of our place is best understood in these tiers:
Tier 1: Evergreen - Metamora, Lyons, Assumption, Berkey, AI, West Chesterfield, and its surrounding townships and locations that make up the Evergreen School District
Tier 2: Sylvania | Holland | Swanton | Delta | Fayette
Tier 3: West Toledo | Wauseon | Morenci | Whiteford
Tier 4: Liberty Center | Archbold | Blissfield | Adrian | Whitehouse | Waterville | Maumee | Toledo | Lambertville
Tier 5: Bryan | Montpelier | Grand Rapids | Napoleon | Oregon | Bowling Green
