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Home / PEOPLE POWER

PEOPLE POWER

Posted January 19, 2017 by Dan

Creating Social Change, Together

The extraordinary political events taking place in our country are affecting us deeply here at Real Pickles Co-operative, as they are for so many others. They highlight how far we have to go to build the just, democratic, and sustainable society we wish to see.  We are reminded why all of us here take Real Pickles’ social mission so seriously, and why we must continue to work as hard as we can in pursuit of it.  It is also now as clear as ever that we cannot do this work alone.

One essential lesson of the 2016 presidential election – among many others – seems to be that our economic system is truly not working for many millions of Americans, and that this fact cannot be ignored. The Dow Jones may be up, the economy may be growing, corporate profits and the 1% may be doing great. But many are being left behind. Real change is needed, and the big question is what kind of change will we work toward?

At Real Pickles, we are committed to creating positive social change based on an inclusive vision that prioritizes equality, justice, health, democracy, and sustainability.  We are seeking to build a system that offers real opportunity to all people to live healthy and fulfilling lives.  This means moving away from corporate capitalism and toward an economy where small, community-oriented businesses are the norm.  It means making hatred and discrimination things of the past.  And – urgently – it means doing whatever we can to avoid disastrous climate change.

Thankfully, we are far from alone in these efforts.  A strong example is the New Economy Coalition (of which we are a proud member), whose vision is “a new economy…that meets human needs, enhances the quality of life, and allows us to live in balance with nature…a future where capital (wealth and the means of creating it) is a tool of the people, not the other way around.”  As a diverse array of 175 member organizations, each is pursuing these goals in its own ways, and also coming together wherever and however possible to build on each other’s efforts.  So much essential work is happening within this network, and we are grateful for the opportunities we’ve had to collaborate with such members as Equity Trust, Co-op Power, Cooperative Fund of New England, Cutting Edge Capital, Tellus Institute, Slow Money, and Project Equity.

Our work of creating a more sustainable food system is supported by many thriving organizations.  Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA), for example, has been paving the way for countless food and farm businesses here in western Massachusetts to reach success as a result of their highly effective marketing of the “buy local” concept.  The Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (NESAWG), a 12-state network of over 500 organizations, is leading the way in building a vibrant regional food system.  The Northeast Organic Farming Association and Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association are each in their fifth decade as influential developers of the organic agriculture movement.

We are also encouraged to be seeing the rise of the co-operative movement which is building a valuable alternative to the traditional corporate model.  Worker co-operatives are sprouting up here in western Massachusetts (and elsewhere), with the Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives providing a forum for area worker co-ops to collaborate as well as offering assistance to start-ups.  Around the Northeast, we are seeing more and more consumer food co-ops both getting started and expanding, with support from the Neighboring Food Co-op Association – a regional network of food co-ops representing combined memberships of over 107,000 and annual revenue of $240 million.

While the primary focus of Real Pickles’ work is the Northeast U.S., we recognize the importance of maintaining a national and global perspective, as well.  We admire and support the grassroots climate activism of 350.org, and have participated in climate marches in NYC and Washington DC.  The National Co-op Business Association, a national trade group of co-ops, is doing important work developing and advancing co-operative enterprise both in the U.S. and internationally. The Cornucopia Institute is providing the public with essential reporting highlighting both the problems of industrial agriculture and beneficial practices of family-scale organic farmers.  Over the past year, thousands have been camped out on the front lines protesting plans to build the Dakota Access Pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation (we recently made an exception to our Northeast-only distribution commitment to send a donation of fermented vegetables to the protesters).

Addie Rose at 2013 Climate Rally in DC

We’re deeply fortunate to be working with so many effective partners who share our commitment to a just, democratic, and sustainable society.  At the same time, we know that our approach to creating social change, as well as the scope of our own network, represents merely a narrow slice of what is happening and what must happen if we are to truly achieve our vision.  In the months and years ahead, we commit to redoubling our efforts to create real and positive change by building on the work we’re already doing and by seeking out new connections and partnerships across our region, nationally and globally.  We hope you will join us.

 

Tagged: CLIMATE CHANGE, CO-OPERATIVES, COMMUNITY, EQUITABLE, LOCAL, NEW ECONOMY, PEOPLE POWER, PEOPLE-CENTERED, REGIONAL, RESILIENCY, SLOW MONEY, SOCIAL CHANGE, SOCIAL MISSION, SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY, WORKER CO-OPERATIVES

Posted February 19, 2013 by Addie Rose

“We don’t want no climate drama!”

Who does?  Dan and I traveled down to Washington D.C. this past weekend to be part of Forward on Climate, the biggest climate rally in U.S. history.  We joined over 40,000 people on the Mall near the Washington Monument, and then marched to the White House to make sure that our message was heard.  Our message was serious, but we had a great time conveying it.

Dan & Addie Rose

The Sierra Club, 350.org, and 160+ other organizations sponsored theevent, and Rev. Lennox Yearwood of the Hip-Hop Caucus emceed the show.  We heard from author and activist Bill McKibben, tribal leaders from British Columbia, Alberta, and Oklahoma, and even a member of the 1% (a billionaire investor) who came out to let us know that he saw the Keystone XL pipeline as a very bad investment.  All spoke out strongly against the pipeline that is proposed for transporting oil from Alberta’s tar sands to the Gulf Coast for refining and exporting.  The quantity of oil estimated to be locked up in the tar sands is equal to all the oil that humanity has ever yet used – and if burned would raise the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere from an already dangerous 400 ppm to a frightening 600 ppm.

“You are the antibodies kicking in as the planet starts to fight its fever,” Bill McKibben told the crowd as we gathered on the Mall.  Many people referenced Dr. Martin Luther King’s visit to the Mall 50 years ago and the crowds of people who came to fight for human equality.  The difference, Rev. Yearwood noted, is that now “we are fighting for existence.”  Indeed, climate change is already picking up steam – as recent extreme weather events keep reminding us – and the stakes are high.  The opportunity to convince President Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline is an opportunity to impede the burning of that dirty Alberta oil – and to give us time to get on track reducing our energy consumption and switching to renewables.  Dr. King’s famous words ring true today: “We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now.”

Climate change is a big deal to us at Real Pickles.  Our work here is to strive to create a business that is sustainable and energy efficient, one that helps to build a strong and healthy community.  Many of the principles on which we base our decisions are principles that also define the climate movement.  Climate change is also central to the work I do outside of Real Pickles: managing communications and outreach for the Northeast Climate Science Center (NE CSC) based at UMass Amherst.  The center is a federal-academic partnership that works to provide tools to natural resource managers as they plan for a future of changing climate.  My two workplaces – Real Pickles and the NE CSC – span a broad spectrum between big picture and community scale action.  In both, I think about the issues surrounding climate change on a daily basis and hope that our government will take action to prevent the worst, even as many citizens prepare for it.  For these reasons, I was thrilled to join the 40,000+ protesters in Washington on Sunday.

The march begins

“Hey Obama! We don’t want no climate drama!” – chant from the crowd

We felt very inspired by the attendance and the vibe at the rally.  People traveled from all over the country to participate and show their support for a low-carbon future.  Together, we shouted and we shook our fists.  We danced to the drum line and the brass band.  And we danced extra hard to keep warm – did I mention that it was a crisp 25 degrees with a brisk wind?

There were signs declaring that “fossil fuels are SO last century” and stickers against hydrofracking (“No fracking way!”).  The tribal leaders spoke of the incredible pollution risk posed by the Keystone XL pipeline: “Oil always spills.  It is not a question of if, but a question of when.”  And there were numerous chants in favor of solar and wind power, with Dan and I occasionally adding in a good word for conservation as priority #1.

Turnout for the event far exceeded expectations, and we left feeling particularly proud of the Western Mass contingent: we heard that 5 or 6 full buses traveled to the rally from the Pioneer Valley, yeah!  We took a bus down from Greenfield and were serenaded in the parking lot by activists unable to join us – with songs like CSN’s “Long Time Comin'” – before we boarded the bus and set on our way.  Amidst the enormous crowd, we didn’t run into many Western Mass folks but did see our neighbor Alden, owner of the People’s Pint, toward the end of the rally.  We were hoping he would have 2 pints of his Farmer Brown and a couple of pulled pork sandwiches to offer us, but alas – we’ll have to wait until we get back to Greenfield.

We’re including a few photos from our trip – we hope that you enjoy!

Addie tells Obama that she “don’t want no climate drama”.
Dr. King’s words ring true today, “We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now.”

 

 

 

The polar bears show up to the rally to advocate for their future existence.

 

A brilliant policy solution that could make a profound difference. (Carbon Tax Center is a good clearinghouse for info on a revenue-neutral carbon fee.)

 

The Occupy movement lives on!

 

It’s time, indeed…
Gotta put the brakes on.
The final word.

 

 

Tagged: CLIMATE CHANGE, Occupy Wall Street, PEOPLE POWER, Real Pickles, SOCIAL CHANGE, SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY, sustainable

Posted April 5, 2012 by Dan

People Power, Not Corporate Power


Big corporations are a central part of modern American life: We buy an overwhelming proportion of our goods and services from them, we absorb their advertisements nearly everywhere we go, we invest our retirement savings in them, and we depend on the latest twists and turns in their average stock values to tell us whether our lives are headed in the right direction.  These institutions have brought us many material wonders, to be sure.  But what, we might ask, is their collective impact on our pursuit of loftier goals?  Does the dominance of big corporations in our society, for example, make it harder to achieve sustainability, social justice, or true democracy?  Might it be that such institutions actually put these kinds of social achievements fundamentally out of reach?  If so, what can be done?

In the aftermath of two recent federal court decisions – both, as it happens, ultimately threatening to impact a western Massachusetts food business like Real Pickles – I think these are questions worth exploring.

Cukes, Not Nukes

A couple weeks ago, many of us on the Real Pickles staff traveled to nearby Brattleboro, VT, to protest the continued operation of our neighbor, the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.  With our “Cukes Not Nukes!” protest signs, we joined over 1,000 people in marching to the local headquarters of its absentee owner, New Orleans-based Entergy Corporation, where 130 people were then arrested in a non-violent civil disobedience action.

There have long been plenty of good reasons to shut down VT Yankee.  The question of how to responsibly manage its waste seems hopelessly unanswerable, given the million-year duration of its radioactivity.  And, a major failure at the reactor could make a sizable portion of New England uninhabitable for thousands of years.  While such a prospect was real even when VT Yankee first went on-line in 1972, it has become ever more possible as the reactor has grown older and experienced a longer and longer list of mishaps.

In recent months, however, another reason to protest has come to the fore.  And, that is the extreme level of corporate power revealed in the decision-making process about VT Yankee’s future, as well as a corresponding failure of democracy.  VT Yankee’s original 40-year operating license expired on March 21 (the day before the march).  But, unfortunately, rather than now heading toward decommissioning, VT Yankee continues to operate.  Last year, in the midst of an unfolding nuclear disaster in Japan, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) granted a 20-year license extension, a lucrative prize which Entergy worked for years to obtain.

How could the NRC make such a decision?  After all, VT Yankee is the very same reactor model as those that failed at Fukushima.  Serious problems continue to plague VT Yankee, and the consequences of a major accident there would be profound.  It is difficult to view the result as anything other than the undue influence of a powerful energy corporation faced with the opportunity for massive financial gain.  Perhaps, a “corporate mind-set” was at play, as well – a phenomenon which leads people to have outsized faith in corporations to bring about positive societal outcomes.  I view the corporate mind-set as a consequence of big corporations’ pervasive influence in society.

In January of this year, even more serious questions about democracy were raised when a federal court invalidated the state of Vermont’s decision to deny Entergy permission to continue operating the plant beyond March 21.  The NRC had given its permission, but Entergy had previously signed a contract with Vermont agreeing it also would need the state’s go-ahead to keep the reactor going.  After a long public debate during which it was firmly established that the clear majority of citizens wanted VT Yankee shut down, Vermont’s legislature sided with the citizenry.  But, Entergy sued.  It hired a team of superstar lawyers, spent millions of dollars, and – in a wildly off-base court decision – won.  Vermont has appealed the decision.  For now, however, corporate power has won.  And the inhabitants of New England remain at risk.

Real Food, Not Frankenfood

Another recent court victory for a big corporation raises many of the same questions as the Vermont Yankee story.  It also hits particularly close to home for an organic food business like ours.  This case involves Monsanto, the world’s biggest marketer of genetically engineered seeds.

Nuclear power is a very risky business, though its risks are fairly well understood.  With genetic engineering, the risks are similarly great.  Yet, it’s hard to even predict all that could go wrong.  The problem is this: our understanding of living organisms is insufficient to warrant messing around with their basic genetic structure in this way.  Living organisms are highly complex.  To think that inserting a fish gene into a tomato will not produce a long list of unforeseen effects is naive and dangerous.  Will new carcinogens or allergens be created?  Will the plants cross-breed with wild plants and then undermine the health of our ecosystems in some unexpected way?  It turns out that such things are already beginning to happen.  To fully understand the impacts of genetic engineering could take decades, by which time it will be far too late to rein in this technology.

It is a serious problem that the federal government has essentially decided that any and all genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are safe and require no testing, raising the question again about the influence of corporate power on our government.  The most recent win for the biotech companies is just as troubling.  Last year, a coalition of organic farmers, seed companies, and advocacy organizations decided to challenge Monsanto for its aggressive actions against farmers whose crops have been contaminated by Monsanto’s GMOs.  The contamination happens when GMO pollen gets carried by wind or insects onto other farms, and then cross-pollinates with non-GMO crops.  Farmers who have never purchased genetically modified seed suddenly find GMO crops growing in their fields.

GMO contamination threatens the existence of organic agriculture – and poses huge threats to all agriculture.  One would expect farmers to have legal recourse against the biotech companies.  After all, these corporations are clearly guilty of “genetic trespass”, robbing farmers of the organic or non-GMO status of their crops.  In actuality, Monsanto has, for years now, been harassing and successfully suing farmers for patent infringement whenever their GMOs are found in those farmers’ fields.  It has made no difference that the farmers neither planted Monsanto’s seeds nor wanted them in their fields in the first place.

In response, the group of farmers, seed companies, and non-profits filed a lawsuit against Monsanto, preemptively seeking protection from patent infringement should the farmers represented ever find their crops contaminated by Monsanto’s GMOs.  Monsanto hired a team of top lawyers and fought back hard. In February, the judge threw out the case, ridiculing the plaintiffs for a “transparent effort to create controversy where none exists.”  The case is now being appealed.  One is again left to wonder about the prospects for a society where corporate influence is so pervasive.

People Power

Is there another path?  Is an economy dominated by big corporations the only way?

My opinion is that it’s time to dig out that old classic, Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (1973), and consider the advice of E.F. Schumacher: “Today, we suffer from an almost universal idolatry of giantism.  It is therefore necessary to insist on the virtues of smallness.”  Forty years later, “bigger is better” remains the conventional wisdom.  Yet the evidence tells us that bigger is not always better.  Increasingly, the idolatry of giantism brings us to a place in which profit-driven corporate influence wins the day, regardless of what ordinary people want or need.  If we instead want a society run by the people, many changes are needed.  Among the most essential is a shift from an economy dominated by big corporations to one oriented around small businesses (especially those with democratic structures, like cooperatives).

In a corporate-dominated economy, corporations hold the power.  In an economy predominantly made up of small businesses (even if big businesses still exist), it is possible for people to determine the direction of their lives, and of society.  We are no longer battling the excessive influence of big business on government decision-making processes, nor the pervasive “corporate mind-set”, nor the effects of all that slick advertising.  What happens when businesses misbehave, acting against societal interests?  Small businesses can be held responsible for their actions; in a corporate economy, the big corporations always seem to evade true accountability.  Small businesses are less likely to misbehave in the first place.  Only a huge absentee corporation – headquartered 1,500 miles away and beholden to the financial interests of investors on Wall Street – could possibly fight so hard to keep Vermont Yankee running.

To move to a small business economy, we will need entrepreneurs starting up new small businesses – and keeping them small.  Customers supporting these businesses with their purchases.  Millions moving their money out of the big banks and into community banks.  Investors shifting their money from Wall Street to local and regional enterprises.  Masses of people pushing for political change thru protest movements like Occupy Wall Street.  In other words, we must choose to make use of the people power we do have, however limited it may be.  We will then see that we have what it takes to build a green, socially-just, and democratic society.

Tagged: corporate food system, decentralization, EQUITABLE, Occupy Wall Street, PEOPLE POWER, PEOPLE-CENTERED, small business, SOCIAL CHANGE, sustainable

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Repost from @rivervalleycoop
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Thank you to all who attended and worked at our 2025 Strawberry Ice Cream Social Fundraiser. It was a wonderful evening on June 12th at our Easthampton store, celebrating the start of the local summer harvest season and supporting the Center for New Americans. Nearly 800 people attended this patio party throughout the evening, purchasing burgers, grilled corn on the cob, salads, and Strawberry Ice Cream Sundaes. This resulted in raising a total of $10,953 for the Center for New Americans. This is a record high for this fundraising patio party! 

🍓 Read more of RVC’s 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘄𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗿𝘆 𝗜𝗰𝗲 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗦𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 + 𝗔𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻 𝗠𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗿 𝗔𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱𝘀 recap by visiting the link in their bio 🍓

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🌈🥒 Rain or shine, Real Pickles shows up with 🌈🥒 Rain or shine, Real Pickles shows up with PRIDE! We had an amazing time marching in the Franklin County Pride parade this weekend — umbrellas, ponchos, and all. Thanks to everyone who came out to celebrate love, community, and inclusion with us! And thank you to the amazing team at @franklincountypride for working so hard and making this event happen! 
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✨We’re a finalist!✨ Real Pickles Organic Sau ✨We’re a finalist!✨
Real Pickles Organic Sauerkraut just earned a spot as a finalist in the Pickle Category of @goodfoodfdn’s 15 Years of Good Food Awards.
This special Community Choice edition of the Good Food Awards honors past winners that continue to set the standard for taste, craftsmanship and responsible production. For the first time ever, the good food loving public had a say, submitting over 8,000 ballots to support their favorite producers.
We’re honored to be recognized alongside so many exceptional crafters—and we couldn’t have done it without you!
Winners will be announced, June 28 at Good Food Mercantile NYC.
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We are looking forward to celebrating a “Taste o We are looking forward to celebrating a “Taste of River Valley” tomorrow, Friday May 16th, at River Valley Co-op in Easthampton, Ma. 
Derek will be teaming up with our friends from Mi Tierra and Kitchen Garden Farm for a tasty collaboration! If you’re in the area don’t miss it! 

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Organic Red Napa Cabbage is back! This seasonal sm Organic Red Napa Cabbage is back! This seasonal small-batch ferment brings a vibrant pop of ruby color and bold, savory crunch. Crafted with red Napa cabbage, purple daikon, fresh ginger and Atlantic sea vegetables - it’s a tangy, nutrient-packed flavor that elevates any plate. Get it before it’s gone! 🌊🥬💜
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