French farmers create bioenergy cooperative
Quicknote institutional development
Institutional capacities and appropriate organisational structures are crucial for the transition to a viable biofuels and bioenergy industry. We have previously referred to governmental policies that create institutional frameworks for the nascent bioenergy industry, but producers themselves can go a far way by choosing a smart organisational strategy. The traditional farmers' cooperative looks like one of the most promising forms when a bottom-up approach for the production of biomass is favored.
France has a long tradition of exactly such cooperative and mutualist movements, which make up its strong social economy. Today, the Fédération régionale des coopératives agricoles de Picardie (Regional Federation of farmers' cooperatives of Picardie) announced the creation an overarching mutual producers corporation, baptized "Coopénergie", uniting 22 existing cooperations.
The ambition of the new structure is to partner with industrial actors and civil social organisations for the development of their biomass and bioenergy projects. Coopénergie will be responsible for analysing proposals, drafting feasibility studies and business plans, but also for the negotiation of biomass supply contracts that should benefit the mutual interests of the member-producers. Moreover, the cooperative will actively follow up on calls for proposals for concrete investments and examine ways to maximize the benefits for the producers. Finally, Coopénergie will not only raise funds for biotech research, but it will also actively lobby the regional governments. Other farmers' cooperatives in France have already announced they will soon join Coopénergie.
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ethanol :: biodiesel :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: institutions ::
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Institutional capacities and appropriate organisational structures are crucial for the transition to a viable biofuels and bioenergy industry. We have previously referred to governmental policies that create institutional frameworks for the nascent bioenergy industry, but producers themselves can go a far way by choosing a smart organisational strategy. The traditional farmers' cooperative looks like one of the most promising forms when a bottom-up approach for the production of biomass is favored.
France has a long tradition of exactly such cooperative and mutualist movements, which make up its strong social economy. Today, the Fédération régionale des coopératives agricoles de Picardie (Regional Federation of farmers' cooperatives of Picardie) announced the creation an overarching mutual producers corporation, baptized "Coopénergie", uniting 22 existing cooperations.
The ambition of the new structure is to partner with industrial actors and civil social organisations for the development of their biomass and bioenergy projects. Coopénergie will be responsible for analysing proposals, drafting feasibility studies and business plans, but also for the negotiation of biomass supply contracts that should benefit the mutual interests of the member-producers. Moreover, the cooperative will actively follow up on calls for proposals for concrete investments and examine ways to maximize the benefits for the producers. Finally, Coopénergie will not only raise funds for biotech research, but it will also actively lobby the regional governments. Other farmers' cooperatives in France have already announced they will soon join Coopénergie.
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Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Hollywood and biofuels: Julia Roberts becomes spokesperson for biofuels company
If these faces sell a product or a project well, then that's allright. And if your perception of these at times mellow actors and actresses becomes surreal because suddenly they promote Something Quite Serious - then so be it. We can safely conclude that these celebrities will not fight for any structural change though. They embody the status quo and cultural monotony to the fullest.
But what if you want to promote another paradigm based on less sexy principles like social justice, environmental retribution, energy justice, re-claiming ownership over the global commons... ? Then putting a face that represents the gratuituousness of a globalist entertainment industry on it, won't work. Neither will the tradition of 'compassion' and 'charity' do as it is being currently revived. In that case, we need something else, another logic, not a glam marketing strategy. Should we use our own global icons of resistance - Hugo Chavez, Lula da Silva, Evo Morales -, or should we refer to the anonimity of a collective swarm of organisations, such as the altermondialist movement? Even the latter have already been called 'liberalo-communist' by a European intellectual who's been inspirational to us (and who awkwardly equated them with Bill Gates and George Soros who, according to Zizek, are 'libcoms' par excellence...).
It's time to think of a serious marketing strategy for the promotion of bioenergy's potential to bring social justice to the 'damned of the earth'. It will have to be one where a series of extremely complex historical, social, economic and environmental problems have to be condensed into a single message. One thing is certain though, Hollywood will probably not be very useful to us. Even though we collectively melt when Julia smiles that natural, perpetually renewable smile of hers...
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posted by Biopact team at 11:42 PM 0 comments links to this post