During the January 11th Ag-Bio Cluster Leadership Council (LC) meeting, members posed a series of key questions as topics for subsequent postings and online discussions in preparation for their next meeting on February 8th.  The first question concerned local / county stakeholder meetings currently underway within the 16-county Northeast Ohio region, namely, what does the LC want from the stakeholder sessions and what can attendees expect from their participation?

 

The stated goal of these sessions is to generate prospective business ideas and cases.  While to do so may meet basic expectations, only that leaves too much on the table.  The broader opportunity is to link business ideas and cases so they create local value throughout the cycle of production-consumption-reuse, repurposing, and recycling.  As a result, the underlying goal of these sessions is to take initial steps to build and strengthen interconnections among business ideas and cases. The best way to do that is to expand social networks and strengthen collaborative relationships among Ag-Bio Cluster participants in support of local economic development.  Doing so enables participants to identify resources among themselves and with others in their extended networks with whom they can collectively advance their business ideas and cases for mutual profit and benefit.

 

Once the business ideas and cases are generated in the stakeholder sessions the next step is to promote them.  Three ways to do this are:

• Post in existing or new sub-groups on LocalFoodSystems.  These groups can be public or proprietary depending on the degree of confidentiality required.  The bias is toward openness whenever possible.

• Connect to resources.  Just like the target markets for business ideas and cases can be global, regional, or local, the knowledge networks to develop these ideas and cases adhere to a similarly nested structure.  Look for links to such resources in an "Entrepreneurs" section on LocalFoodSystems. 

• Add to a community investment portfolio.  The strong potential exists for literally hundreds of business ideas and cases to be submitted during the first phase of this project alone. Of these, a Pareto Analysis suggests that 20% of them will operate on a global scale either in terms of ownership, markets, or both.  That same 20% will soak up 80% of the time, energy, and capital available to the LC for business case development.  

As large scale business opportunities surface, they will be directed toward venture development organizations that have sufficient portfolio management capacity and expertise to give them appropriate attention.  Meanwhile, the LC will focus on the majority of business cases that are small in scale, local and regional in scope, and encompass the total life cycle within agriculture, energy, and manufacturing as candidates for a community or neighborhood investment portfolio.

 

The success of those businesses launched through financing provided by the community investment portfolios creates hundreds of jobs, provides a secure supply of necessities--food, water, energy, housing, manufactured goods--at affordable prices, and builds the foundation of economic sustainability at the local level.  Assuring their success is the mission of the LC.  More about the portfolio in a later posting...

 

A key characteristic of integrated business cases is their capability to capture more, if not all, of the value created throughout the total life cycle within local systems agriculture, energy, and manufacturing.  Tying businesses together in this manner establishes a business ecosystem within a local community that has a total value and return on investment greater than the sum of the individual businesses that comprise it.  This is a powerful concept that shows considerable promise for local economic development. 

 

Below is an example of a potential "business ecosystem" in an area of Cleveland that uses the Cleveland Food Cart Pilot Program RFP issued by the City of Cleveland in December 2009 as the prompt:

• Start at the point of consumption and fill backwards to the point of production.  What consumers eat and drink, source as energy to heat and cool their homes and workplaces, and utilize to construct and produce, catalyzes and defines the business ecosystem in response.

• Define a market territory defined by a geographic area in which 1,000 reside. Ideally, the resident customers are active participants, or what Alvin Toffler termed, prosumers, in the creation, capture, and retention of value and its sustained flow within a community.

• Tactically locate a food cart capable of preparing meals of 600-700 healthy calories each and served for less than $3.50 each (Revolution Foods is not located near Cleveland, but the success of their business model suggests that it is possible to deliver affordable, healthy meals, profitably, which is the main point of Cleveland food cart businesses). 

The map below is copied from pg. 16 of the Cleveland Food Cart Pilot Program RFP.    

• Locally source the fresh and processed food for the food cart operation from food production and food processing facilities as close to the same territory as possible

• Reclaim waste and surplus food products and convert them into reusable energy and heat through neighborhood-scaled anaerobic digestion installations

• Utilize a neighborhood-based asset management and distribution system to reduce the cost of operations, distance traveled within the business ecosystem, and dependence on fossil fuel throughout the total life cycle

• Access open source manufacturing and construction operations to fabricate, assemble, build, install, service, repair, deconstruct, reuse, repurpose, and recycle materials, facilities, equipment, and land according to a cradle-to-cradle (C2C) principles.  In this instance, equipment that can be made through an open manufacturing approach includes food carts, season extension hoop houses, year-round green houses, aquaculture equipment, composting equipment, etc.

This list in no way represents the entirety of integrated, neighborhood-based agriculture, energy, and manufacturing businesses that serve a local market of 1,000 people.  And even within Cleveland, there are insufficient number and types of such operations to form a complete localized business ecosystem.  Nonetheless, with just the businesses mentioned in the example, one gets a feel for the multiplier effect and the impact of a dynamic business ecosystem on the sustainability of a local economy. 

 

Imagine this same concept applied in 1,000-person market blocks, neighborhood after neighborhood, community after community--urban and rural areas alike--throughout Northeast Ohio.  This brings us back to the title of a previous posting, Four Thousand NEW Jobs in the Ag-Bio Industry Cluster of NE Ohio by 2015? Why not!  The potential is so real, it is one of the reasons why we will pursue the "build a business ecosystem" line of questioning during the stakeholder sessions.  How are the business ideas and cases in your area supported by a local business ecosystem?  Looking forward to finding out during your stakeholder session!