Journal Facts

Journal
International Journal of Self-Help and Self-Care
ISSN
1091-2851 (print) 1541-4450 (electronic)
Volume
6
Issue
2
Date
1/1/2012

Article Facts

Title
Food Cooperatives as Community-Level Self-Help and Development
DOI
10.2190/SH.6.2.f
Author
Rhonda Phillips
Pages
189-203
Online Date
09/13/2012

Article Links

Food Cooperatives as Community-Level Self-Help and Development

Rhonda Phillips

DOI: 10.2190/SH.6.2.f

Abstract

Food is central to individual and community well-being and represents a nexus for exploring community development. A community development framework is particularly relevant for exploring food cooperatives' role, helping investigate ties and norms binding individuals and organizations, providing insight into cooperative development and cooperative management relations, and influencing economic self-sufficiency. Food cooperatives motivate the participation of many as a locus where efforts are combined in an egalitarian and democratic fashion. This provides for both food security and community and economic development. City Market in Burlington, Vermont is examined as a case to illustrate how cooperative development aligns with community development, and how relations between these two areas influence economic self-sufficiency. The article explains how cooperative development, at least in the case of a food cooperative, aligns with community development providing an example of economic self-help, because it's about collective efforts expanding community members' access to healthy, affordable food.

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