No Land, Money, or People?

We've been asked several times how one could replicate Factor e Farm - if one has no money, land, or people. Here's an answer.

Start with land.

Anyone can gain access to land. All you need to do is be willing to get your hands dirty. In the USA, and I suspect elsewhere, there are many land owners, who do not use their land, and actually get a tax break for putting their land into use. So, they are quite willing to lease land, and in many cases for free. Plus, there are many supportive organic-minded and other back-to-the-land types who are willing to help.

The trick is to get a long-term lease, if you want to have some stability. Get it in writing. We got kicked off our first lease, non-written, after one year. We built some domes and a greenhouse, freaked out the local people, and got booted off the land.

When you select a location - it helps if there are minimal zoning or building restrictions, so you can build housing without spending a fortune.

Now money.

Money comes from open business models. This is the hard part. There is very little useful information out there, when it comes to making an effecive living outside of commodity-type production. This is where the open sharing of working models comes into play. This is coming into vogue in the internet age, with leaders of peer production such as the baby steps of Factor e Farm. I cannot emphasize enough how important the development of open business models is - but unfortunately, very little of this is going on in practice. This is a fringe movement, so there is no easy way out of this.

For money, the best answer we have right now is to get a long term lease on some parcel of land, live simply by bootstrapping off local resources.

This is where we are very hopeful that with our developments, we'll see returns from our open business model developments soon. I suggest you do open source business development, fund it by going to crowds for donations, and do something important.

Now people.

You can either go at it with a friend - or build a village and they will come. You need at least 2 people at this work - as land-based work requires a couple a lot of times. Then if you have built some economic power - don't worry about people then. They'll be flocking to your doors.

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This whole story will be different with the GVCS complete. You'll actually have a 2-year immersion training program to master all the needed skills. It's really the skills that count. If you have them, you can acquire land by your productivity, money will be guaranteed, and people will want to work with you. It's all about gaining the skill base. We're doing it the hard way now - learning to build a civilization from scratch.

So come and join us - if you are committed - and if you want to make this a reality for many others - and sooner rather than later. Right now, we need to pool efforts to make this happen - so that everyone can benefit when the package is done.