Why join the Gbiota club
Colin Austin © 15 Nov 20 Creative common – this is in the public domain and may be copied and reproduced with acknowledgement of source
Why we need change
The Gbiota club is more than growing a few turnips and cabbages – it is about what sort of society we want to live in.
There is a groundswell among informed people that the food industry is not working for the benefit of the people, it is damaging our health, we are dying younger and our health span – the length of time we remain healthy – is decreasing alarmingly, it is damaging the environment, particularly our soils and generally unsustainable, it is using the power of the digital era to manipulate the truth making a few people very rich while the rest of us suffer poor health.
Change is not going to come from within the industry or from Governments. Let me start with the answer- it will come from the power of the people and the power of their wallets.
This is what we need to do. Join the Gbiota club.
What we, the people, need to do
We know the importance of eating gut food
We know our guts are part of a genuine second brain which controls our bodies deciding how much and what we want to eat and how much and where we store fat.
This is not some new idea, experts in health and nutrition have been saying this for years and I have been writing about how to grow gut food for what seems like an eternity.
Just ask any competent doctor, dietitian or read the medical literature and you will see the importance of our gut biology. It forms part of our intelligent control system which manages how much and what type of food we want to eat, how much and where we store fat and is also home to the bulk of our immune system.
If we want to increase our health span we need a healthy gut and that means we have to add to our diet food that feeds our gut biology – gut food – Gbiota food.
We know how to grow gut food
We know how to grow gut food – any competent grower can do it. Just add selected essential minerals to the soil, inoculate with beneficial biology, feed it organic waste so it breeds and manage the water levels. My web site www.gbiota.com has all the information readily available on how to grow gut food (see growing). All this information is available under the creative commons system so the information is widely available. I can also provide technical support on the web for people setting up Gbiota beds
We know we need to eat gut food and how to grow it – so what next?
We know why we need to eat gut food and how to grow it. There are thousands of growers, particularly the smaller hobby farmers just outside of our major cities who really understand the benefits of Gbiota farming and would be very happy to grow gut food.
Then why aren’t we all eating gut food? Let me tell you the story of a simple cabbage.
The cabbage story
You can go to the local super market and buy a cabbage for say $2. The farmer will get about 40 cents for each cabbage but he grows them by the hundreds of thousands, using automated machinery, chemicals and cheap labour to make a viable living.
The system works (for them).
Now maybe a dedicated biological grower wants to go to the trouble of adding all those trace minerals, zinc, magnesium, iodine, selenium etc to the soil, avoid using harsh chemicals, inoculate the soil and feed the biology to grow gut food.
But the on farm costs are simply higher than chemical industrial farming.
The super market could try and sell this in the speciality food section for say $4 but it looks just like any other cabbage so people don’t buy and it ends up going rotten and being thrown away.
A health conscious individual may decide to buy a cabbage from a dedicated grower – they may drive 40 kilometres to buy a $2 cabbage so the real cost is $82 not $2.
The system does NOT work. (Apart for a dedicated few – healthy gut food should be available at an affordable price for everyone)
Change the system
If people want to add gut food to their diet they have to take action and change the system, no one is going to do it for them.
Step 1 form or join a group and convince the growers
First they have to form a group. I have set up a social media site www.gbiota.club where people can join and form a local group. May be just one or two people at the start but they can recruit their friends who in turn recruit their friends until there is a sizeable group. They can then make contact with biological growers and persuade them to join the group. The growers and consumers can chat and convince the growers – you grow we will buy.
They can buy directly from the growers using www.pickandeat.shop.
Step 2 – attack the major cost – distribution
The major weakness of conventional food system is the cost and time in distribution.
Produce is transported from mega farms to warehouses to retail outlets to homes. The costs can be 80% of the retail price, involved many food miles and despite what they say the food is never fresh.
But the group can organise economic transport with same day delivery from farm to table
Someone in the group organises a transport schedule, hopefully several times a week, which is published on www.pickandeat.shop. The growers can then post on www.pickandeat.shop showing what produce they will have available on each day.
Customers can then order from a number of growers and book a pick up and delivery from the transporter.
The growers will harvest just enough to fill the orders, there is no waste by speculative harvesting.
A variety of produce is collected from multiple growers and delivered either to customers homes or a pick up point like a cafe or market.
It may cost say $160 for a collection and delivery but if that is shared among 100 members that is only 16 cents.
This system can work – but only with a group.
This can work
Club members can buy genuine gut food directly from the growers, they know the minerals, biology and organic waste has been added – that is part of the www.pickandeat.shop system, the produce is harvested in the morning and delivered fresh that same day.
It is also economic – by sharing the distribution cost the net price can be lower than from the conventional system – there is minimal waste and we are recycling waste organic material regenerating our soils for the common good.
How you can make it work
I can’t make this work by myself – I provide advice for free on how to grow gut food (on line and in www.gbiota.club) I have made gbiota.club and www.pickandeat.shop – if you have any suggestions on how I can improve these sites or find any issues please let me know – so I can fix – that is part of my contribution.
But I don’t have the time or resources going around to set up growers across the globe. But you can make it work and the first step is to join the www.gbiota.club group and recruit new members. start chatting with them to convince the growers to grow gut food and organise to share the distribution costs.
Balance of power
Combative, profit focused system v
cooperative system for the common good
Food is a classic example of imbalance of power, we have giant corporations spanning the globe, whose focus is on maximising profits. The staff in the shop may seem friendly but at the top of the pyramid are highly paid executive whose job is to maximise profits – and if they don’t the financial backers will replace them with someone who will.
On the other side are billions of dis-united customers who think they are powerless to change the system.
It is a combative competitive system with the goal of maximising profits – not increasing your health span.
One of the greatest features of humans as a species is the way we work cooperatively together and is a core reason why we are the dominant species on earth.
Aims of the Gbiota club
The aim of the Gbiota club is to offer an alternative system which maximises health span ensures every one receives a fair reward for their efforts and food is grown and distributed in sustainably without harming the environment.
We can achieve this aim by adopting a cooperative system working for the benefit of the people
The two key problems to overcome
First the on farm cost of growing gut food is higher than chemical industrial farming. Gut food (Gbiota™ food) requires adding essential minerals and biology to the soil – and this costs money.
Secondly how do you know for sure that the food is genuine gut food – one cabbage looks much like another cabbage although they may have totally different nutrients and biology.
The key advantages of the Gbiota club
The conventional chemical industrial farming system has lower on farm costs – period. But the distribution system is chronically inefficient and wasteful. Some 80% of the retail price occurs in the distribution system. Produce is grown and harvesting on spec, (speculation that someone will buy).
It is transported to giant warehouses then to retail outlets hoping that someone buys it before it goes rotten. Food waste is simply a huge problem for society with some 40% of food grown on farm being wasted. This is not only a major cost but food waste is a major source of green house gases.
The Gbiota club is based on recycling, the circular economy which is both better economics and benefits society.
This is the plan to make is happen.
The Gbiota plan
United we stand together we fall
Ultimately power is in the wallet. One person has negligible power but by working together in a cooperative movement a group has serious buying power which can make things happen.
www.gbiota.club is a social media site – a bit like Facebook but we are not collecting all your personal details so some company can make money by target advertising.
Join the gbiota.club
The first step is for people to register making sure they add their post code and suburb or locality so other club members can see that the movement is beginning to form. This is a cooperative movement so members can be either customers or growers with an agreement on the common aims, to increase life span and fair reward for effort.
Form a local group
Someone in the area has to put their hand up and form a group and become what is typically called an administrator but we prefer to call a coordinator. Each member needs to understand the aims of the Gbiota club and participating in recruiting new members – this only works with a degree of scale.
The group can then chat among themselves with both customers and growers participating on what crops they would like to see grown.
It cost money to set up and grow gut food so it unreasonable to expect growers to invest their time and money to grow gut food if there is no established local market for gut food.
This is why it is important for customer members to grow the group by chatting to friends to show there is enough people wanting to buy gut food.
From farm to plate
The big weakness of the conventional system is the cost of getting the produce from farm to plate and this is where the Gbiota club system has an over whelming advantage.
This is where the local area coordinator has a critical role to play. They need to organise a local transport system (or do it themselves). They organise for what is essentially a group shopping trip to go from the club area to the local farms – this could be daily, or several times a week.
The transporter opens up a page on the club shop www.pickandeat.shop where they publish the schedule and a flat fee for pick up and distribution.
The growers open up their page on www.pickandeat.shop showing what crops they will have available at each pick up date.
Customers can then order what they want to buy at each pick up date.
On the pick up date the grower will harvest the produce that has been ordered. The transporter will go around to each grower picking up the individual orders and later that day delivering each customers order to their home or a collection hub (like a cafe or market).
This circular system has major advantages over the traditional hub and spoke system of the supermarkets. The produce is delivered within hours of harvesting so it is genuinely fresh and only the produce that is ordered is harvested so there is minimal waste.
Quality assurance
The growers are expected to publish on their page on www.pickandeat.shop information on how they are growing their crops. Gbiota.com has recommendations on how to grow but it is up to the growers to decide what methods they use, but they are expected to make that public.
Customers, the local area coordinator and transporter can visit the growers and fill in a review section on the web which every club member can see.
Better – but you need to do it yourself
This is simply a much more efficient and cheaper system, customers can have genuinely fresh food which is grown to increase health span. But there is no massive organisation to make it happen.
This is a social movement not a project organised by a mega corporation.
– it is simply up to the local group to collectively decide on the way they want to operate and make it happen. As the slogan says – sorry for the inconvenience we are trying to change the world.
How the world has changed
Profits over the common good
Go back a few decades and the world just seemed to be getting steadily better. We were living longer both our life span and health span were increasing, advances in production both of food and goods were steadily increasing and the future looked bright. Then several events worked together to change the world and not for the better.
The Chicago school of economics
The Chicago school of economics argued that the sole aim of companies was to increase profits for their share holders and the market alone would ensure that the interest of the community and the employees would be safeguarded. They were dead wrong!
Globalisation and the balance of power
But then globalisation became widespread with the creation of global corporations which enjoyed oligopoly or neo-monopoly power and influence over individual Governments.
There was simply no free market.
The digital revolution
Then the digital revolution arrived with the internet, probably the most important innovation of our era together with artificial intelligence and automation which further increased the power of the global corporations and dehumanisation of society.
Manipulation of the truth
But finally was the lack of honesty on the web and the digital scene which is now saturated with wild promotions for products, particularly in the health area, which are simply very clever manipulation of the truth purely for profit.
We can go into a super market to buy a cauliflower – it may look pristine but we have no idea where it was grown, who grew it, what chemicals were used in its production and what minerals were added to the soil.
The web is saturated with very clever promotions for health products, particularly a never ending supply of pills to solve problem that people never knew they had. In truth if people were eating a healthy diet of real food there would be almost no need for these pills and supplements. (OK if you live in Arctic circles you may need a bit of Vitamin D and B12)
Profits or the common good – your choice
While we may be short on information we can be absolutely sure of one thing the theory of putting profits first and letting the market restore balance has been one of the worlds greatest failure.
It may have made a few people extraordinarily rich but it has done nothing for the common good. If you doubt that just look at the statistics for non infectious diseases, diabetes, heart attacks, obesity dementia, then look at the numbers for bush fires, flooding, droughts and the destruction of our top soil.
Putting profits ahead of the common good is not just a failure – it is a threat to our species.
Changing to a circular society – recycle rather than exploit
For our long term survival we have to adopt a circular society where we recycle rather than exploit, where we swap a combative, competitive system for a caring cooperative system where we care about each other and our planet and each and everyone’s contribution to the common good is rewarded equability rather than profits for the powerful few.
But how do we achieve this? We can’t go back and un-invent things but we can ensure that new technologies work for the common good. The profit motive won’t do this.
Governments to date have proved impotent but there is one way that could work – the community exercising people power and the power of the wallet.
