Rural Sustainability is the goal behind a movement towards a Badlands Cultural Cooperative.
In November of this year about 47 attendees from all over Canadian Badlands met in Rosebud to look over the idea. LaVerne Erickson of the Rosebud Community Enhancement Society facilitated the meeting.
“We listed all sorts of ideas we thought we would like to get started on, and looked at it like a business incubator and asked what kinds of businesses could we get going based on any facet of rural life, whether it’s agriculture, horticulture, arts and culture… it is looking at culture as a rural way of life.”
In attendance were consultants who are involved in cooperatives, with experience that ranged from rural cooperatives to cooperative housing developments.
Erickson says the vision of the cooperative would be to get existing businesses involved as well as developing new businesses. Together they could work on common goals such as marketing.
“We wanted to make use of the momentum that has been garnered in the tourism industry by Canadian Badlands Limited. Through the municipalities that are part of the Canadian Badlands we can identify home-based businesses that could be networked and generally market themselves under an umbrella name like Canadian Badlands Cultural Cooperative,” said Erickson. “You could go to the website of that cooperative and see someone doing quilting or welding or blacksmithing; anything that we can think of that could have a cottage industry and sell it.”
He said the biggest problem with cottage industries is their inability to get their name out.
“There are lots of great ideas but due to lack of profiling of their business or their ingenious endeavours, they never turn into a viable business that would support them. If we are going to reinvent ourselves in rural Canada we are going to have to be highly creative and think of businesses that could take root in rural areas and sustain us.”
He said there are all kinds of possibilities, from online promotions to cooperative marketplaces.
It was decided at the meeting that the best route to explore was to not specifically focus on a cooperative, but explore the ideas through the society model.
“Once those ideas have taken root, and we have active businesses, then each of those bushinesses buy a share in the cooperative,” said Erickson.
He said in the initial phases a society, because it is non-profit, it is able to tap into grants; however, the long term goal are for the businesses to benefit and make money.
“Then as it moves along, and there are profits that could be shared by members, then we could move it into the cooperative mold because we are trying to create businesses so that people can make a living here.”
Canadian Badlands Ltd. provided seed funding from the Rural Community Adaptation Program, from Alberta Agriculture and Rural development.
“It is a real challenge we face, trying to save our rural economy and trying to keep a viable cultural environment out here, a vibrant way of life,” said Erickson. “This is happening all around the world, where the urban areas are becoming very powerful and the rural areas are in constant decline.”
