Knowledge capital, social capital, and bandwidth
access—these enable communities to support those businesses which address their
needs. Branding loyalty which rests upon production of trends and calculated
obsolescence is wasteful, and old-style demographic calculations and statistics
of mass audience appeal become themselves obsolescent. Those who efficiently
identify, address, and strengthen the abilities of the community to meet its
challenges will develop trust, diminish waste, and deliver not only useful
products, but needed profits to market participants.
In our now-globally-conscious economy, “connected” people
are looking for products which are affordable, durable, sustainable
(“green/renewable/transnationally responsible”). Concomitantly,
social networking, digital capitalism and improved access to information
world-wide can now enable each individual, each community, to join a “global
pool” of knowledge, consumer coalitions, and innovative product development.
This creates a dynamic which can replace old concepts of
advertising and market “share” with a much more resilient form of capitalism,
development, and sustainability. People/consumers can highlight the
infrastructure needs of their communities, their markets. Small businesses can
network with larger corporations to provide the best possible products with the
smallest degree of environmental waste, the most affordable price. Reasonable
profit margins will still allow room for research, development, and a healthy
economy.
In a garden-concept of capitalism, “sterile seed”
businesses, those with planned-obsolescent trends, unsustainable practices,
monopolistic (uni-crop) development would be viewed with the critical eyes of
an informed consumer and investor population. As in a healthy, bio-diverse
garden, those businesses which can grow in concert with the needs of a
community and the technological and environmental innovations of the
forerunners of industry will be most likely to succeed.
And advertisers, similar to responsible gardeners, can help
ensure access and accomplishment for those businesses which best address the
community-level realities of our globally-interdependent “market.”
Rather than a concept of “market share,” a practice of
stewardship, of tilling the ‘gardens’ of “shared markets” will enable
socially-connected, socially-conscious consumers to reward similarly motivated
product providers with a new concept of brand-and-beneficial performance
loyalty.
Currently recognized and trusted brands, high-end
merchandisers, and specialized service providers can lead the trend of
supporting a more responsible global economy and advertising concept. When
investing in bandwidth advertising, large-budget advertisers can include in
their costs a new style of online “sponsorship,” akin to the old-style
“sponsorship” of public TV programming, movies, philanthropic and sports
events, etc.
This “sponsorship” could entail direct contributions as well
as pooled funds. Tax deductions for advertising/business sponsorship
investments could be instituted among host governments, as precedent with
existing sponsoring practice. And the visible manifestation of sponsorship
could be reflected through ribbon ads, logo or brand marks along the
sponsor-supported local/community-specific business ads, so that a simple click
can link consumers to the welcome page of the sponsoring business, as easily as
a click would link consumers to the desired local-targeting business, product
or service provider.
The sponsoring funds would supply more than bandwidth to
emerging and innovative community/global level businesses. Through the
online/net service provider, pooled funds invested by globally-recognized
brands could cover the costs of mentoring/online support to enable independent
innovators, developing businesses, and local-market providers to maintain a
cutting-edge grasp of the needs, product/profit balance, and best-available
solutions to local/global community challenges.
Replacing concepts of “market share” competition
with “shared market” collaboration will bring social consciousness,
transparency, and sustainability to the “win/lose” monopolies of previous
generations, and partner business with consumers in a more survivable,
realistic form of capitalism, capable of responding to technological and critical
developments. Creating a diverse garden of providers, products and services
rather than a mono-culture of winner-take-all profiteering can best expand
advertising, capitalism and market cultivation to their most efficient (and
sustainably profitable), dynamic and productive capabilities.
One local-to-globally scalable agricultural
project engaging the support of "shared market" providers would
create serendipitous benefits for the local participants, for the larger
eco-system, and for the planet as a whole.
Simple in concept--creating green jobs, arable
soils, renewable energies, and preserving and developing heritage knowledge of
medicinal and aromatic plants along with edible and product-consumable
varietals--industry and corporate sponsorship could facilitate the overall
development of "seed pellets" for use in dust- and
harsh-environment- farming. Local and online soil management metrics could be
maintained through tracking seed-use. Water management and bio-fuel production
would be enhanced through the composting associated with the project.
Humans have been preserving seeds for much of
our accessible history; people have been using seed-coatings (pastes, paper
strips, grow-sprays, etc) for a long time, but there are few (if any) organic-
or renewable-compost-sourced seed-aggregate or seed-pellet projects, in any
scale.
In regions of the world with large tracts of
potentially fertile land (including urban farming along reclaimed spaces), soil
remedies are urgently needed. Many farmers and cooperatives resort to
subsistence agriculture where climates are uneven (drought, flood, temperature
extremes, etc.), the soil is virtually untillable—stone- and debris-filled
fields must be “dust sewn,” exposing precious, limited seed stores to birds,
parasites and small animals, which consume seeds and seedlings before crops can
grow large enough to withstand opportunistic predators.
Mono-culturing of “cash crops” has not improved
this scenario, nor has extensive use of chemically-derived fertilizers and
pesticides—which many subsistence small-holders and landless farmers lack the
literacy and available cash reserves to access and use anyway. Many GMO
“advancements” produce the actual “sterile seed” (corporate version mentioned
above), which not only precludes subsistence farmers from gleaning seed stock
for use with subsequent crops, but also, through cross-pollination, has been
shown to render sterile contiguous plantings of the formerly robust indigenous
plants and crops the farmers grew previously.
When container or mobile-cart gardening is not
an option due to volume of produce needed, seed pellets or cocoons can create
small biospheres of single-species- and symbiotically-grouped-species of seeds
which can withstand climate and predators until healthy seedlings can mature
into much needed, bio-diverse crops. Soil improvement, water, waste and energy
management are serendipitous benefits to the use of seed pellet farming
practices.
In a financially-viable, elegant solution,
traditional agricultural methods: the use of terra preta (human-made,
pyrolisized soil or fertilizer extremely rich in nitrogen, phosphorous, and
organics, highly carbon-sequestering—which decreases greenhouse gases and water
pollution) recycled organic matter (egg shells, etc.) and biomass-fuel
compost by-products (to prepare or generate soil and soil
pellets), xeriscaping and/or food-forest/oasis layered
plantings, and color-coded seed pellets accessible to
literate and illiterate farmers may be combined into a
local-to-globally-scalable industry which can provide benefits to the entire
planet.
At the cottage-industry level, seed
pellets/cocoons may be easily produced in egg shell halves, egg cartons, and
other small forms, or rolled by hand, and dried. Mass production might occur in
a retooled pharmaceutical- or even candy- or snack-food factory, if a standard
agricultural producer is unavailable for initial projects. Seed pellets may be
cast by hand (“dust sewing”), or distributed mechanically, depending upon the
scope of each planting project.
Pests which might have been attracted to seeds
and seedlings are repelled by organics incorporated within the pellet mixture.
Surrounding base soils are gradually enriched, becoming more productive and
less susceptible to erosion/evaporation with each successive
seed-pellet-sewing. Until “normal” tilling is possible, post-harvest plant mass
may be removed for use in bio-fuel production—with organic solids available for
compost material post-process.
Seeds and pellet coatings can be bio/organic, or
standard (not certified organic), and regionally- and locally- based production
runs could ensure that optimal mixtures of composts, nutrients, fungals and/or
repellant organics are used to maximize response to each environmental
challenge. Types of seeds / pellet-contents may be color-coated according to
planting time, soil needs, crop pairings, etc., and distributed with simplified
guide sheets to facilitate informed usage for initial crop selection, optimal
soil enhancement, water preservation, and pollinator support, and suggestions
for subsequent crop rotations among less-literate populations.
Corporate production might also offer small
packages of flower/pollinator-friendly seeds, as well as vegetable, herbal, and
other crops, for “upscale” marketing among environmentally-minded consumers who
may be willing to pay a bit more for the opportunity to help support
subsistence farmers, and the environment as a whole, while they have the fun of
scattering seed pellets in fertile ground, or challenged margins of sidewalk or
rock, to beautify their surroundings, as well.
There are many other “beneficial” corporate
concepts which are available, and we must consider them as we move forward in
our increasingly crowded and interdependent lives on this planet.
Some seeds for thought.
