PEOPLE. SEEDS. FOOD. COMMUNITY.

“Humanity has eaten more than 80,000 plant species through its evolution. ... we now rely on just eight crops to provide 75 percent of the world’s food.” – Vandana Shiva

“The best and tastiest way to preserve the diversity of food is to eat it.” - Kyra Pincheira

A bold idea for bringing diversity to local fields and platesImagine browsing a massive seed catalog filled with more fruits, vegetables, herbs, grains and mushrooms than you even knew existed. You browse. You salivate. You marvel at intense colors, odd shapes, and fanciful names. You are reminded of flavors from your grandmother’s garden you haven’t tasted in years. And now, instead of placing an order for seeds to be shipped to you to plant and grow yourself, you click on a button to have a local farmer grow these foods for you.

Pollin8r will transform local agricultural landscapes to reflect the diverse food-interests of community members, give Farmers a new economic opportunity, deepen Eaters’ relationships with local farms and food businesses, and draw on the collective experience of users to provide unique and invaluable data about the commercial viability of a wide range of varieties as local growing conditions change.

Soon we will all be able to savor an increase in the diversity of local foods and a regeneration of vibrant food communities.

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A new business model for buying and selling food: pollin8ing it

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Farmers and Eaters work together to create lists of the diverse varieties of crops that might be grown the following year. Making these lists is easy because pollin8r provides compelling crop photos and descriptions. Eaters vote for crops they want to eat, creating a comprehensive ranked list of their collective food interests.

Farmers review their lists, select the “new” crops they are willing to try, and designate the minimum number of shares they would need to pre-sell in order to plant each crop. Everyone who voted for these crops is notified and the countdown begins: 14 days to attract enough pollin8rs to a crop to guarantee it will be planted. Viral tools help a crop’s pollin8rs recruit new friends and family to join them in patronizing a specific crop grown by a specific farmer. If the minimum is reached, authorized financial transactions are completed, and the farmer receives payment.

Microblogs about a crop’s progress keep its pollin8rs engaged and give them insight into what it actually takes to bring food from seed to market. Pollin8r.com makes it easy for farmers to use a single post to share this information with their pollin8rs where and how each chooses to receive it. In addition, this open channel of communication becomes a way to publicize spontaneous events such as gleanings.

The initial transaction and even the ongoing connection to a crop may happen online, but pick-up is in-person. Pollin8rs collect the fruits of their farmer-partner’s labors at the very markets, stands, and on-farm locations from which the farmer is already selling. For some pollin8rs, this will be their first time at a farmer’s market. Even as crops grown on-request are being harvested, Eaters can begin to work with Farmers to build lists of varieties that might be enjoyed the following year.

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Big shiftsEngaging consumers to pollin8 crops instead of just purchasing them has some pretty big implications. A few of our favorites include:

dramatically expanding consumer choice...Pollin8r.com will make rare and heirloom varieties currently enjoyed only by home gardeners and seed-savers accessible to Eaters everywhere.

... by localizing marketsPollin8r turns the “expand choice by globalizing markets” e-commerce model on its head. At Pollin8r, choice=local production. With varieties of fresh produce too delicate to withstand intense storage and shipping, there really is no other way.

transforming the role and value of the farmer from a producer of a product to the provider of a service and experienceParticipating Farmers are offering a new service: growing foods on-request, especially varieties that are otherwise commercially unavailable. They are also giving Eaters an opportunity to be connected to their food in a new way. The Farmer’s time and expertise are highly valuable here.

engaging eaters as intentional co-producers of local agricultural landscapes Pollin8r makes the connection between what we eat and what is grown very explicit. Participants will literally change the local landscape as fields begin to reflect the food interests and cultures of their community.

distributing the risk of growing something “new”The Eater-Farmer partnership involved in pollin8ing crops is based on shared risk and shared reward. Pollin8r removes the farmers' financial risk of bringing "new" varieties to market while introducing new customers to the buy-now-eat-later model used in CSAs at a low-risk price point.

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New data for a changing systemOver time, pollin8r.com will begin to manifest a new and critical value: providing unmatched data about the viability of specific crop varieties grown in specific locations.

All of the information about the progress of crops that Farmers are sharing with the crops’ pollin8rs serves an additional purpose: As an agricultural community, we will know what varieties were attempted and which successfully made it to market. When crops fail, we will know why. And we will be able to chart trends. And as more people engage in co-creating local agricultural landscapes that reflect their food interests and cultures, the more rich this data will become. With each pollin8ing transaction, we won’t just be distributing the risk of bringing a single untried variety to market, we will be engaging farmers everywhere in a massive experiment to determine which varieties of our food heritage can offer the characteristics we need to carry us into a vibrant agricultural future.

Historical knowledge can no longer guide our planting decisions as new weather, pest and disease patterns transform the growing conditions of familiar fields. Expanding our knowledge of how unfamiliar varieties fare in local soils and sharing this information with one another can help us all to successfully adapt at a much more rapid pace. Meanwhile, we will be increasing the instances of in situ seed saving, preserving the widest possible array of genetic diversity for future generations.

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UsersWho will use pollin8r? Lots of people. Here’s a quick snapshot some of our users:

EATERS...are accustomed to having extensive consumer choice. They are either currently patrons of local farms and farmers’ markets or know someone who is, and they have just been recruited.

FARMERS...are interested in diversifying their crop plans and/or deepening relationships with their customers. They are either comfortable using a computer to go online or are ready to learn.

RESTAURANTS & LOCAL FOOD RETAILERS...want to engage their customers in a deeper dialog about the foods they offer and the farms they buy from, and are looking for affordable and effective ways to communicate their commitment to local/regional agriculture.

SEED BANKS/COMPANIES...benefit from having their stories told throughout pollin8r.com by the farmers who source their seed from them, and gain insight into the latent demand for heirloom varieties for which seed isn’t currently commercially available.

MEDIA professionals (and amateurs) will join the pollin8r ranks as users of the free images of heirloom and rare varieties available at pollin8r.com’s sister site foodfotobank.com, a crowdsourced free photo library of heirloom and rare fruits and vegetables.

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Attracting and keeping new usersIn addition to telling our story as often and as widely as we can, Pollin8r is using the following approaches to attract new pollin8rs and keep them engaged:

community food fotobank - www.foodfotobank.comFoodfotobank.com is a crowdsourced free photo library of heirloom and uncommon fruits, vegetables, herbs, grains and mushrooms. As bloggers, farmers, heirloom enthusiasts and others use these images in their digital communications, the attribution of each photo links users back to the foodfotobank.com site where they will discover that they too can download amazing images for free, building public interest in lesser-known varieties.

self-recruiting modelPollin8r may be described as “self-recruiting.” Farmer-users invite their existing customers to vote for next year’s crops, recruiting new Eater-users. As “pollin8ing” a crop requires a minimum level of community participation, each sale within the pollin8r system is inherently tied to the viral attraction of new pollin8rs for a crop by its existing pollin8rs, also recruiting new Eater-users. Any Restaurant or Retailer using the system to better tell the story of their commitment to local food and farms will recruit the Farms with which they do business. And Farms already using pollin8r.com to engage with their customers will recruit Restaurants and Retailers they supply to better share information about one another. Finally, interested Eaters that cannot find their favorite farms and local-food businesses on pollin8r.com will be given the tools to recruit them. Pollin8r will provide all users with tools and materials that make it easy to communicate with and excite others about Pollin8r.

grassroots cultivation of collaborative relationshipsPollin8r is working cooperatively with a wide range of community-based organizations to determine how Pollin8r’s tools can amplify their impact and develop model projects around these collaborations.

personal and community rewards programPollin8r is developing a unique program that rewards highly engaged individuals and communities using pollin8r.com with experiences and resources that help them build even stronger local food communities. La

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Value streamsYes, it could catalyze a lot of change, but how will Pollin8r earn money and ensure its own sustainability? Pollin8r will earn income for itself and generate additional value for local food communities and independent business owners in the following ways:

transaction feesEvery time a crop purchase is made within pollin8r.com, a small percentage of that transaction will be retained by Pollin8r. In this manner, Farmers and Eaters will have no upfront costs for using the platform. Pollin8r will only derive income when a sale is generated for a Farm.

sponsorship & authentic promotionPollin8r will offer a very limited number of sponsorships of the pollin8r.com platform to organizations which meet our thresholds for beneficial business practices. Each will tell the story of a specific way in which that sponsor is partnering with pollin8rs to bring positive change to food systems with sponsorship dollars flowing directly into local communities in ways that reward high levels of community activity.

api feesThird-party developers will be able to access the pollin8r platform through application programming interfaces (APIs) available via monthly subscriptions.

subscription sales of advanced servicesPollin8r will offer advanced services (not essential to the core social-commerce function) to local-food businesses via a tiered subscription model.

productsAdditional income will be derived from the sale of complementary products, such as mobile apps, and lifestyle brand items such as t-shirts and jewelry. In such instances, pollin8r will continue to profit-share, again driving value and investment back to organizations and independent businesses that support strong local agriculture and economies: The sale of apps will benefit values-aligned non-profit organizations. Pollin8r’s entire lifestyle brand inventory is being built around a network of independent artists and businesses and their ability to provide unique products that bear Pollin8r’s images and ideas on-request to local consumers.

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CollaborationNo other system currently exists to encourage and support the micro-crop-contracting of foods grown on-request for individual consumers. Pollin8r will be the first to market with a tool that does this. Pollin8r’s “competitive” strategy is to embrace other businesses and organizations as collaborators in nurturing the resilient, localized economies we believe are required to weather the many global challenges we now face. What starts as a single application serving farmers and consumers interested in a more diverse, local food supply, will quickly evolve to a marketplace built on collaborative, cooperative relationships between pollin8r and its third-party partners.

complementary technology providersThe food-tech landscape has seen a lot of vigorous activity recently. Many early entrants have focused on the critical tasks of connecting farmers and buyers in new relationships or helping farmers manage their CSAs. A new crop of websites, apps and SaaS (software as a service) products is introducing ever more creative approaches to connecting the dots in a healthy food ecosystem. By working collaboratively with emerging and established technology providers whose services and tools complement our own, we can all accelerate our rates of adoption and impact. Collectively, we are developing business, legal, technical and values frameworks to guide our own collaborations, and look forward to sharing these with others.

supporting changemakers, encouraging participationFood access, seed diversity preservation, economic development, soil regeneration, community-building, water resource protection, carbon sequestration... Since so many interests intersect in the fields were our food is grown, Pollin8r has opportunities to help many individuals and organizations accomplish goals they hold near and dear. As a result, many parties are self-identifying ways they can engage with Pollin8r to amplify our respective efforts. Pollin8r will use progressive online tools to manage the flow of our broader community’s various contributions from idea to impact in a transparent way.

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Who is behind this?Pollin8r benefits from many stewards and a rich braintrust. These smart, creative and “get-it-done” personalities all share a keen interest in the well-being of others and a deep commitment to a better future for us all.

KYRA PINCHEIRA is passionate about food and farms, an enthusiastic early adapter of technology, and a big thinker. Her professional experiences in environmental education, community revitalization, new enterprise development and art have all collided in Pollin8r.

JEFF ALDRICH grew up on a farm and has been designing and building web software for a wide range of clients using a variety of languages and technologies since 1993 when the first Mozilla Browser was released. He has spent more than fifteen years developing internet-based software solutions in a variety of vertical markets.

AND MANY OTHERSJust a list of the names of the accomplished individuals who are contributing their considerable knowledge and talents to Pollin8r’s success is too long to include here. Some of their more relevant experiences and fascinating accomplishments include:

• Launching Discovery Communication’s Planet Green™ multiplatform media brand • Managing technology transfer (technology-for-equity) deals for Intel's Software

Architecture Labs as part of Intel Capital team• Founding a 43-acre permaculture research, training and education center for

regenerative agriculture and land management, dedicated to creating organic cooperatives and establishing fair trade markets

• Developing a hub-and-spoke model for expanding regional access to fresh, healthy foods starting with an innovative farm-to-plate retail outlet

• Contributing to the seminal Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production final report on the state of intensive animal agriculture

• Developing a community-scale tool for the assessment of biodiversity, land management sustainability, and producer subjective well-being (happiness)

• Launching a widely-studied and replicated local currency• Consulting in key policy areas including healthy food access, obesity and security• Blogging about food issues in prominent outlets such as Grist, Civil Eats, Huffington

Post and Food Safety News

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Pollin8ing changeAt Pollin8r, we’re fond of big, bold vision. Developing a social-commerce platform that supports a new business model in local food transactions is a satisfying start, but we’ve already begun to look ahead to what the future could hold. Here’s a preview of a few things in incubation:

pollin8ing more than unusual annualsThe model whereby individuals contribute time, expertise, surplus capacity, financial and/or social capital to "pollin8" a crop into existence will also be supported to bring about other changes, such as:

• re-establishing perennial food sources• improving farms’ ecological practices and economic well-being• transitioning degraded soils to health• intentionally co-creating other local businesses that benefit community

rich narrative transparency from shelf to seedThe information that keeps Eaters connected to crops they have pollin8d can also be used to tell a very detailed story about where and how foods are grown in any place an Eater encounters them: in a market, on a plate in a restaurant, or even on a grocery store shelf as an ingredient in a values-added product.

cash-free farm start-upsPollin8r is working with others to minimize the barriers to becoming a new farmer. By combining pollin8r.com with land-access programs and on-line tools that facilitate barter and other means of accessing resources on a cash-free basis, we are mapping out an entry pathway into farming that doesn’t require cash or financial debt.

certification, seed trials & researchBy using pollin8r.com’s microblogging tools to capture additional information, we can automate record-keeping for individual farms and broader, multi-farm efforts, such as maintaining various certifications or conducting seed-trials to bring saved seeds into commercial production.

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Inquiries, Ideas or Interest in collaborating?

Please contact:Kyra Pincheira

kyra@pollin8r.com

p.2 Image: Mixed Beans; Photo by Sarah Kelsen, This Image: Chinese Five Color Pepper; Photo by Anne Nester; Source- Baker Creek; cc foodfotobank,com 2011