The Provisions Cooperative

The Provisions Cooperative is being formed to coordinate regional food infrastructure: aggregating producer supply, routing cold-chain logistics, dispatching gleaning networks for surplus capture, and supporting pantry routing for distribution to the people who need food. The work is operational, not advocacy. We do not feed people directly. We coordinate the infrastructure that lets the people already doing the work do it better.

The cooperative form is intended to ensure that the people doing the work, producers, aggregators, gleaning operators, pantry coordinators, own the institution that coordinates them. Member ownership is structural, not honorary. Members elect the board. Members approve major operational decisions. Members receive patronage distributions in proportion to participation.

The Provisions Cooperative is intended to be organized under state cooperative corporation law as a member-owned producer-buyer cooperative. The structural intent is that members elect the board, the cooperative cannot be acquired by an outside buyer, and the mission codified in the articles of incorporation cannot be redirected by ordinary management decision.

Regional chapters are intended to be organized at the food-shed scale rather than at the state level, because food coordination follows growing regions and cold-chain corridors rather than political boundaries. Federation across chapters is intended to coordinate shared infrastructure without centralizing operational decisions.

Members are intended to include participating producers, aggregators, and institutional buyers: small and mid-scale farms, ranches, fisheries, food hubs, regional distributors, gleaning operators, school districts, hospitals, community pantry networks, and faith-based food ministries.

The communities served are the people who receive food through the routed network: pantry visitors, school meal recipients, hospital patients, community kitchen guests. The Provisions Cooperative does not serve these communities directly; it supports the institutions that do.

Governance is intended to follow the rural electric cooperative model adapted for food coordination. The board is intended to be elected by members with one-member-one-vote governance. Board composition is intended to include adversarial representation: producers, aggregators, institutional buyers, and at-large public-interest seats.

Terms are intended to be staggered and multi-year to provide continuity across political and funding cycles. Funder concentration is intended to be capped at 25 percent of operating revenue from any single source, measured rolling three-year average. Operational decisions, financials, and major routing decisions are intended to be published on a stated cadence through the platform reporting primitives.