by Dr. David K. Banner
When we arrived in southwestern Wisconsin some 14 years ago (in 1995), I had a very powerful dream (vision). The essence of the dream was that we had been drawn here by spiritual forces, along with many more people still to come, in order to literally build the new society. It was evident that the old order of power, greed and materialism was collapsing of its own weight. In the dream, we here in the Kickapoo region were to create a model of sustainability and respect for the planet that people from all over the world would come to visit, study and replicate in their areas. A grand vision……… yes!
We already had the seeds of such a community when we arrived. There were several CSA’s (community supported agriculture) farms in operating and more have started in the interim. Organic Valley, which was to become the largest farmer-owned dairy cooperative in the country, was underway and beginning its growth curve (last year, they had revenues of $480 million dollars). Many other pieces were also in place:
(1) alternative farming-in addition to the CSA’s and Organic Valley, we have developed other organic farms, a couple of biodynamic farms and other specialty organic farms, e.g., ginseng;
(2) alternative politics- recently, I (and three other “progressives”) have been elected to the Vernon County Board and we are beginning to make inroads in consciousness with other Board members that that old models of conventional farming don’t work very well;
(3) alternative health care- we now have two holistic healing centers here in Viroqua, specializing in zone therapy, acupuncture, Shamanic healing, yoga, massage, homeopathy, zero balancing, naturopathy, chiropractic (including network chiropractic), and several other modalities; Vernon Memorial now has a complementary healing center in the hospital!;
(4) alternative business- Along with a number of cooperatives, we have had Christopher Houghton-Budd, a British economist, here three times to explain his model of mutual economic support called “associative economics”; several businesses have started to associate in this manner. Also, the Vernon County Economic Development Association (VEDA) is helping a number of entrepreneurial ventures off the ground and may be purchasing the old NCR building north of town for one dollar so many start ups can be incubated!;
(5) alternative education- Beginning in 1980, Viroqua has had a thriving Waldorf School (Pleasant Valley Waldorf School), which now has approximately 170 students, studying K-8. In 1997, we started a Waldorf-inspired high school called Youth Initiative High School; it is a thriving entity with 45 students in grades 9-12 being intimately involved in all aspects of the government of the school. Both schools are thriving and we also have an alternative high school called Laurel associated with the public school.
The “pieces” of the vision are coming into form. Recently, along with VEDA, we have started a “green Business Initiative”, to help start sustainable businesses, write business plans for new start-ups and fund them. Also, we have started a Green Energy Initiative, to capture some of the Obama Administration stimulus money so we can move towards energy independence on our area (wind, solar, biomass, geothermal). Finally, a group of us have just completed a program called THE NATURAL STEP which was developed in Sweden and focuses on four principles of sustainability. Lastly, we just had a meeting with Kickapoo Green Builders and members of the aforementioned initiatives to pool our resources and move forward on the vision of sustainability.
I am sure we will have many challenges on the road to sustainability but we have a cadre of conscious, committed people willing to work to make it happen!!!!!
July 5, 2009
