An Investment In My Farm Is An Investment In Steemit: A Fresh Perspective On Crowdfunding With Steemit

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Greeting Steemians!

I post here today with a fantastic opportunity for us to help each other out greatly! It's symbiosis of the highest order, believe me! Here's the deal: I'm an entrepreneur developing an agricultural business in rural North Carolina. I have about 10 acres of forested land and my plan is to grow a diversity of produce which can be cultivated within a forest system. The large majority of modern agriculture (including organic agriculture) relies on clear-cutting land, disturbing the soil, and saying 'ok, now what do we grow?' This predictably human strategy of food production does make for impressive production yields but totally ignores the fact that the forest it replaced was already generating VERY impressive yields in terms of ecosystem services such as oxygen production, carbon sequestration, genetic diversity, and of course FOOD.

Our agricultural practices absolutely must begin to reflect and contribute to the highly complex and diverse global ecosystems of which they are part and parcel. That's why my farm only produces food which can be plugged into existing forest systems.

My first project is Shitake and Lion's Mane mushrooms. I grow these on fresh cut logs I acquire from local tree services, developers, and random people on Craigslist. My target for this year is 1000 logs. Later I will expand into Ramps, Ginseng, and other more obscure forest products I hope to develop.

Why do I need funding?

Oh. So many things. But I'd like focus this campaign on one specific thing: my road. Actually, it's not just my road, I share it with five families. Everyone on the road wants it fixed, but the state wont do it (we've tried every angle) and frankly, I'm located in a very poor rural part of North Carolina and none of my neighbors can afford to fix it. It will cost about $5500 to have it graded and properly graveled.

There are a few reasons I chose this specifically:

1. I need the road fixed!
2. Fixing the road doesn't just benefit me, it will improve the lives of five families.
3. It's a tangible thing which I can document and share with Steemit, thereby helping to promote and legitimize the platform while possibly generating more income.
4. Everyone on Steemit gets to go “Woah, we literally just financed the improvement of infrastructure in a random rural part of the world which would otherwise never be touched by this level of economic activity, crazy...”

Yeah, yeah. It looks like an idyllic country road, but try driving on it... (Especially after a rain, it's the least fun slip 'n' slide ever to be spawned from the depths of hell, ugh.)

How Can Steemit help?

By upvoting of course! How often do you get an opportunity to help fund a venture simply by clicking one button and without any financial risk whatsoever? Consider this for a moment: If this post can reach $10,000, I can walk into my bank tomorrow, get a loan to fix the road, and service that loan entirely by powering down Steem Power. Additionally, since the actual USD return I see from Steemit depends entirely on the success of this platform, it will be in my best interest fight for the success of this platform as much as possible. Which leads me to...

What do you get in return?

By investing in business through Steemit, businesses will become highly motivated to invest in the success of Steemit. If this post is a success, the obvious thing for me to do will be to document my success as best as I can. I'll be blogging every step of the way so that the world can see that Steemit fixed my road! Steemit invested in me, and here are the tangible results of that investment! This will help generate publicity and trust for the platform, which will benefit Steemit and ultimately me since I need to insure that Steemit remains robust to protect my revenue stream. Woah! What is this wizardry?!?!

Additionally, since all of you are also invested in Steem, the work I do to progress the platform benefits you directly! This is a whole different breed of investment. This is the future of business!

Well, that's it. If you've invested the time to read this far, why not upvote? What do you have to lose? :) Oh, also tomorrow is my birthday, just sayin'.

Let's Do This Steemit!