Project Crowd Herd:
A self-replacing herd of cattle and sheep bought by the crowd and professionally managed by the Crowd Herd team to supply Foodbank with a sustainable, ethical solution to their protein needs. Join our crowd today!
When I discovered that over 12% (3,000,000) of Australians live below the international poverty line and that more than 2,000,000 Australians have to rely on food donations to survive on a daily basis, I was shocked.
It makes you question how "Lucky" we really are, imagine living in one of the richest countries in the world and not being able to afford to buy food!
The Problem:
Each year two million Australians rely on food relief, around half of them are children. That's one in every ten Australians that are in need. In 2012 over 12% of our population live below the international poverty line.
Foodbank Australia is by far the largest hunger relief organisation in Australia. Foodbank sources and provides food to charity and community organisations that feed the hungry. Last year, Foodbank provided
to these agencies enough food to make 32 million meals. But demand is still outstripping supply with most charity and food aid groups requiring an increase of at least 15% to feed their clients.
In relation to the supply of food products, Foodbank has identified the extremely pressing need to source and have supplied quality protein and meat products as a top priority.
The Project Crowd Herd Solution:
Utilising the power of social and channel media along with the relatively new trend in Crowdfunding as a way to finance and create awareness about projects, The Crowd Herd Project was born.
Crowd Herd’s main aim is to set up and manage a sustainable, long-term farming and education business that provides to Foodbank quality protein products from a crowd funded farm, beef herd and sheep flock.
Project Crowd Herd is to be a productive show piece farming enterprise that will use the latest in farming technology, animal welfare, pasture and free range practices. It will supply high quality farm raised meat and protein products to the needy, will be
a training facility to the farming community, and more broadly, will become the template for duplicate operations here and abroad.
Project Crowd Herd will not only meet its major objective of feeding the hungry, but will also provide practical knowledge, data basing, reporting and best practice information to the broader agricultural community.
Through the delivery of this project, it is envisioned that many other services and community needs can also help to be addressed, these include:
· * Quality training and employment.
· * Industry and sector knowledge base
· * * Development, testing and reporting of best practice methodologies
· * Community engagement and outreach services and facilities
· * Development, testing and reporting on new technologies
Project Crowd Herd is to be a fully transparent program that will interact and engage the agricultural sector, the general public and its supporters through its reports, websites, social media channels, seminars, advisory, farm view web cams and farm stay options.
Moreover PCH will provide quality, herd bread meat and protein products to Australia’s hungry through the Foodbank organisation.
Why Crowdfunding?
Even though Agriculture is one Australia’s largest industry sectors and is well positioned for future growth, the realities of funding and finance to the sector for land, stock and business expenses is limited and is often too onerous a burden to make this
and indeed many “normal” farming operations viable.
However, without the cost of financing, which is the major input cost to all farming operations, Project Crowd Herd, through its upstream and downstream business activities, will be able to service Foodbank and still turn a profit after expenses.
Project Crowd Herd is much more than a farm, its authoritative market positioning in education, training, reporting, advisory and other, will be well received and is needed in the agricultural community.
As a high profile organisation we, along with our Foodbank main objective, hope to bring greater awareness, information and value to the whole industry.
Where is Project Crowd Herd to be Based?
PCH will initially be set up and based in the New England region of NSW. The New England region is known to be home of some of the best land, climate and conditions for the farming of beef cattle and sheep in the country.
The major centres of the region include: Tamworth, Armidale, Inverell, Glen Innes, Grafton and Tenterfield.
