TORRINGTON – Since it was carved from the northernmost section of Laramie County in 1911, Goshen County has been a bastion for agriculture.
Goshen County was a nationwide leader in the sugar beet industry. Though the Western Sugar processing facility is mostly empty now and the very mention of Western Sugar warrants a depressed sigh from old beet farmers, it was once a juggernaut where the people of Goshen County processed the cash crop of Goshen County.
There’s corn, beef, alfalfa hay – you name it, and it’s probably being grown here. There’s even a hemp field near Huntley.
Simply – it’s an agricultural county.
That all happens on a much larger scale than the 30x30 garden Dave Ernst is working in at the Torrington Community Garden. He’s using a no-till method that utilizes grass mulch to hold moisture produced by soaker hoses, and to keep the weeds at bay, as well. He’s growing sunflowers, beans, peas, cucumbers, eggplant and few other staples.
It’s a well-maintained plot in the TCG, but unlike the other plots, Ernst sees this as more than a hobby. It’s the potential dawn of something much larger.
The garden is the first home of the Wyoming Commonwealth Cooperative. The co-op stands at a small handful of active members, but like everything else, it got sidetracked by COVID-19.
“If it had gotten a bunch of people we’d have striven for production,” he said. “But in this case, we’re striving for some fun and just want to see what happens. It’s experimental.”
Ernst said he had a meeting organized between the 25 people on his co-op email list. That meeting was to be the one where the co-op was going to get its structure and develop plans for the future.
That was supposed to be in April – then, COVID-19 came to Wyoming, and this year’s co-op garden plot turned into the experiment.
“At my age, I don’t even necessarily want to be a co-op,” he said. “I’m 77, but I think it ought to be on the table for anybody that’s thinking about a business. Me and my wife and her sister can form a co-op and do better than just the two of us or just me.”
According to the co-op’s pamphlet, it’s a “voluntary, self-governing, jointly owned enterprise designed to meet common economic, social and cultural needs. All the co-op principles flow from the honesty, openness, social responsibility, and caring for others which ate the foundation upon which the organization is based.”
The co-op will operate with seven guiding principles: voluntary and open membership without gender, social, political or religious discrimination, democratic member control, member economic participation, autonomy and independence, education and training, cooperation with other co-ops, and concern for the community.
Ernst has big dreams for the co-op, based on the model put forth by Mondragon, a large Spanish co-op that has grown into one of the biggest economic forces in its county.
“Mondragon itself started with five guys and a mentor,” he said. “They started, they bought a little company, making paraffin camp stoves, like you use to heat water and cook your hot dogs or your fish. So in 1956 – five guys, one mentor and one co-op. And now, the last I looked, they had 235 interlocking co-ops with 80,000 or 90,000 co-op owners. They have three tiers, they’re the 10th largest bank in Spain, they’re the largest grocery store in northern Spain.”
Ernst’s master plan is drawn in pencil, but there’s years of experience in producing goods – he was the owner and operator of a local greenhouse – and researching successful co-ops behind it. His ‘vision map’ shows a logical path the co-op can take from the 30x30 plot, to a greenhouse, to farmer’s markets and eventually – though he admitted it was a “pie in the sky” goal – its own restaurant and grocery store.
But it’s not really that far-fetched. Similar co-ops have found traction not only in the Basque country of Spain, but in Canada and even in Detroit, Mich., after the city’s economic implosion.
“You’ve got to start somewhere,” he said.
Ernst and his wife have owned several successful small businesses – including the vaunted Chicken Hut, which was a nostalgic favorite for long-time Torrington residents. According to him, the statistics make the case for co-ops being a better option. Mondragon, in its exponential growth since 1956, has only lost four co-ops out of its extensive network. The survival rate for traditional businesses is much smaller.
“If you look at a new small business, 85% fail in the first year and 90% fail in the first five years,” he said. “For co-ops, and this from Canadian numbers, 40% of them are still operating after 10 years. The co-op model is actually more successful in creating businesses than mom-and-pop.”
The key to a successful co-op, Ernst said, is that people get to essentially work for themselves while working together with others.
“The thing that they were able to do is take principles that work for people and turn them into actual practice,” he said.
The vision map also shows that, with a degree of success, the co-op could be a hub of the community. It could host activities, teach classes, plan events and branch out into several businesses owned by the co-op, and as a part of that, its members – and it’s starting in a 30x30 lot in the Torrington Community Garden.
For more information, contact Ernst at (307) 575-2195.
