Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

Member profile

Chris Cook

Organization: Nordic Enterprise Trust
Country: United Kingdom
Field(s) of expertise:
I am working on:

New tenure options and 'social business' mechanisms for investment in agriculture.

This member contributed to:

    • This is an interesting subject closely related to my work at UCL's Institute for Seucrity & Resilience Studies both in respect of 'Resource Resilience' (keeping the lights on) and 'Human Resilience' (capacity building etc). 

      For me 'Resilience' is pretty much symbiotic/coterminous with Peter Steele's 'Restoration'.

      My focus has long been upon the necessary associative protocols ('social contracts') which frame Peter's 'Rights' (ie rights of use, usufruct & control) and the financial instruments which are used within these frameworks to generate 'Returns'. 

      My research approach has been firstly geographic, to identify 'what works' in terms of successful policy frameworks, and secondly, historic, to review what exactly was there before the legal and financial institutions with which we are familiar came along ie 'what worked'.

      This recent presentation at Strathclyde University sets out my findings in general terms. http://www.slideshare.net/ChrisJCook/open-capital-2015

      Perhaps one of the most interesting historic findings is that the very word 'Return' refers to the return of credit instruments to an issuer. eg the Tax Return was the accounting event at which the tax-payer who had pre-paid tax at a discount (and thereby funded the sovereign) would return the 'stock' record of the transaction to the Exchequer for matching and settlement of his tax obligation against the 'counter-stock' portion of the split tally stick accounting record which pre-dated doube entry book-keeping..

      But I digress. 

      In the forestry context it is quite possible to imagine simple social/associative contracts for the use of the forests and for the sharing of usufruct as between stakeholders. More to the point it is possible to imagine investment in forestry through the issuance - in exchange for value received - of credits returnable in payment for forest products generally, and carbon energy value specifically. 

      If the Danish objective operating principle of 'least carbon fuel cost' is then applied alongside the subjective principle of 'least human cost' then the outcomes will probably be more positive than the current outcomes from the application of 'least $ cost' economic principles from the application of conventional corporate protocols and instruments such as equity shares, debt and derivatives.

       

    • There are two key tools necessary, I believe.

      Firstly, a consensual two-way framework agreement valid both domestically, and across borders. This creates no new organisations, but is simply a framework for self organisation to a common purpose.

      I have coined the name 'Nondominium' for such a neutral platform.

      https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/resilience/2011/10/04/nondominium-establishing-c...

      Secondly, there is the ability for producers to issue credits which may be cleared and redeemed within such a framework agreement, and to agree with service providers - on a revenue/production sharing basis - how to get products to market.

      Using such a collaborative architecture - which requires no change in any law - unnecessary financing and funding costs and other rent-seeking such as compound interest become unnecessary, and stakeholder interests are aligned through creating networked co-operatives of co-operatives.