Non Technical Summary
Elements of the project include:Agricultural Projects:Sierra Foothill Farmer Food Hub (key personnel Deborah Yashar, with E. Kim Coontz)The Sierra Foothills Farmer Food Hub project seeks to strengthen the market power and resilience of small and mid-scale farms in Placer, Nevada, Yuba, and El Dorado Counties. The Steering Committee is comprised of 11 members, 9 of whom are farmers. Other members are representatives from BriarPatch Food Co-op, a rural grocery that wants to expand local produce and the region's farm-to-school community, which supports the co-op's capacity to serve both local retailers and schools. Members of the cooperative food hub will aggregate their products, streamline sales and distribution, and meet the requirements of institutional and retail buyers that are difficult to achieve individually. This approach expands market reach, reduces costs, and keeps more food dollars circulating locally, building both farm viability and a stronger regional food system. We will be partnering with the Nebraska Center for Cooperatives and the South Dakota Value-Added Agriculture Development Center (SDVAD) to explore application of the Rural Access Distribution Model (RAD) to strengthen the food hub while effectively bringing local produce to BriarPatch, schools, and other rural institutions.A feasibility study is currently underway and expected to be completed by the end of the year. We will work closely with the steering committee to evaluate and refine the co-op's business proposition as the feasibility findings become available. CCCD will provide governance support and help the farmer members to incorporate the business, draft bylaws, and begin operations, as appropriate.Evaluation Methods include participation metrics and completion of deliverables.Methane to Market: Boosting Profitability for Small, Rural Dairy Farms (E. Kim Coontz)CCCD assisted in the formation of the California Biogas Cooperative (CBC) in September 2023. The cooperative was formed to enable farmers to be compliant with regulations to minimize methane pollution and for small and mid-sized farmers to better compete in an increasing volatile market where dairy digester technologies were developed for use by very large dairy operations. The digesters reaped significant advantages for the large diaries, including creating efficiencies, enabling regulatory compliance and income generation through methane-generated electricity and through tax credits.While the landscape has shifted away from tax credits, small and mid-sized dairy farmers need the other advantages of digesters in order to compete. The expense of the digesters makes a cooperative the best approach for addressing their shared needs.CCCD will partner with the California Dairy Campaign to support the cooperative in achieving its goal is to provide more California dairy farmers with access to advanced technology, design, engineering, and capital for building appropriately scaled digesters on individual farms that are operated collectively for the benefit of the cooperative's farmer members.Evaluation Methods include the board will be able to use business plan results to guide decisions, review and discuss the digester designs generated by the engineering company, and gain sufficient membership.Beginner Farmer Co-op Education (key personnel Deborah Yashar, with E. Kim Coontz)The Agriculture & Land-Based Training Association (ALBA) is a beginning farmer training program based in the Salinas Valley that equips aspiring farmers with the training, resources, and access to farmland needed to launch successful farm businesses. CCCD will provide cooperative education for ALBA participants.We will also collaborate with the Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy (CAUSE) on beginner famer cooperative education and work with them to evaluate farmer interest in a cooperative of farmers who will farm on land owned by a land trust. We will simultaneously be training CAUSE in cooperative development.CCCD will partner with NCDC in sharing curriculum and approach. RCDG funding is budgeted to support small farmer participation in CCCD's California Co-op Conference where they can broaden their knowledge and network with other small farmers.Worker Co-op Assistance Includes:Winters Green Cleaning Worker Cooperative DevelopmentThis project will create jobs and build a new business in rural Winters using a proven build-and-recruit cooperative development model. Yolo Eco-Clean Cooperative, incorporated in 2017, has grown to 15 worker-owners and serves as a successful example. CCCD will adapt this model in Winters, using last year's feasibility study as the foundation for development. The project aims to meet the needs of rural workers and their communities by first establishing the cooperative's organizational and operational foundation, then recruiting and training the founding worker-owners who will assume control of the enterprise. This ensures that the cooperative is structured for long-term viability while directly involving members in shaping governance, decision-making, and accountability systems from the outset.The Winters Green Cleaning Cooperative will provide essential services to households and businesses while using eco-friendly practices that protect the health of workers and clients. By embedding worker ownership into the enterprise, the project not only creates jobs but also transforms them into pathways for wealth-building and community resilience. The cooperative will serve as a replicable model for rural job creation and business retention, demonstrating how technical assistance and cooperative structures can address local economic challenges while creating durable, community-rooted enterprises.Evaluation Methods include metrics for anchor organizations engagement, provisional board members trained, founding worker-owners onboarded, clients contracted, revenue generated, and jobs created.Shingle Springs Veterinary Clinic Worker Co-op ConversionThe Shingle Springs Veterinary Clinic in rural Shingle Springs, CA, is preparing for ownership succession as its long-serving Doctor of Veterinary Medicine retires. The owner has chosen to preserve local jobs and service quality by transferring the practice to its 20 employees through a cooperative conversion. This project will retain the rural business while retaining stable, high-quality jobs.With support from CCCD the project will guide workers and the seller through a structured conversion process that includes education, feasibility assessment, business valuation, and cooperative structuring. Employees will organize into a steering committee, receive training in cooperative principles and financial literacy, and help design bylaws, governance processes, and membership structures that ensure veterinarians, technicians, and support staff all have meaningful roles in ownership and management. Attorneys and financial advisors (funded outside of RCDG) will support both sides to establish a fair valuation, develop a capitalization plan, and design a legal entity structure that complies with California requirements while enabling democratic governance.To support this conversion and to raise the profile of retaining local veterinary clinics using the cooperative model, we will convene a national webinar with the professional (but not financial) partnership of the University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives (UWCC), they will share their experience in helping to convert a vet clinic in Wisconsin and members of that co-op will also participate.The project includes convening two conferences - one for directors and leaders of agricultural co-ops and the other for small farmer co-ops, food co-ops and worker co-ops. Also included is operating a Cooperative Develoopment Center to provide assitance to rural communities by providing information, responding to inquiries and providing other assistance.

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
902	6050	3030	100%

Knowledge Area
902 - Administration of Projects and Programs;

Subject Of Investigation
6050 - Communities, areas, and regions;

Field Of Science
3030 - Information and communication;

Goals / Objectives
The central goal of the project is to improve the economic condition of rural areas in California through cooperative development.The activities in this proposal will contribute to the improvement of economic conditions in the rural areas where services will be provided. The detailed goals include:1) Providing cooperative development assistance to farmer groups, including) i. Assisting farmers to strengthen their business through cooperative development so that they can stabilize and expand markets, including grocery and institutional buyers. ii. Strengthening the capacity of farmers through the development of a food hub. iii) Enabling dairy farmers to better compete and respond to a changing landscape.2) Supporting the transition of a rural veterinary clinic to worker cooperative ownership thereby retaining the jobs of 20 staff and retaining a local business valued by the community.3) Supporting the development of a new rural cooperative business that will create new jobs in a rural community;4) Delivering cooperative education, as well as development and technical assistance to strengthen existing cooperatives. Expand the use of cooperatives as a business tool to improve rural economies through a training for directors and executives of agricultural cooperatives, and through a state-wide co-op conference that includes education for leaders in small farmer, worker, food, and other cooperatives.5) Engaging in collaborative projects, professional development that build the capacity, effectiveness, and professionalism of CCCD.5) Providing easily accessible, reliable, accurate information about various types of cooperatives and their utility in addressing economic and service challenges in rural communities by providing up-to-date timely information via CCCD's website, emails, and social media.6) Responding to inquiries and providing cooperative development assistance to individuals and groups who contact CCCD through "contact us" questions on our website, or via email, phone, post, or in- person drop-in.7) In carrying out its activities, CCCD will seek, where appropriate, the advice, participation, expertise, and assistance of representatives of business, industry, educational institutions, the Federal government, and State and local governments.

Project Methods
The methods sued in this project includes technical assitance by woring directly with groups identified in the proposal to reach the economic development outcomes identified. Education wil be provided through a webinal and the convening of 2 state-wide conferences, We will also provide tecnical assitance to rural areas by responding to inquires.