Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money

by Woody Tasch, Carlo Petrini (Foreword)

Could there ever be an alternative stock exchange dedicated to slow, small, and local? Could a million American families get their food from CSAs? What if you had to invest 50 percent of your assets within 50 miles of where you live?Such questions-at the heart of slow money-represent the first steps on our path to a new economy. Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money presents an essential new strategy for investing in local food systems and introduces a group of fiduciary activists who are exploring what should come after industrial finance and industrial agriculture. Theirs is a vision for investing that puts soil fertility into return-on-investment calculations and serves people and place as much at it serves industry sectors and markets. Leading the charge is Woody Tasch-whose decades of work as a venture capitalist, foundation treasurer, and entrepreneur now shed new light on a truer, more beautiful, more prudent kind of fiduciary responsibility. He offers an alternative vision to the dusty old industrial concepts of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries when dollars, and the businesses they financed, lost their connection to place; slow money, on the other hand, is firmly rooted in the new economic, social, and environmental realities of the 21st century. Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money is a call to action for designing capital markets built around not extraction and consumption but preservation and restoration. Is it a movement or is it an investment strategy? Yes.

Genres: Nonfiction, Economics, Food, Sustainability, Business, Finance, Environment

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Woody Tasch is Chairman and President of Slow Money, a 501 c 3 formed in 2008 to catalyze the flow of investment capital to small food enterprises and to promote new principles of fiduciary responsibility to support sustainable agriculture and the emergence of a restorative economy. For ten years, through 2008, Tasch was Chairman of Investors' Circle, a network of angel investors, family offices, and social purpose funds and foundations that has invested $133 million in 200 early stage sustainability-promoting ventures and venture funds, since 1992. During much of the 1990s, Woody was Treasurer of the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, where, as part of an innovative mission-related venture capital investing program, a substantial investment was made in Stonyfield Farm, now the worlds largest maker of organic yogurt. Woody has worked as an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, board member and consultant with such organizations as Prince Ventures (a healthcare venture fund), Healthdata International, CERES (the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies), National Mentor, Greenway, the Nantucket Education Trust, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Northwest Area Foundation, CIMMYT (the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center) and The Farmers Diner. Woody's involvement in food dates back to 1979, when he developed a case study program at The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (home of Norman Borlaug's dwarf wheat and the "green revolution"); he co-authored Food Production and Public Policy in Developing Countries (Praeger Special Studies). He has been founding Chairman of several NGOs: the Community Development Venture Capital Alliance (supporting over 100 small-scale venture funds that target economically disadvantaged regions), Sustainable Nantucket (environmentally responsible growth management on Nantucket Island) and the Nantucket Education Trust (affordable housing for teachers). Articles, interviews or profiles have appeared in Ode, Hemisphere, Green Money Journal, Amherst Alumni Magazine, Resurgence, Andover Review, Utne Reader, More Than Money, Il Sole-24 Ore (Italian financial press), Steering Business Towards Sustainability (United Nations University Press), WBUR and Conscious Talk Radio. He is a frequent speaker at various socially responsible business and sustainable agriculture venues, including Social Venture Network, SRI in the Rockies and Terra Madre. He is the author of the recently published Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms, and Fertility Mattered. Woody graduated Magna Cum Laude from Amherst College in 1973. "

Reviews

[Genevieve · Rating 1 out of 5]

While Tasch has great intentions to tell about Slow Money, and a truly great idea, he doesn't really ever say what he means. Instead he has collected several essays that often repeat themselves, sound rather arrogant, go on unnecessary tangents and tell little to nothing about what slow money means, in my neighborhood and yours. I understand that I need to invest like an earthworm, but how?

[Adam · Rating 1 out of 5]

Great ideas, horrible execution. Trite, repetitive, throwing out tentative ideas and what if this, what if that. Low on statistics and any coherent thinking. I suppose he is trying to be poetic, yes, but offers nothing in the way of a concrete new vision or action plan for the reader. Just repeating how much globalization and factory farming suck.

[John · Rating 1 out of 5]

There is an important argument for locally focused investment that I believe all of us should be weighing.

This book completely fails to make that argument.

There are three or four wonderful ideas I this book, but it is overwritten to the point of being nearly comical.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

I get the whole Slow Food thing. I'm a member of Slow Food SF and Slow Food Berkeley (not active other than volunteering). Most of my friends in the Bay Area are also members and more active than myself. I get it. I've read Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser. I've read Wes Jackson, Joel Salatin, Vandana Shiva and Wendel Berry. I get it.

Adapting this philosophy to investing is obvious. However, it's a paradox. It's like saying "I really like the taste of a Big Mac, but I'm only going to eat organic vegan slow local fresh Big Mac recreations from my local Co-op. WTF? It's fake meat! If you're eating a fake hotdog with fake casings, you're doing it wrong. Eat a real hotdog. If you're vegan - stick to the staples - pluses, legumes, veggies, fungus, fruits, nuts, water. There is a plethora of dishes to make with just those ingredients. Think of what lactobacilis can do for you, even!

Ok, ok. So, I'm not explaining myself well enough for you to buy it. "Slow Money" takes over where Slow Food left off. Slow Food preaches three things; that food be good, clean and fair. If we change that to investment practices - I see why it's radical and why it's important. What I don't see is how it can work. Capitalism is built on the economic principle of growth. Growth of population, growth of markets, growth of investment, etc. If investors expect growth, how can they change that thinking to socially conscience investing just for shits and giggles. In other words, what is the direct benefit to the investor of investing in our soil?

If this idea (slow money) is to work, we'd have to change the rules of capitalism and free market. My opinion aside, I don't think this is feasible at this time. That said, I think it will take a lot more convincing and better writing to convince the people with the money to invest towards the triple bottom line than towards the bottom line.

Since I'm moving on to read C.K. Prahalad, I look forward to a more logical approach to helping the world. Since I left my emotional capacity when I took up science and engineering in college, I need that logic as a background to build on. If it evolves into the emotional, then I keep that part to myself. I'd recommend that Tasch look at his subject with this POV - especially if he intends to win over the current financial community.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tasch proposes a new paradigm in investment and cultural literacy, beginning with the principle that agriculture led us into the industrial age and must be reassessed in order to get us out. He ties together many schools of thought as applied to the tension between industrial finance and agriculture, such as mathematics ("every formula is either complete and inconsistent, or consistent and incomplete"), economics ("either you are a true fiduciary or a false Malthusian'), environmentalism (recounting the destruction of our ecosystem during the 20th century in exchange for faster, cheaper and less wholesome food-- trading shelf life for quality), sociology (the contradictions that 21st century citizens must balance when facing these issues) and politics.

As a "nurture capitalist" Tasch challenges the early 20th century philanthropic paradigm of giving back-- an idea that presupposes a taking away. Other themes include the destruction of local communities in exchange for nebulous places created by the hyper-fast invisible movement of money, and other metaphors such as the suburban home as a life-support center, with its members inoculated by the anodyne media while consuming distant and creating nothing.

Tasch gives short shrift to the power of the Internet as a social, political and financial force, relegating it to a symptom of our mental and social sterilization caused by our voluntary surrender to so-called fast money that is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Although I disagree with some of the author's positions, it's a fast read that paints a broad picture of a more sustainable future tied to the land and how our destruction of it is beginning to show its ugly effects, Tasch's book will continue to serve as a diverse introduction and guide to the emergent nature of Slow Money.

[Praveen Madan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really interesting book - I found it to be part manifesto, part economic poetry, and part alternate worldview. In summary, the book makes the case that we have all become slaves of the current economic system that is creating unsustainable growth, ecological disasters, uneven distribution of wealth, and collapse of local economies and communities. The book argues that individual investors and foundations need to align their investment decisions with the values they consider important and it submits that that values be centered around locally grown food, building local communities, encouraging diversity not monoculture, and a focus on relationships to people and land. It's a thought provoking book, well written, easy to read. I agree with some of the other reviewers that the structure of the book is not very coherent, but then this is economic poetry, not a economic thesis. So, the author should get some latitude and be allowed to ramble a bit :-) I think this is an important book so I am going to invite Woody to come and speak at the Booksmith in San Francisco. Stay tuned for more on that front if any of you are interested in meeting him.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been more and more uneasy with the whole concept of capitalism as a means to decision making. There are aspects of it that are great, and I love the acid test, did or did it not make money? There are other parts that are really troublesome. As with any man-made system, it can be manipulated, and not always for the good. I've also read about slow food, and that is an easier concept to grasp. The idea of slow money gets at those issues like corporate CEOs focused on making more for themselves, and their incentive is to make more by making the shareholders happy, who have zero interest in the inherent company, only how it's stock is doing that quarter... The long and short of it, I really enjoyed the book. It's insightful, and provocative. For example, I would love to invest in, let's say, slow food, but I think the stock market won't give me the satisfaction or gratification I'm looking for. I want to connect with the farmers, the entrepreneurs, those looking for ways to improve while sustaining our planet, not just being successful financially.

[Sherry · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you understand and believe in Slow Food, you'll realize that we need Slow Money to support it.

Money investments today are all about making as much money as fast as you can. This means the farmer cannot let a field lie fallow. The farmer must use more and more artificial fertilizer to maximize his harvest. He must use monoculture so everything is uniform and can be treated the "optimum" way. Huge amounts of toxic chemicals are used to kill pests. Soil is made toxic and infertile. Superbugs with a natural resistance to the toxins are favored, driving the creation of more and more poisons added to the soil.

What we need is an investment vehicle for "nurture capital" that rewards investors and growers alike for operating a sustainable business. Instead of forcing the farmer to maximize the bottom line, we want this model to encourage him to maximize the health of the soil, the crops and the community.

Check it out:
http://www.slowmoney.org/

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Woody Tasch has some inspiring, prescient visions for a new world economy, and so all in all, I'm glad I read the book. Nevertheless, he gets preachy at times, has a tendency to cherry-pick statistics to prove a point, go on loosely connected tangents, and repeat himself. i.e., he needs an editor. Parsing through the pages however, and you'll find some snippets worth referencing. Here's just one example:

"Is 'local' a specific number of miles from Point A to Point B? Is it a specific political or contractual designation? How does it relate to a bioregion or a watershed? In the word local are connotations of rapport, relationship, rootedness, and the kind of responsibility that is the reciprocal of anonymity and absentee ownership. In the word local is a hint of the possibility of localization, that which is bubbling up in the wake of globalization. The quantitative imprecision of the term does not diminish its importance." (p.11)

[Jenn Raley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fascinating and poignant. Full of great quotes and innovative ideas. Certainly food for thought.

A better title might have been "Musings on..." rather than "Inquiries into...". More a collection of rambling essays than a book, the topics are wide-ranging and often not very cohesive.

That said, the financial innovations Tasch suggests are worthy of exploration, and it is helpful to learn in the epilogue that the Slow Money movement has in fact been launched. The proposals are necessarily connected to the philosophical musings that make up 70% of the book; however, if the ideas had been developed in a more linear and logical fashion, it might have presented a stronger argument.

I would only recommend this book to people who are really committed to the topic. Casual Michael Pollan fans beware.

[Melissa]

I got two chapters in and I had to bring this back to the library because there are many holds on it-- *sidebar: isn't that awful, I could not read this tiny books in 3 whole weeks!!!*

It was about economics, not exactly light, but not awful. Premise: invest your $$$ in things that have a positive impact on the planet and humanity not just those that make $$$$$$...it is a worthwhile book, and I will try it again when my turn comes round. Luckily (or not) I don't have any money to put anywhere so I don't have to worry about this at the moment.

[Nancyandralphknudkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A rich lode of ideas and facts related to our current economic focus and misuse of the soil we depend on. I've taken notes on this, and need to reread it (again). I wish it was organized differently, somehow; or that a more coherent large-scale vision of applying principles in this book was presented. However, perhaps such a vision is up to us, to create as we go. In many ways, I think this one is a MUST READ for anyone talking about economics

[Andre Cormier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Woody Tasch articulates what many of us already know or feel is wrong with our current structure in society. It's an invitation to action and acknowledgement that we must first have a vision of the future, no matter how farfetched it may seem to some, of what a sustainable future looks like, how it can be achieved, and an ordering of priorities that starts with the place where are sustenance begins, the soil.

[Wayne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love the idea of Slow Money and think it makes a lot of sense to generate create new businesses around sustainable food. This book though is pretty terribly written. The core concept was made clear pretty quickly and then the book kinda just rambles from section to section and it's unclear how the sections are tied together. I don't think it's worth reading this book. You can just wikipedia "Slow Money" and get to the same level of understanding vs. reading 200 pages.

[ch · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ultimately, I think he seemed like more of a poet than a persuasive writer. I agree with his position and I share his concern with the problems in our world... and yet there were very few action items for an individual to take - mostly high level pipe dreams, philosophical quotes, and page after page of scary sounding statistics (which after a while are difficult to even digest).

[David Czuba]

Tasch is a horrible convincer. He doesn't put his thoughts into a successful rhetorical strategy. This book was a terribly tough read, but I gave up a third of the way through. Regretfully, the idea that we should treat soil and wealth slowly is a good one that needs proper fleshing out, but it's harbinger is not the one to do it.

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Same as other reviewers have noted, I really wanted to love this book but had difficulty getting through it. The subject matter was compelling and the book is chock full of great quotes and factoids. However, the writing was laborious and the overall flow was difficult to follow.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

The majority of this book seems to be personal essay and philosophizing, which I suppose the title suggests. There were a few very good suggestions for practical steps to shift the emphasis in financial investing to more sustainable activities.

[Sandie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slow money. . ."investing as if food, farms, and fertility mattered". I started this book and did not finish. Would like to pick it up again someday. It is an organization that invests in farms/organizations who are choosing a different path. . .

[Linda · Rating 1 out of 5]

An interest in local investing led me to purchase Slow Money . I had high hopes for the book, but found myself slogging through hopping it would all come together, it never did. There were moments of clarity in the book but mostly the narrative was wandering and difficult to decipher.

[Rebecca · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted to love this new book and embrace the concept of slow money, but this book drove me crazy. Too much general preaching about local/sustainable/green/community in all the catch phrase ways.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great ideas but it is painfully clear that Mr. Tasch is an investor first and a writer second. Even though this topic is right up my alley, Tasch couldn't hold my interest... Bummer.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book presents interesting ideas. Supporting local farmers, farmers' markets, growing locally, spending locally, and redesigning one's lifestyle can make a difference.

[Shelby · Rating 5 out of 5]

After I heard about this book on NPR, I went out, bought it, and read it in one day. It was amazing, and I was lucky enough to meet the author and have him sign it when he came to UMF!

[Holland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read Slow Money for an upcoming discussion at the next Slow Food book club. Was an interesting, insightful read but I'm hoping the club as a whole is able to draw more out of it.

[Lauren · Rating 1 out of 5]

I could not get through this book, but my husband really enjoyed it!

[Katherine Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book reminds us that faster and more global are not the only directions – we can choose, at least some of the time, slower and more local.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting take, but it was a bit meandering, a bit ranting. It threw a lot of ideas up in the air for others people to pick out and actually do.

[Harvey Chess]

Should be read by anyone active in the nonprofit sector, at the least.

[Michael]

Just under way...