The Fifth Season Cooperative: Building Community Wealth and a Regional Food System

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John Duda

We first learned about the innovative, multistakeholder Fifth Season Cooperative in Wisconson's 7 Rivers region from the community wealth builders at Gundersen Lutheran Health Systems, whom we interviewed for one of the case studies in our report Hospitals Building Healthier Communities: Embracing the Anchor Mission.  The more we learned, the more excited we became...the cooperative has a uniquely innovative six-member class structure, and is transforming the shuttered NCR factory in Viroqua, WI into an engine of regional food security and local economic stability.  Here's our infographic outlining how the cooperative works: