Where Food and Energy Meet
Two million years our ancestors gave up their wandering ways and began farming. This agricultural revolution, beginning in the Neolithic era, transformed human society by providing a stable base from which trade, arts, labor diversification and political systems could grow. Then, around 300 years ago, the Industrial Revolution transformed society again with the invention of the steam engine and the internal combustion engine. More recently, the technology breakthroughs of the Information Age have revolutionized our society yet again. The recently funded People's Grocery solar project represents a new type of revolution, one that builds off of the past revolutions in agriculture, energy and technology. 
People's Grocery is a food justice organization in West Oakland, CA that is working to create and support a local food system through leadership development, community engagement, and advocacy. Through Solar Mosaic's online platform for investment in solar, People's important work will soon be powered by a 8.6kW solar system, saving them more than $30,000 over the next 20 years. Seventy community members came together to help People's Grocery create a brighter and more delicious future by purchasing shares in the solar project.
The People's Grocery project gives us a delicious hint of what this new revolution could look like: a world where everyone has access to fresh, nutritious food; communities come together to grow and share food; and all of this work is powered by the community solar.
Sound like an idealistic utopia? Maybe, until you look at the numbers. The number of farmer's markets in the U.S. has more than doubled in the past decade, growing by 17% in 2010 alone. Similarly, the solar industry doubled its growth in 2011 with the price of solar panels dropping by 40 percent between 2006 and 2011.
