How A Collective Is Formed

The idea of creating the Forest Farms as collectives has roots in understanding what causes more farms that people start as individuals to not do too well, and to ensure there’s continuous progress at the farm, engagement with the members and shared and reduced costs, risks, and shared enthusiasm and learning, amongst many other benefits.

We as Beforest play enabler in setting these farms up – it’s pretty much if you were to buy, setup and experiment with running a farm yourself, except that now there’s 50 other people who share the vision, effort, resources, ideas, knowledge, risks, wins and highs, and losses and setbacks and more. It makes it all a lot more possible, and a lot more fun!

For this to happen, and to keep the risks for us and hence the costs for the members low, we need a seed group to form and participate in the process from day zero. Here’s a quick description of how this works :

Formation of the Seed Group and an idea : 2-3 months

We come up with a proposal of a region/rough location/specific options where we propose to setup a forest farm as a collective. We outline the range of pricing, the range of size and other attributes we’re looking at. We also define a seed group size that we’re looking to get on board for this. Forming this group helps us know for sure about the interest levels in the proposed idea and location, and helps us crowdfund the initial working capital to get the project off the ground. It also initiates the dialogue with the member community early to get ideas and inputs as the design process starts.

Folks interested in this for sure make a commitment of Rs.10,000/- to Rs.25,000/- depending on the project.

This amount is completely refundable if the required number of members do not express interest in this collective by the specified date.

Proposed Options for Collective Locations, Unit Size and Prices: 1-1.5 months

We work on creating specific options in the area mentioned in the earlier idea proposed, and present these specific options that the members can go and see to evaluate.  

The amount paid as the commitment for the seed community is completely refundable if a firm project proposal – with specific pieces of land that members can go see and evaluate, and a target price – doesn’t emerge by a specific date.

Due Diligence and Agreements: 1-2 months

Once the community votes on and picks an options from those presented, we ask for the next tranche, and proceed with the due diligence on the land, ownership, etc. We also close negotiations with the current property owners, and update members about the final pricing based on this. In case the legal checks fail, or negotiations fail to materialize for the option(s) picked, we will refund the amount minus the costs incurred for the due diligence etc at actuals. If the members want, we will pursue other available options within a specified time frame.

In a rare case, depending on the financials of the land purchase agreement, we might need to get a few more members on board. This will communicated to members and approval sought.

Purchase and Possession of Land

We now collect the next tranche to enable purchase of the land (in whole or part depending on the agreements in place), and move to close the purchase and possession of the land.

If this fails to materialize for some reason, we will refund the total amount collected minus the legal and procedural costs incurred for the due diligence and purchase process etc at actuals.

It’s a go!

We’re all set to start work!

If you want to know more about our collectives, or have other questions about this process, please mail us at hello@beforest.co