Cooperative cold storage has changed what small farms can grow
Shared refrigeration removed the constraint that kept growers on crops that travel well but earn little.
The constraint was never demand. It was the four days between harvest and market.
What shared storage unlocked
With refrigeration within reach, growers moved from crops chosen for durability to crops chosen for price. Post-harvest losses fell steeply in the first season.
The cooperative structure matters: no individual farm could justify the capital, and forty together could.
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