The Organic Principles Applied to Business Ownership
The way we grow our food and the way we run our businesses may seem like two completely different worlds. One is about soil and seasons, the other about spreadsheets and profit distribution. But what if the deepest ideas behind regenerative farming are also the best blueprint for building a company that lasts?
As we've seen, organic agriculture and agroecology are not just about avoiding chemicals. They are built on a set of core principles that put health, harmony, and long-term well-being first. When you apply these same principles to a business, you end up with a powerful and increasingly popular new model of ownership: steward ownership.
The 4 Principles of Organic
The four principles of organic agriculture are Health, Ecology, Fairness, and Care. Let's see how they perfectly describe a better way to own a company.
The Principle of Health: Organic farming believes the health of the soil, plants, animals, and humans is all connected. You can't have one without the others. In business, this means a company's health is tied to the health of its employees, leadership, customers, and its community. A business that harms its people or its environment for profit is not truly healthy.
The Principle of Ecology: This is about working with nature’s living systems and cycles. A healthy farm is a complex ecosystem where different elements support each other. A healthy company is the same. It is an ecosystem of people, ideas, resources and relationships that work together.
The Principle of Fairness: Farming should be built on fair relationships — among farmers, farm workers, consumers and all other stakeholders involved. Similarly, a healthy business must be based on respect and justice. It means providing fair wages, treating suppliers and customers with honesty, respecting payment terms, and building a company where everyone involved feels they are getting a fair share.
The Principle of Care: This is about being responsible and careful to protect the future. A farmer who uses this principle makes decisions that won't hurt the land for future generations. A company following this principle makes decisions that protect its purpose and its community in the long run, not just for the next quarterly report to the board. We talk of Ancestral thinking, or 7-generations thinking.
Agroecology: The Holistic View
Agroecology a whole-system approach that sees farming not just as a set of practices, but as a science, a world vision and a social movement. Not restricted by legal and certification frameworks, this holistic view of farming gives us even more reasons for a new kind of business ownership.
Diversity and Synergies: An agroecological farm thrives on diversity — mixing different crops and animals to create a resilient system where everything works together. In business, this translates to diversifying not just products, but also ideas, perspective and people. It means creating a company where diverse teams and skills work in harmony, creating a more robust and innovative organization.
Recycling and Closed Loops: On an agroecological farm, waste is a resource. Nutrients from one part of the system are recycled and used in another. The same is true for a purpose-driven business. It seeks to create a circular economy, where resources and value are reused, and nothing is truly "wasted."
Co-creation of Knowledge and Participation: Agroecology values the wisdom of the farmer just as much as scientific research. It encourages sharing and learning from one another. This is a clear call for a business model that isn't top-down. Instead, it involves and empowers every employee to contribute their knowledge and participate in decision-making.
These principles all point to one thing: an enterprise should exist for a purpose beyond just making money.
So, that leads us to Steward Ownership
In this article we explore in detail how Steward Ownership works, and why we need it to build profit-for-purpose businesses and confront the current power imbalances in the global food system.
Steward ownership is the business ownership model that perfectly captures these farming principles. It's built on two legally binding notions: Self-Governance and Purpose-Orientation.
Self-Governance: Just like an ecosystem that governs itself, a steward-owned company keeps control in the hands of the people who push forward its mission on a daily basis. The voting rights, or decision-making power, can't be sold off to an outside (often absent) investor who might not fully understand its context or care about the company's purpose. This ensures the company's nature remains healthy and balanced. This is the ultimate expression of the principles of Ecology and Fairness in business ownership.
Purpose-Orientation: In this model, the company's assets and profits are not a commodity for shareholders to extract. They are a tool to serve the company's core purpose. Profits are reinvested back into the business, used to support the company's mission, or paid out to its shareholders for each of them to get their “fair share”. This prevents the business from being hijacked by a goal of endless wealth accumulation. This is the natural result of applying the principles of Health and Care.
So, while organic agriculture and agroecology show us how to grow food in a way that is good for people and the planet, steward ownership inspires us how to run a business in the exact same way.
It's the simple, powerful idea that a company, like a farm, should belong to itself and to its purpose, not to an absent financial owner. Farmers are stewards of the land. Founders and other key stakeholders are stewards of the company and its reason of being on earth. It's a way of ensuring that the company's legacy is not measured by its price tag, but by the good it does in the world.
