b'how unusual it is for this kind of process to be applied in the sphere of investing. Individuals, some sophisticated investors but most not, self-organizing, meeting local farmers and food entrepreneurs, then making investment decisions, with no fund manager, no professional fiduciary intermediation involved. No standardized interest rate, with most of the funding in the form of low or very low interest loans, with little or no collateral. This process has been driven by the energy of hundreds and hundreds of meetings and thousands upon thousands of conversations and uncountable intentions. A conscious eschewing of efficiency in the name of diversity and decentralization runs through it. It would be easy both to understate and to overstate the significance of what has occurred. All a work in progress, a real-time project in shared learning, shared risk and systemic exploration.A hundred years from now, declares Nancy Thellman, a county commissioner in Douglas County, Kansas, we will look back on these early slow money meetings as seminal. Marco Vangelisti, a 20-year veteran of the financial industry, where he managed equities for foundations and endowments, puts it this way: Slow money is helping us understand that our industrial food system and our financial system are problematic and that a new ethos is called for to address the problems caused by both. The idea is to direct some of our personal investments towards restoring the fertility of the soil in our own foodshed, supporting local farmers and food producers who treat soil and people with respect. To do this, we need to measure the success of our investments not just by the financial return they generate, but by the world they make possible. 38'