Ep. 4 - Locavore Action - With Megan Hobza

Megan Hobza - EP4 [00:00:00] Megan Hobza: The basic idea of what a locavore is, as someone who wants to keep. Money local and resources local because local self-reliance means that, you are better prepared as a community for, change. You're better, prepared for disaster and and you're also reducing your reliance on an extractive global economy. [00:00:26] Rajeev: Welcome to episode four of politics and environment and everything in between. Hey, this is your host Rajeev. And this podcast is all about issues that affect all of us human beings. Because I believe today, everything is connected. In the past episodes, we had covered issues relating to water conservation, tribal identity and colonialism. [00:00:50] Rajeev: In this episode, we talk to. Megan Hobza, a grant writer and community activist from Whittier, California. She specializes in locavore action, [00:01:00] which aims to keep the money local and support small businesses in her community. Thanks for making the time for the podcast, Megan. appreciate it a lot. [00:01:10] Megan Hobza: I'm honored to be here. Thanks for having me, Rajeev. [00:01:13] Rajeev: Awesome. That's great. So it's been what, more than a couple of decades, since I last saw you in Chennai. [00:01:20] Megan Hobza: That's right. it was a really, it was a really cool part of that trip too, to get to see what your family, does. You all have such cool projects. [00:01:32] Rajeev: Right. Yeah. I think my, my father-in-law was the one who,introduced you to, and he was working with NGOs. I think at some point. [00:01:40] Megan Hobza: Yeah, this was an, I think this was, Grameen Bank's, pilot project to bring microfunding to rural women. So we got to visit this village. Where all the women in the village had each taken out a little loan and they combined their loans to buy a cow, and then they sold the milk from the cow every week. [00:01:59] Megan Hobza: [00:02:00] And. Saved up money to buy another cow. And the bank had installed, ATMs in the countryside that, that took and gave smaller, coinage. so that, people with lower incomes could interact with them conveniently. The bank had installed, clean water resources in the village and also created, a central computer room. [00:02:24] Megan Hobza: So there was internet access for the whole village. And it was just really inspiring. I mean, that seeing what small things could transform the life of a little community in some ways inspired the rest of my life and what I ended up doing locally in my own community. [00:02:39] Rajeev: Right, right. I think it's, it's actually gone way beyond that today because, what's happened is there was this big push towards digitization and, I think the Indian government came out with something called the U P I or the Universal Payment Infrastructure. [00:02:57] Megan Hobza: and it's like u p i is basically this, it's, [00:03:00] imagine it's like this structure of tracks or railroads all crisscrossing the length and breadth of the country and money travels on that And a lot of the local vendors now have QR codes. And because you have 4G LTE connections everywhere and everybody has a smartphone, you no longer accept cash. You just scan and pay the vendor. So, street vendors have smartphones and they have,they have bank accounts and. Digital wallets, [00:03:30] Megan Hobza: Do they have to pay a fee to be allowed to have a digital wallet? [00:03:34] Rajeev: no, it's actually, it's everybody. I think, you have the AAR card, which is like your digital ID and everything is connected to that digital id. And if you have to have the digital id, then you have to have a bank account. So everybody gets to open a free bank account. in post offices you can open a bank account now. [00:03:53] Rajeev: yeah, so that's kind of transforming. [00:03:55] Megan Hobza: that's amazing.Yeah. to, cut, stockholders out [00:04:00] of those transactions is what I think is so inspiring because that's been a big part of keeping money local is that it's always siphoned off to these. Kind of corporate Ponzi schemes. [00:04:13] Rajeev: this has, really transformed large sections of the community. Of course, there's still a lot of work to be done, but they've done really well at, And especially UPI is, transformed, local, traders, the street traders, every shop you go will have a QR code now, so it's GPay. Become part the local language pretty much. Okay. I'll Gpay you, like Google it. So it's become part and parcel of, day-to-day activity in pretty much, more major parts of the country, I guess. [00:04:45] Rajeev: [00:04:45] Megan Hobza: Yeah, it just, it sounds like something that would strengthen local economies, [00:04:48] Rajeev: yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. how does that tie in with what you do? explain to me what the term Locovore mean. [00:04:56] Megan Hobza: So, the term locavore, which is, I think [00:05:00] that the basic idea of what a locavore is, as someone who wants to keep. Money local and resources local because ...