Re: UC farmaggeden research trumphs community gardening

[Guest guest]

More info on this. The object was to raise food from some of the

remaining best Ag land in the area scheduled for development, that is

being paved over, or Corp Ag research:

" Occupy the Farm, " a coalition of local residents, farmers, students,

researchers, and activists broke the lock and entered the UC

Berkeley-owned Gill Tract on a sunny Sunday afternoon, bringing with

them over 15,000 seedlings, a pair of rototillers and a half-dozen

chickens in mobile chicken-tractors. Hundreds of people, including a

dozen or so children, went to work clearing weeds, tilling garden beds,

filling holes with compost, and planting seedlings. At the end of four

hours, they'd planted an estimated three-quarters of an acre.

After last fall's burst of Occupy actions raised a challenge to

corporate control writ large, organizers of Occupy the Farm say they are

kicking off the spring season with efforts to reclaim land not just as a

way of occupying space, but to meet the needs of communities through

food production.

The group's press release, which garnered significant media attention

and brought several TV crews out to film the rebel farmers, said,

" Occupy the Farm seeks to address structural problems with health and

inequalities in the Bay Area that stem from communities' lack of access

to food and land. Today's action reclaims the Gill Tract to demonstrate

and exercise the peoples' right to use public space for the public good.

This farm will serve as a hub for urban agriculture, a healthy and

affordable food source for Bay Area residents and an educational

center. "

The Gill Tract, an agricultural research plot owned by UC Berkeley, is

the last five acres of Class 1 soil in the East Bay. Generations of UC

researchers have farmed here; now UCB Capital Projects, which holds the

title to the land, has slated it for rezoning in 2013. Ironically, the

activists say the company most likely to buy it up for development is

Whole Foods Corporation. Hence the Occupiers' slogan: " Whole food, not

Whole Foods. "

The organizers say the UC-owned Gill tract is significant not only

because it is the last and best agricultural land in the East Bay, but

because the struggle over this land is tied to the struggle to keep the

public university serving the public interest. Over the last decade,

through investments by Novartis, Syngenta, BP and other corporations,

the University of California has become increasingly captured by private

interests, which have come to control the research agenda and the land

use policy.

more at: http://www.alternet.org/visions/155127

<http://www.alternet.org/visions/155127>

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http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/440-occupy/11438-uc-police-\

raid-occupy-the-farm

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