There is a good article here to catch those of you up to speed about the Occupy the Farm: occupy the farm faces backlash

The latest news is that nine people got arrested this morning outside the land, apparently 100 UC police showed up, and a tractor was brought in (to till the land?). Apparently one protestor was up in a tree on the land and I don’t know what happen with him. Also, the law suit against 14 occupiers is still going ahead as far as I know…including suits against to two people Pancho and Anya who have helped us at the Free Farm Stand and the Free Farm.

About the arrest here: nine arrested. More coverage: http://takebackthetract.com/.

In the statement by the University they say :

“It is no cause for celebration that the involvement of law enforcement is required to secure our fundamental property rights and protect a core value that is an indivisible part of who we are: academic freedom; the ability of our faculty and students to pursue their scientific interests without interference.”

Of course, they have denied access to the land by the researches who support the occupiers…maybe now they will let them return.  But there it is, the fundamental right  to property.  I just saw a new high digital image of our mother earth. I swear it is enough to sing, “This earth divided we will make whole.”

They do say something perhaps hopeful in their statement:

“…even as we work to preserve the crops planted by the occupiers where there is no conflict with our research needs.”

Though I read on Twitter some police trampled the crops.

I have been corresponding with my friend Christy who was one of the first people to help me run the Free Farm Stand and I was telling her how I thought the occupiers should vacate the land (which they finally did) and participate in dialogue with the University (which they didn’t because the university has a poor rack record with really doing what the community wants with the land). Christy I think is so much better than me in expressing what the core of the issue is here and what should be done:

“…it also never seemed to me that occupy the farm intended to do more than dramatize and publicize the issue and show the university’s greed and hypocrisy–just as occupy wall street never really intended to actually set up a permanent village outside the stock exchange, or on any of the town squares or city halls around the country where groups sprang up last fall. I don’t think any of these actions has actually succeeded in getting any land, but that’s like saying the lunch counter sit-ins in the civil rights movement never actually got anybody served lunch. Nor did the AIM occupation of Alcatraz actually get that land or any land permanently given back to American Indians.  Whether one agrees or disagrees with the idea of takeovers, I think they have to be judged on other terms than whether or how long people get to stay. To me it’s really just part of a longer, difficult process of waking people up to how much of the future is being stolen from them because of greed.

…You are right that the media focuses all the attention on the illegality and the police response, while that was one of the strengths of the civil rights movement (because people were protesting unjust laws) it is one of the dangers of takeovers, because more people have a knee-jerk idea that the laws that protect property ownership are legitimate.

I guess what I really think about most of these occupations is that they are a good idea, and they are happening because there is a real need for them to happen, but if they are not just one part of a much larger and varied and radical and long-term movement in which people are participating in many different ways, they will not be enough on their own to accomplish their goals. So every one of us who supports those goals has a responsibility to participate as fully as we can in some way that we think is right.”

I also think that the Occupy movement must take a strong stand on it’s commitment to non-violence and also to serving the poor. We need more commitment to love and peace in our direct actions and no one should go hungry in our world or feel like they have to make choices between getting health care or rent vs food. I also think that the Occupy must take a firm stance against money exchange and capitalism no matter how friendly. For example, I never heard a clear statement where the food would be going that was being grown on the Gill Track Land, though I did hear that the tomatoes that were planted by Professor Miguel Altieri were going to East Bay soup kitchens, as they have for years. On the weekend they did have a Mothers Day  3 week celebration of the occupation and one of the workshops being held was on setting up a CSA. To me CSA’s are examples of “good kinds” of capitalism and they are a better way of getting produce versus shopping at a supermarket. I think Free Farm Stands are better.

Yesterday I noticed that the beautiful piece of vacant land on the corner of 15^th and Dolores was finally being developed. It once was a church and then a fire burned it down. Then it was a community garden. Now it is being developed into housing…probably for rich folks or people who can afford the high cost of rents. I think development should stop everywhere in our cities and especially any land that is not built on should remain open space.  For example ,the agricultural part of the Gill Track should be open to the public and should be preserved for farming and growing food and flowers for those people in need. The rest of the land shouldn’t be developed either, but preserved as open space. The creek should be restored and if nothing else the land should be preserved as a park.

We had another great day at the Farm Stand. On Friday I helped harvest mostly greens from the 18^th and Rhode Island garden on Potrero Hill. That is a beautiful example, probably very rare, of a landlord offering his vacant land up to the community to be used for growing food. The San Francisco Permaculture Guild has a food forest growing there and since one of their principles is fair share, the food goes to the Free Farm for people in need. I didn’t bring my bike cart but was still able to haul home 11lbs of greens, mostly Tree collards.  Erk dropped off about 12 pounds of local lemons, Alicia from FARM next to California College of the Arts brought fava beans and some flowers for Mothers day, and Zack dropped by with more artichokes from his garden. We also brought flowers from the Free Farm and fava beans too. We also gave away a lot of seedlings of tomatoes, basil, and summer squash.

Christina made bouquets with our various flowers

Zack and Wayne

I am still admiring the beauty of the many different people that come by the Free Farm Stand. Plus we get the most glamorous volunteers who are so sweet, generous,  idealistic, and hard working.  This in my opinion goes a long way in a world turned upside down.

This Sunday I had so much produce and bread that I couldn’t haul it to the Stand in one load so I had to make two trips. Stanford glean brought 146lbs of citrus all gleaned on campus. A neighbor came by with a bag of lemons too, Pam brought more goodies from her garden to share, including wild arugula which is so strong and yummy, and we had 6lbs of strawberries from the Free Farm. I also had more lettuce left over from the Ferry Building Farmers Market than we could give away so I took my left-overs to the Food Bank (plus the extra bread we had left over).

Zach brought artichokes he grew from a plant he picked up at the stand. He said  one plant had a lot of artichokes on it…maybe 20!

neighbor brings by some lemons and herbs from his garden

I brought more seedlings from our Free Farm greenhouse which are very popular and our first batch of  cut flowers.

lovely Alstroemerias

I am feeling like an alien from another planet these days as friendly forms of capitalism seep into our lives and our culture is taken over by seemingly cool forms of economic relationships. Coming up for an example is Homestead Skillshare Festival at Hayes Valley Farm May 26 which a lot of my friends and groups that I admire are participating in. It seems like it will be a great event, but there is $20 donation (a donation should be voluntary) or 2 timebank hours to get in.  Some of  used to say why not put “no one turned away for lack of funds” on fliers for paid events. Now should we say “no one turned away if they are too crazy to timebank”?

I am sorry that I see time banking, alternative forms of currency, and barter as forms of capitalism though disquised as something else.  I am dismayed by the “sharing economy” that sounds so cute and friendly but distorts in my mind what sharing should really be about. Now we have companies like Air BnB (they came and volunteered at our farm) which has created a marketplace for people to rent out a spare room or their entire apartment if they are out of town.  Contrast that with couchsurfing.org where there is a network of people sharing their homes and no money is involved. I must admit I have a particular dislike of renting out rooms and landlords (though I know they come in all stripes).  It  bothers me that rents are so high here  making it harder for people without much money to live here  (it is ironic that some  people are renting out rooms  on Air BnB to supplement their income).

I am still pushing for Free. We just need to trust in the divine that we will be taken care of on the material plane. We do not need to worry about paying it  backward or forward, nor be concerned that if I do something for you, that I should get something back, or that if I have something I don’t want or need I can swap it with you for something you have that I  want.

If we have something that we aren’t  in need of why not give it away to someone else that wants it or needs it? Freecycling is a beautiful example of this or the Really Really Free Market, the free section of Craigslist, or the sharing that went on at the Occupy encampments.  There is a book out there with an interesting title “What’s Yours is Mine: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption”. It promotes the idea of sharing, swaping, trading, time banking, and creating networks of people engaging in market type transactions among themselves (peer-to-peer  marketplaces). I say “What is Yours  is Everyone’s”.  We are only care takers of stuff so how can we engage in activities that assume we own anything?

Sometime I feel I am so inarticulate. I just watched this video of a talk about money by Charles Einstein at the Santa Fe Time Bank.  I think he really is on the mark about the problems with money in our society though I am still not convinced that Time Banks are the solution:

Living in the Gift from Charles Eisenstein on Vimeo.

seedlings galore

 Lolita  brought lemon balm from her garden

produce from Secret Garden

cool way to transport stuff from the Free Farm Stand

new avocado tree planted in park next to Stand (more on that in later posts)

There are Earth Day celebrations and then there are Earth Day revolutions. Yesterday in the East Bay Farmers marched and then took over a 10 acre piece of land in Albany owned by the University of California. Here is the story:

URGENT. OCCUPY THE FARM NEEDS HELP PLANTING AND PROTECTING THE NEWLY
OCCUPIED GILL TRACT!

More than an acre has already been planted and over 200 people are working

hard to plant the rest of the tract. The Gill Tract is a highly contested
agriculture space owned by University of California Capital Projects on
the border of Albany and Berkeley. Parts of the space are in the process
of being zoned for commercial use, and sold to Whole Foods. Please come
by and help and bring plants, trowels, shovels, and irrigation supplies.
Police have indicated that the Gill Tract encampment will be contested
after 10pm tonight. Folk plan to stay the night and protect the space
from police and hungry deer. Please forward on the friends and come down
immediately!

The Gill Tract is on the corner of Marin and San Pablo in South Albany.
AC Transit 72 Bus goes to the tract and North Berkeley BART is a few
blocks southeast on Sacramento.

*Police Raid is Imminent*

 April 22, 2012

Occupy the Farm Activists Reclaim Prime Urban Agricultural Land in SF Bay
Area
Contact: GillTractFarm@riseup.net
Gopal - (510) 847-3592

(Albany, Calif.), April 22, 2012 – Occupy the Farm, a coalition of local
residents, farmers, students, researchers, and activists are planting over
15,000 seedlings at the Gill Tract, the last remaining 10 acres of Class I
agricultural soil in the urbanized East Bay area. The Gill Tract is public
land administered by the University of California, which plans to sell it
to private developers.

For decades the UC has thwarted attempts by community members to transform
the site for urban sustainable agriculture and hands-on education. With
deliberate disregard for public interest, the University administrators
plan to pave over this prime agricultural soil for commercial retail space,
a Whole Foods, and a parking lot…

“Every piece of uncontaminated urban land needs to be farmed if we are to
reclaim control over how food is grown, where it comes from, and who it
goes to,” says Anya Kamenskaya, UC Berkeley alum and educator of urban
agriculture. “We can farm underutilized spaces such as these to create
alternatives to the corporate control of our food system.”

UC Berkeley has decided to privatize this unique public asset for
commercial retail space, and, ironically, a high-end grocery store. This is
only the latest in a string of privatization schemes. Over the last several
decades, the university has increasingly shifted use of the Gill Tract away
from sustainable agriculture and towards biotechnology with funding from
corporations such as Novartis and BP.

Frustrated that traditional dialogue has fallen on deaf ears, many of these
same local residents, students, and professors have united as Occupy the
Farm to Take Back the Gill Tract. This group is working to empower
communities to control their own resilient food systems for a stable and
just future – a concept and practice known as food sovereignty.

Occupy the Farm is in solidarity with Via Campesina and the Movimiento Sin
Tierra (Landless Workers Movement).

The Gill Tract is located at the Berkeley-Albany border, at the
intersection of San Pablo Ave and Marin Ave.

• Join us: Come dressed to work! We need people to help till the soil,
plant seedlings, teach workshops, and more.

Here are three articles from some local news sources with photos, including a photo with two brothers who have worked at the Free Farm digging the vacant land like my heroes the Diggers of 1649. An email just in from one of our core Free Farmers who was there with others in the Free Farm Family…”The land plot is huge, with wooded areas and at least one turkey living there.” Here is a picture he took

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/04/22/18711864.php

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_20456349/protesters-occupy-berkeley-owned-farm-tract-albany

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/04/23/BAM71O7HR6.DTL

What can I say this is so beautiful and right on!

This to me is what the Free Farm Stand is all about…neighbors growing food and sharing their surplus with others in need.  Later in the day we got more oranges left over from the farmer’s market (it is the season), but the “Florida” oranges got me much more excited…and they were sweet and delicious and it blows away the idea that you can’t grow oranges in San Francisco. Having a beautiful friend and angel climb the tree and pick them made the bounty even more special and wonderful, and I wonder how many people realized what a gift they were.

some of the many seedlings we gave away…they were very popular

The other thing about the Free Farm Stand is that we are about is getting neighbors together and building community. I had great pleasure in planting a blueberry bush with a neighborhood young farmer in our up and coming community orchard.  How lucky will he be when he can come back to the park maybe in two years and pick some blueberries and eat them fresh from the orchard.

We are looking for small jars baby food size or a little larger to put honey in from our farm to give away. Please bring any ones you have laying around to the Stand. I am also looking for someone with a pick-up truck that would like to help us get manure for our farm.

I am usually at the Stand every Sunday so I miss a lot of great events happening around town or across the bay. Earth Day is coming up Aprill 22 . Alemany Farm whom we have been growing seedlings with at the Free Farm, is having their annual Earth Day Celebration  (http://www.alemanyfarm.org/spring-planting-continues-earth-day-celebration-apr-22/). The festivities will begin around 10:30 AM and will go until sunset. Our blog at http://thefreefarm.org/ has a nice write up about a recent tour of Alemany.

Also in the East Bay the farmers are marching:

On April 22nd, Bay area farmers, community gardeners, and families

will gather for a day of education and action that highlights our

relationship to the Earth, the land, and the food we grow from it.

This year, we will march for “Food sovereignty”, the right of

communities to their own healthy, local, sustainably grown food.

Our demand for food sovereignty is an acknowledgement that our plate

and our planet are more often controlled by international markets and

corporate profits than what’s best for our collective health. We

invite you to march in solidarity with the farmers and gardeners who

grow food for our community, and for your own right to nutritious

food, seed, and soil.

Activist Guest Speakers * Children’s Activities * Music * Farmer’s

Bloc: tractors, animals, overalls, oh yeah!

These activists are the Diggers of our times! From the song  the World Turned Upside Down (Diggers) by Leon Rosselson:

We come in peace, they said
To dig and sow
We come to work the land in common
And to make the waste land grow
This earth divided
We will make whole
So it can be
A common treasury for all.

The sin of property
We do disdain
No one has any right to buy and sell
The earth for private gain…

Thanks to our fabulous volunteer crew I am spending more time gardening when I come to the park on Sunday. I brought a lot of vegetable starts to give out and also some plants to put in our newly mulched mini-orchard next to the community garden. Gardening always bring me happiness, especially when I get my hands in the soil. I know people love “shopping” at our farm stand and get joy out of the experience, but I wonder if they would like me have a religious experience growing, harvesting, and eating some of their own produce?  It is such a miracle to plant a seed and have it grow. I was thinking of a line in one of my favorite songs they sang at church for Easter,  Were you There. My lyrics would be “Were you there when the seed was planted?”"Were you there when it rose up from the ground? Were you there when it was harvested? Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.” Were you there when the seed was planted?”

I have been overwhelmed with the activities at the Free Farm this spring (check out this weeks blog http://thefreefarm.org/). We have been more than successful in getting our seedling production going and I am realizing it is a job in itself to distribute free vegetable starts. Please spread the word that we have plenty of trombone summer squash and Tahitian melon squash available and also we will have some tomato seedlings, cucumbers, and probably kale too. They are available free for anyone not going to sell their produce and hopefully will share their surplus with someone in need. I am also looking for long lengths of 3/4″ electrical conduit or 3/4″ pipe to make trellises to grow our climbing squashes like the ones mentioned above.  Also, please join us in preparing beds and planting our seedlings and planting seeds in the greenhouse.

Here is a picture from the end of the day when we had put away the tables thinking there wasn’t going to be a second drop off of produce from the Stonestown Mall Farmer’s Market.  To our surprise a second load did come in and we were so happy to offer vegetables to those who missed out  from our earlier offering.