Occupiers Pledge to Return to UC Lot This Weekend

Occupy the Farm activists are planning to return Saturday to the same UC Berkeley lot they previously occupied in Albany for a campout and Sunday skill-sharing workshops.

Group spokeswoman Lesley Haddock said the action will begin at 5 p.m. Saturday.

It would be the third weekend in a row that the urban-farming advocates have occupied the lot at San Pablo Avenue and Monroe Street next to the University Village graduate student housing complex.

A flyer for this weekend's activities says, "Join OTF for a Celebration of Cross-Pollination!" ("OTF" is Occupy the Farm.) It lists free food, kids' activities, workshops and live music "at our lovely farm."

On May 11, nearly 100 Occupy the Farm activists marched from Albany City Hall to the plot, which UC Berkeley has proposed to develop as commercial retail property, anchored by Sprouts Farmers Market. They planted crop seedlings and established a camp in which some stayed overnight for two nights.

UC police, who used a bullhorn to issue periodic warnings of possible arrest,  evicted them with four arrests on the following Monday morning and plowed under the planted area.

About 50 Occupy members and supporters returned the following Saturday, May 18, and planted seeds. Some camped overnight on Saturday night, and the group left voluntarily Sunday evening. UC again plowed the field.

Counter-protesters from Albany were present with anti-Occupy signs on the past two weekends. 

Occupy the Farm staged a three-week occupation and crop-planting a year ago on the Gill Tract agricultural research field, which is near the site occupied the past two weekends. They were evicted by campus authorities.