Occupy the Farm Agrees to Remove Encampment, Won't Cede Control

[Editor's Note: Gopal Dayaneni of Occupy the Farm shared these statements, during a phone conversation with us, just before 11 a.m. Albany Patch is heading into the meeting hosted by the university about the at the Gill Tract, and will provide more information afterward.] 

We are removing the encampments. We don't need the encampment to assert the right and responsibility to tend the crops. We don't need to camp here .... We're leaving all the things that are appropriate to farming.

We've been discussing it over the last day or so. We made that decision this morning. We're now executing it.

We're still doing our events today. We're creating access points. We're building a slide for kids to get in. We continue to assert the fact that we did on Day One: that the fence is not the issue.

People have invested, and they have the right to continue to farm here. We feel like we have a lot of support for the farm. The camp was a tactic to serve the farm. At this time we don't think we need it. So we're moving it. If we decide we need it in the future, we will bring it back.

The most important thing is that people have access to the crops, and that people can come and go. 

We're not ceding control or supervision. We're continuing to farm the farm. We're continuing to ask everyone to come and join us. We've committed to the researchers that we can coexist.... We created the space necessary for researchers to farm their crops.

The university is really the barrier here. They should keep the gates open and let people come and go. 

So long as we're under threat by lawsuit and arrest, we're not willing to trust them with our crops.

Click the "Keep me posted" button below for an update when we publish future stories on this topic. Read more on Albany Patch about the Gill Tract occupation.