Vegetables by Occupy the Farm activists on Sunday were given out at two locations: Albany and the West Oakland BART station.
On Sunday, activists cut the lock at the for the third time this summer, for several hours of weeding, watering and harvesting of the crops . Sunday’s picking yielded about a dozen boxes of mostly squash and cucumbers, along with chard, beets and tomatoes.
In Albany, the group gave out the veggies, along with their flier and recipes, at the corner of Marin and San Pablo avenues, approaching motorists at the stoplight, said Navid Shaghaghi, a group member. He said about 40 people—pedestrians and motorists—took the produce, and everything was given away. Some people didn’t want anything or wouldn’t roll down their windows, he said. But, he said, “The pedestrians liked it a lot. One of the neighbors gave us some extra bags. It was a good atmosphere.”
The other half of the day’s harvest was taken to the entrance of the West Oakland BART station, in a neighborhood Shaghaghi described as a “food desert” for its lack of grocery stores.
“People were very receptive and interested,” said Krystof Lopaur, who was with that group. (Lopauer has identified himself in the past as .)
Shaghaghi said the idea behind the two locations was to split the distribution between a very local site and a site where people are needy. He said that, after the group’s , activists knocked on doors in UC Village, offering produce to the residents. They also took produce to West Oakland BART that time.
In addition, members of the East Bay Food Not Bombs group took a small amount of Sunday’s produce to use. Food Not Bombs cooks meals for the needy; they serve weekdays at Berkeley’s People’s Park and on Sundays in downtown Oakland.
The activists said they were not familiar with either the or the Berkeley Food Pantry on Sacramento Street.
Group members said they plan to return to the Gill Tract over the next few months to harvest. Tomatoes are next, pumpkins will ripen in the fall. They did not provide a date for their next harvest.
Winter farming?
Group members said they would like to keep using the Gill Tract after this growing season is over.
“Hopefully we’ll be replacing all that (the current crops) with winter crops at some point,” said Lopaur.
UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof said he had not heard about future plans for planting.
Mogulof also said that, during the three harvests this summer, there were no incidents, no arrests and, “most importantly,” no damage to the . Researchers Damon Lisch and Sarah Hake of the USDA have said are doing well.
No collaboration with UC
Asked if the university and activists had met to discuss urban farming at the Gill Tract, Lopaur said not as far as he knew, adding, “We don’t think they appreciate our position.”
On that topic Mogulof said, “From the very beginning they (the activists) rejected , in favor of their own unilateral actions. They’ve remained consistently obstinate.”
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I think UC has switched strategies here. It's like dealing with ants. You know, like when you come home from vacation and your messy honey squeeze bottle is crawling with ants. There are two different strategies you can adopt. Strategy #1 is to try to eradicate all the ants (I prefer spray bleach for this approach). Strategy #2 is remove whatever is attracting them and ignore the ants, knowing that eventually they will get bored and drift away. Now that UC has cleared the encampment off the Gill Tract, and there is no danger of it becoming People's Park West (thank God), UC has switched to strategy #2. To further this new policy, our hipster gardener friends need to find something new to fulfill their lives. I suggest either a multi-year spiritual quest to Tibet, or starting an intentional living community on vacant land north of Hilo on the island of Hawaii. Plenty of sunshine and rain there. But the volcanic soil will require years of work. I just saw today that one of the OTF spokespeople, Effie Rawlings, is running for the Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board. That should keep her busy. But I am not sure why low-income renters would be interested in voting for someone who cuts locks, occupies other people's property and trashes it. Low-income renters already have to put up with that.
"That has nothing to do with us. We don't sell the produce from the tract (or anything else for that matter) and hand them out for free."
The Mandela Food Cooperative mentioned above seems like a model that might be a better way to go. P.S.: What's wrong with scientists?
"*ACTION ALERT!* *When: Sunday, 11am-3pm Where: Jackson Street entrance to the Gill Tract (west side of the farm)* Please join us and *forward* this invitation widely - it is an open, public callout! We will be gathering on *Sunday, 11am-3pm* for harvesting, watering and weeding. We will also be creating space for breakout groups do work on the other tentacles of our giant squid of resistance (Whole Foods...actions, student mobilization, Albany ally support, Fall actions, Occupied Library Gardens If you are interested in any or all of these, please come down to the Farm. Also, if you have any *boxes* that we can use for produce, please bring them." If this is true, I hope the harvest will be a peaceful one.