Occupy the Farm
| Occupy the Farm | |
|---|---|
| Part of Occupy movement, Via Campesina | |
| Date | First occupation: 22 April 2012 – 14 May 2012 / Second occupation: 11 May 2013 – 27 May 2013 |
| Location |
Gill Tract, Albany, California 37°53′7.23″N 122°18′0.44″W / 37.8853417°N 122.3001222°W |
| Goals | Land reform, Food sovereignty, Food security, The commons, Urban open space, Community center |
| Methods | Occupation, Agroecology, Farming |
| http://www.takebackthetract.com/ | |
Occupy the Farm is an ongoing social movement that started with the 2012 occupation of the Gill Tract in Albany, California, in protest of planned commercial development of public land and in support of preserving the land for the creation of an open center for urban agroecology and food sovereignty.
The occupation began on 22 April 2012 and ended on 14 May 2012.
A second occupation was launched on May 11, 2013 on the south end of the Gill Tract, which was slated for privatization and construction of a parking lot, a chain grocery store, and an exclusive senior's home twice dissolved by UCPD. Eventually a community partnership with agroecology researchers at the College of Natural Resources for access to a portion of the Gill Tract was established.
The Gill Tract is a piece of agricultural land north of Monroe St. bounded by Marin Ave., Jackson St., and San Pablo Avenue, in Albany, California, administered by the University of California, Berkeley. The agricultural field has been the last open parcel of class I soil, soil that has "slight limitations that restrict [its] use", in the urban East Bay. The Gill Tract has been used by the University of California as an open-air laboratory for research and teaching since 1945, mostly for conducting plant genetics research using corn.
The original agricultural area was around 100 acres (40 ha); all but one-tenth of that has already been developed. Beginning in 1944, much of the nearby land was converted into federally owned housing for dock workers at the nearby shipyards. The federal housing complex, known as Codornices Creek Village, was later sold to the University of California for student housing in 1956 and renamed to UC Village.
The Gill Tract has been the focus of efforts to create an educational urban farm for an extended period of time, From 1997 to 2000 a group named Bay Area Coalition for Urban Agriculture (BACUA) backed by 30 community groups coordinated by Food First aimed to establish "the world’s first university center on sustainable urban agriculture and food systems". Since at least 1997, coalitions of local residents, NGOs, and University of California (UC) students and faculty have brought forth proposals to the UC administration for the creation of a center for sustainable urban agriculture. The UC administrators turned down these proposals, something at least three UC faculty involved with the projects say was due to UC administrators stonewalling the process and not giving the proposals a good faith consideration. From 2002 to at least 2005, a group named "Urban Roots" operated in a similar vein, endorsed by Alice Waters and Tom Bates. As of 2012, the southern half of the Gill Tract was unused and slated to be leased by the UC for commercial development of a for-profit senior housing complex and a Whole Foods grocery store.
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Wikipedia