Jolie Rouge
05-15-2012, 08:31 AM
Police arrest 9 "Occupy the Farm" protesters at Berkeley
By Emmett Berg | Reuters – 7 hrs ago.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Three weeks after anti-poverty activists took over 2 acres of land belonging to the University of California at Berkeley and planted a vegetable garden for the needy, police in riot gear on Monday raided the site and arrested nine people.
UC Berkeley officials said the garden would be left intact and would be tended to by university staff.
A group calling itself Occupy the Farm, an offshoot of the anti-Wall Street activists who launched last fall's Occupy Wall Street movement protesting corporate greed and bank bailouts, started the unauthorized garden on April 22.
Campus police said 25 to 100 people had maintained a round-the-clock presence at the site since then, until police moved in on Monday and ordered them to leave.
Two of the activists were arrested for trespassing and seven others for unlawful assembly, said campus police Lieutenant Eric Tejada, but there was no violence or injuries.
According to its website, the Occupy the Farm garden was intended to grow food "to meet the needs of local communities" on vacant land belonging to UC Berkeley's College of Natural Resources. The soil on the site was tilled by the activists and planted with some 1,500 saplings, they said.
UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof said the garden's presence had prevented a corn research project from proceeding as planned. He said, the garden would be maintained by the university as part of an effort to boost urban agriculture in the area. "The problem here is there was no coordination," he said.
In a videotaped response to the eviction posted on YouTube, a man identifying himself as Ashoka Finley vowed to continue working on the garden clandestinely. "What I believe in is food justice," he said. "That's why I am here, and that's why I'll continue to be here, planting crops, seeding crops and harvesting crops, and sharing them with our community."
http://news.yahoo.com/police-arrest-9-occupy-farm-protesters-berkeley-072209910.html
The soil on the site was tilled by the activists and planted with some 1,500 saplings, they said.
What did they plant? Saplings refer to trees and you have to wait years before getting "food" from a sapling - and you don't plant 1,500 in a 2 acre plot and expect an orchard... typically each tee should have a four to six foot radius.
comments
I don't get it. Why didn't they just aproach the school before hand? I'm sure there would be land at the school they could use for a community garden. Its seems very Berkeley like.
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Part of the reason that they did it was to create a community garden and they have made many other community gardens in places they do have permission to use. The other reason was to prevent GMO research from taking place. Global agribusiness use public universities to develop their products and keep the profits for themselves.
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Here is how adults feed the poor. They get a job and that job pays them money. They take some of that money and buy food. They take that food and give it to a food bank.
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Why not teach the poor how to grow their own food? That's what Occupy was doing. I thought conservatives were in favor of self-sufficiency and against dependency? Food banks cause dependency. Farms make people work for their food.
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How is taking over school property teaching people to grow their own food? So are you telling me that the poor people are going to go to Berkerly and take care of these saplings? hahahahaha
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Farming is hard manual labor and I don't think most poor people would be willing to do it, why else are farms staffed with illegal aliens and migrant workers. Then there's the problem of farming if you don't own your own land. There's also the problem of the leaders of this plan not knowing what they're doing. Mainly the problem is "city people" vs "country people". Country people have large gardens and can feed themselves; city people have no idea where to even begin.
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Food justice? WTH ?
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If you want to be a farmer go work for or be a farmer on your own government subsidized land. Please stop usurping private property under the guise of fairness when in reality your are just taking something that is not yours.
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Where were they during the $40,000 a plate hollywood celeb fundraiser?... How many poor people could they feed with that kind of money?
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So it takes 25-100 protesters to farm 2 acres? The sorriest 3rd world farmer does better than that.
..
Does anyone else think this is funny?
By Emmett Berg | Reuters – 7 hrs ago.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Three weeks after anti-poverty activists took over 2 acres of land belonging to the University of California at Berkeley and planted a vegetable garden for the needy, police in riot gear on Monday raided the site and arrested nine people.
UC Berkeley officials said the garden would be left intact and would be tended to by university staff.
A group calling itself Occupy the Farm, an offshoot of the anti-Wall Street activists who launched last fall's Occupy Wall Street movement protesting corporate greed and bank bailouts, started the unauthorized garden on April 22.
Campus police said 25 to 100 people had maintained a round-the-clock presence at the site since then, until police moved in on Monday and ordered them to leave.
Two of the activists were arrested for trespassing and seven others for unlawful assembly, said campus police Lieutenant Eric Tejada, but there was no violence or injuries.
According to its website, the Occupy the Farm garden was intended to grow food "to meet the needs of local communities" on vacant land belonging to UC Berkeley's College of Natural Resources. The soil on the site was tilled by the activists and planted with some 1,500 saplings, they said.
UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof said the garden's presence had prevented a corn research project from proceeding as planned. He said, the garden would be maintained by the university as part of an effort to boost urban agriculture in the area. "The problem here is there was no coordination," he said.
In a videotaped response to the eviction posted on YouTube, a man identifying himself as Ashoka Finley vowed to continue working on the garden clandestinely. "What I believe in is food justice," he said. "That's why I am here, and that's why I'll continue to be here, planting crops, seeding crops and harvesting crops, and sharing them with our community."
http://news.yahoo.com/police-arrest-9-occupy-farm-protesters-berkeley-072209910.html
The soil on the site was tilled by the activists and planted with some 1,500 saplings, they said.
What did they plant? Saplings refer to trees and you have to wait years before getting "food" from a sapling - and you don't plant 1,500 in a 2 acre plot and expect an orchard... typically each tee should have a four to six foot radius.
comments
I don't get it. Why didn't they just aproach the school before hand? I'm sure there would be land at the school they could use for a community garden. Its seems very Berkeley like.
..
Part of the reason that they did it was to create a community garden and they have made many other community gardens in places they do have permission to use. The other reason was to prevent GMO research from taking place. Global agribusiness use public universities to develop their products and keep the profits for themselves.
..
Here is how adults feed the poor. They get a job and that job pays them money. They take some of that money and buy food. They take that food and give it to a food bank.
..
Why not teach the poor how to grow their own food? That's what Occupy was doing. I thought conservatives were in favor of self-sufficiency and against dependency? Food banks cause dependency. Farms make people work for their food.
..
How is taking over school property teaching people to grow their own food? So are you telling me that the poor people are going to go to Berkerly and take care of these saplings? hahahahaha
..
Farming is hard manual labor and I don't think most poor people would be willing to do it, why else are farms staffed with illegal aliens and migrant workers. Then there's the problem of farming if you don't own your own land. There's also the problem of the leaders of this plan not knowing what they're doing. Mainly the problem is "city people" vs "country people". Country people have large gardens and can feed themselves; city people have no idea where to even begin.
..
Food justice? WTH ?
..
If you want to be a farmer go work for or be a farmer on your own government subsidized land. Please stop usurping private property under the guise of fairness when in reality your are just taking something that is not yours.
..
Where were they during the $40,000 a plate hollywood celeb fundraiser?... How many poor people could they feed with that kind of money?
..
So it takes 25-100 protesters to farm 2 acres? The sorriest 3rd world farmer does better than that.
..
Does anyone else think this is funny?