Many people in the San Francisco Bay area are involved in the campaigns to make sure we do not have a food system that discriminates against the poor and that safe nutritious food is readily available.
Here a a few heroes from 2012
Occupy, with a focus on food justice, formed the Gill Tract Occupy the Farm action. Hundreds took a UC Berkeley-stewarded tract of land slated for a baseball diamond and a Whole Foods and planted it, turning it into a farm with rows of crops, a kids space, and a permaculture garden.
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Corey Block has spent over a decade as a farmer, educator, organizer and activist around urban food justice and access issues in the greater Bay Area. In 2003, Block founded Sustaining Ourselves Locally (SOL), a grassroots, community-based urban farming collective and educational center in East Oakland. With a degree in Earth and Environmental Science from Wesleyan University, and a certificate as an Alameda County Master Gardener, Block has taught, supervised, mentored and farm-to-school-coordinated at such venerable institutions as Slide Ranch, the San Francisco Arboretum, the Presidio of San Francisco and Project Eat. She received a certificate in Ecological Horticulture from the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS) at UC Santa Cruz, and subsequently served there as a 2nd-year apprentice and assistant site manager. In 2010, Block created a 1-acre production and education farm for the Treasure Island Job Corps Center to help train culinary students in farm-to-table concepts and better connect them to their ingredients. She continues to serve as their Urban Farm Coordinator, growing food for the residential center and using the management of the farm as a tool for teaching concepts from seasonality to sustainable farming, food origins to harvest technique.
Lisa Wymore, Amara Tabor-Smith and Paloma McGregor of New York's Urban Bush Women, a contemporary dance company presented "From the Field to the Table," a five-week workshop in the theater, dance and performance studies department, which included students and community members working to fight poverty and promote food justice and policy. The workshop closed with performances at Zellerbach Playhouse in October.The workshop will include field trips to urban farms, food parties and guest speakers from food security organizations such as People's Grocery in Oakland. How the workshop of 30 to 35 unfolds will depend on the participants, but it will use storytelling, singing and movement to explore rituals, culture and memories about food. Wymore imagines an urban gardener describing a relationship to the land and connecting with an African American dancer and finding common ground, perhaps translating a shared food experience into a rhythmic piece. "People have knowledge in their bodies and voices and may best express themselves through movement and vocalization instead of a research paper," she said.
Vote with your fork and purse everyday.
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