Occupy Gardens – Roger Ingalls
Deregulation in the early 2000s now allows investors to treat food staples like crude oil and corporate stocks. Wall Street is getting their grubby little fingers around the world’s food supply and playing the speculator game by betting on the price of hunger. We’ve all felt the rise in food prices and it’s not all tied to bad weather. The wings of Wall Street greed are spreading.
Growing food in cities and suburbs will bypass the industrial food system financed by money Czars and will have a positive impact in the community. Here are a few examples:
1) The organic garden foods will by healthier and tastier.
2) Growing your own food creates a sense of well-being and empowerment.
3) Home and urban gardens have a net-positive environmental impact, whereas, industrial farming is disastrous to air, water and soil.
4) Decentralized food systems (localized) eliminate food deserts and improves security.
5) The benefits from urban farming are numerous.
Planting season starts in a few months so prepare for a new movement. Occupy Gardens is in the planning stages but appears to be well organized; it should have good traction and big teeth.
As you start Spring cleaning this year, set aside those old gardening tools, seeds and buckets and donate them to the movement when it hits your town. Grab a few bags of new seed and spend a few hours planting with the Occupy Gardeners. You’ll feel good.
Peas be with you.
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Roger Ingalls is well traveled and has seen the good and bad of many foreign governments. He hopes his blogging will encourage readers to think more deeply about the American political system and its impact on US citizens and the international community.
Left Coast Voices 
Awesome. We are organizing Occupy Gardens Toronto and had over 100 people at our last assembly. We are planning a parade in the spring time, marching with thousands of gardeners, and planting small/symbolic food gardens in high profile public spaces, then dispersing in a hundred directions and planting food everywhere. We are hoping to coordinate a global work bee / mass action. Then using social media we will coordinate gardening flash mobs, events, and larger projects. Find us on FB @ http://www.facebook.com/occupygardenstoronto and our global solidarity campaign at http://www.facebook.com/occupygardensforworldpeas !
All we are sayin is give peas a chance!
It’s thyme,
Lettuce Occupy Gardens for World Peas!
Nice going Roger. Let me add, though, that people wanting to garden in or near previously industrial neighborhoods (and even residential neighborhoods sometimes) should get the soil tested for chemical residues and learn a little about how to deal with potential problems. Most of the time everything will turn out OK, but if you have any doubt, get the soil tested. There are lots of labs around that can do this or you might mail in a sample for testing.
Great news, Roger. There are a number of urban farms providing fresh produce for those in need. In Berkeley we have Spiral Gardens – you can read more at http://wp.me/pVh3k-9X.
Better yet, if you live around here, go hang out and get some dirt under your fingertips.
….. It is my belief that we are really only living in a modern social experiment. Only 3-4 generations ago, or not even really 100 years ago most america’s grew their own food. Either you some sort of garden, had a close resource for others that grew enough food, or you did not eat. Going back a another generation or so, that independence of growing food, is the only way you fed your family.
Today, however. The grocery store, or Wal-Mart is the only really convent way of providing food for ones family. Our food supply has become too dependent on big business to provide for us. The almighty dollar being the chief means of provisions.
And yet there is so much vacant land, lots, corners in city’s and towns that could be used for community gardens. We need as humanity to ensure the survival of our future generations. Look at how many cultures have been abandoned, or just simply failed due to not using the land properly.
Think about how more urban gardens, and education in the methods of growing fresh food would change the inner city’s. Feed the hungry, feed the poor. Feed our own future generations.
I for one do not think there is anything more important as a human, then the teaching to my children the importance of growing food.
And as Jacob so well put………………………….
“It’s thyme,
Lettuce Occupy Gardens for World Peas!”
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