Urban agriculture in West Oakland involves the implementation of Urban agriculture in West Oakland, California.
History Urban agriculture in West Oakland has taken a radical form that can be traced back to community gardening initiatives starting in the 1970s in the cities of Berkeley and Oakland, as well as the city's rich African-American heritage. Oakland's manufacturing industry attracted many new residents during WWII. To reduce racial tension, the Oakland Housing Authority established housing projects for blacks in West Oakland and whites in East Oakland. With the advent of exclusionary covenants as well as redlining practiced by banks, development capital was kept out of West Oakland while the African-American population had limited opportunities to rent or buy housing outside of the West Oakland neighborhood. Poverty became rampant in West Oakland beginning in the 1960s when Alameda County's manufacturing industries decreased productivity or closed causing unemployment to rise. West Oakland evolved into a place of industrial poverty, isolated from the rest of Oakland. With a depressed economy and high crime rate, West Oakland failed to attract major retail including supermarkets, further isolating the area as a low-income community of color. According to a study by the American Planning Association, in the year 2000, African-Americans accounted for 77% of the population in West Oakland. Hispanics and Caucasians accounted for 14% and 9% of the population, respectively. However, most recently, West Oakland demographics have been changing as a result of gentrification spurred by a "tsunami of foreclosures" in the 2000s. The Black Panther Party (BPP) played an important role in seeding urban agricultural practices in West Oakland. One of the BPP's social programs aimed to improve the access to healthy food for the city's black population by providing breakfast in local schools, churches and community centers. A small amount of this food came from small local gardens planted by BPP members, who drew on their previous generation's agricultural knowledge. According to Prof. Nathan McClintock, "The Panthers used gardening as a coping mechanism and a means of supplementing their diets, as well as a means to strengthen community members engaged in the struggle against oppression." The creation of the People of Color Greening Network (PCGN) in the 1990s was a pivotal moment for urban agriculture in West Oakland. PCGN served as a vehicle for fusing social justice with urban agriculture. The group planted in empty and vacant lots in order to promote green space and bountiful gardens. Given the majority of abandoned flatlands located in West Oakland, the PCGN movement's activities began to spread most in this area. In addition, a school garden movement began in which schools around Alameda County began teaching basic gardening skills and food education. In 1998, the city of Oakland's Mayor's office of Sustainability proposed a Sustainable Community Development Initiative as part of a global initiative towards sustainable development. This initiative called for a sustainable approach to an economic development program with increased education within the community, and the PCGN's expansion of urban agriculture served as a vehicle to achieve this goal. Due to West Oakland's lack of access to nutritious and healthy food, many other organizations including the PCGN demanded the plan include strategies for creating a sustainable impact within the local food system. City Slicker Farms is one of those organizations and was founded in response to the multitude of empty urban lots In West Oakland that could be used to produce nutritious food for the surrounding community. Through land donations from local residents of West Oakland, mainly Willow Rosenthal, a network of urban farmers and farm stands was created and began to flourish. The land donated by Willow Rosenthal was sold by City Slicker Farms. Currently, City Slicker Farms operates one garden, the West Oakland Farm Park, which no longer has a farm stand. In 2005, Mayor Jerry Brown joined forces with mayors from cities around the world and signed the UN World Environment Day Urban Environmental Accords, pledging to become a more sustainable city by the year 2012. This gave rise to many Oakland City Council Resolutions, such as Resolution No. 76980 and Resolution No. 80332, both of which helped develop a Food Policy Council (FPC) to achieve the city's intended goals. The FPC has teamed up with organizations like the Health for Oakland's People & Environment (HOPE) Collaborative, which works with city leaders and departments as well as local grassroots organizations like City Slicker Farms, in order to improve the health and wellness of Oakland's residents that experience social inequities. The Oakland Food Policy Council held its first meeting in September 2009 to organize a "Plan for Action" in favor of the proliferation of urban agriculture in Oakland. In January 2011, the council translated their "Plan for Action" into multiple languages in order to reach out to the entire minority population and urban agriculture community so that issues concerning land access were clearly understood and that these minorities were not taken advantage of. On March 15, 2011, the Oakland City Council adopted new residential and commercial zones for the entire city. The new zones allowed "Crop and Animal Raising Agricultural Activities" with approval of a Conditional Use Permit in all residential and commercial areas in the city as an interim measure until the City conducted a comprehensive update to address all aspects of urban agriculture. At the close of 2011, they helped connect the community with agencies such as the Department of Human Services to harvest a more responsible and local food system, with attempts to help organize a Food Policy Council for the state of California. By the year 2012 they developed a Food Justice Curriculum to be piloted by the HOPE Collaborative, as well as a system of fresh food vendors through helping them to abide by stringent state policies. This helped to increase the availability of, and access to, fresh food within the city of Oakland. Their mission continues today with goals of ensuring food security in Oakland while promoting greater "food literacy" within a "closed-loop" system that promotes the use of renewable resources and food scrap composting.
Urban agriculture and the West Oakland Food System
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