Posted 8 years ago on May 14, 2012, 10:58 a.m. EST by OccupyWallSt

Occupy The Farm has held an encampment on prime urban agricultural land that is slated for re-development by the owners the property, University of California-Berkeley. For over three weeks, community activists have weeded, planted, hauled, and tended to land. After repeated harassment by police, the UC regents filed a civil lawsuit last Wednesday accusing 13 activists of trespassing. Afterward, they built a fence around the land, known as the Gill Tract.

Occupy The Farm declined an invitation from the university to discuss what to do with the land. Instead, they built a ladder to scale the fence and promised to continue tending to the vegetables, fruit trees, and other plants on 2 acres of the land. They noted that community members, local residents, activists, and university faculty and students had worked toward a compromise with the university for 15 years. Despite widespread support for their cause, the university has always betrayed them. Community members have tried for years -- including six previous months of deliberation -- to encourage the university to use the land for urban agriculture, and it was never even considered until people took direct action and started planting it themselves.

Now, they have been evicted by riot police and bulldozers and are calling for support. Via OccupyTheFarm.org:

Albany, CA - Well over 100 UCPD and Alameda County Sherriffs officers, armed with less-than-lethal impact-force projectiles, 36" batons, and pepper-ball guns, arrested nine people at the Gill Tract Farm near 7 AM on Monday morning. Of the nine that were arrested, two were watering plants on the agricultural land and seven were watching the police from San Pablo Avenue. The Gill Tract Farmers Collective has called for a reconvergence at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave., at 5 PM tomorrow.

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