City Slicker Farms has recently changed organizational strategy and decided to shift away from the dispersed community market garden model, reducing the number of gardens they have planted in vegetable gardens, and transitioning some land to orchards . Their plan is to produce the vegetables needed at fewer, larger sites, chief among them the Union Plaza Farm, and then redirect resources towards their Backyard Garden Program. The Backyard Garden Program installs two raised beds in the backyard of West Oakland residents and provides them with seedlings and mentorship over the course of two years, creating a sense of ownership and connection with their food. This appears to be an implicit acknowledgment of the inherent flaws in the Community Market Farm model, as well as the problems with their Apprenticeship system, large plastic planting pots which both tended to create barriers within the community, economic and racial as well as physical barriers, instead of breaking them down.
They are attempting to adjust their imaginings – with tangible, material effects – in response to longtime patterns of interaction with the community.Oakland has a long history of displacement of its citizens through centralized “urban revitalization” projects targeting blight. West Oakland, a historically black, low-income neighborhood, has been the city’s testing ground for city planning experiments. As the end point of the transcontinental railroad, during the first quarter of the twentieth century it housed a thriving, ethnically diverse community. Seventh Street was a vibrant jazz and blues district, and Marcus Garvey’s West Coast headquarters of the Universal Negro Improvement Association was located one block over . While we can remain skeptical of so-called “golden ages” – which of course contained many social problems that become glossed in hindsight – the point is not whether we accept the narrative but simply that the narrative of history texts, today’s urban planners, and West Oakland residents regards this period as an apex. This impacts today’s imaginings of Oakland’s landscape by various groups – for instance, in current redevelopment plans for the area, which consciously try to recreate the art and music enclave on the 7th Street block today. Descent follows a pinnacle.
The neighborhood experienced an initial decline during the Depression, and again after the Second World War, some areas became dilapidated . The construction of the Nimitz freeway to San Francisco in 1955 as an explicit part of the city’s “blight-removal” program displaced many African-American residents and, according to the city’s own reports, destroyed many more sturdy structures than uninhabitable ones .Vibrant African American commercial districts and hundreds of homes were further decimated by two projects in the 1960s and 1970s to build the Bay Area Rapid Transit System connecting Oakland and San Francisco, and then the large central US Postal Service Facility for the region. Victorian homes from the turn of the century were replaced with concrete pillars, beige walls, and identical rows of public housing. Today, the neighborhood has the highest concentration of poverty in the city, is cut off from the rest of the city by freeways on three sides, and suffers from disproportionate rates of pollution-induced environmental illnesses. Why do some areas get labeled blight, and not others? Could blight call itself into being through the label itself? As we have already explored, the classification of blight is often a self-fulfilling prophesy. Neighborhoods with legacies of disinvestment, disproportionately communities of color, are further stigmatized by the label, which can result in a cycle of further disinvestment and alienation.
The city’s response is to acquire the land – at rock bottom prices – and historically has often created less affordable housing than it destroyed.The fields of law enforcement, urban planning and sociology were stirred up by a 1982 article in The Atlantic Monthly by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling on the causes of crime in urban environments, which they termed Broken Windows Theory. They felt that disorder perpetuates further disorder; the central metaphor in the theory is the idea that if you let one window on a vacant house get broken, very quickly all of the windows will be broken. Therefore, they argue that the city should work to fix that first broken window, or that first graffiti tag, before all hell breaks loose. The theory establishes the idea that by focusing on small quality of life issues – a broken window, a graffiti tag – cities will prevent larger crimes such as drug dealing, burglary, or gang activity. The idea is to create the feeling: “We won’t allow that here.” This manifests itself in policies which increase penalties for petty crime such as graffiti, loitering or panhandling. As Wilson puts it in the forward to Fixing Broken Windows, the book that grew from the original article, “As the number of unconventional individuals increases arithmetically, the number of worrisome behaviors increases geometrically.” The original article was widely cited and the hypothesis became influential in sociology, and spread quickly to urban planning departments across the country. Broken Windows Theory was applied in New York City, with Kelling hired as a consultant to the New York City Police Department from 1984 to 1990, resulting in harsher penalties for “quality of life” crimes and pursuit of petty criminal offenders, such as aggressive squeegee men, fare dodgers, and graffiti artists. This initiative produced between 40,000 and 85,000 additional adult misdemeanor arrests per year during the period of 1994-1998. Although crime rates did drop in New York City, the underlying causes for this drop in crime are passionately disputed. The theory remains a dominant guiding force in many city planning departments. During interviews, several City of Oakland employees indicated that they believe strongly in the theory, and it has guided their departmental policies on blight abatement, such as allocating resources to repeatedly buff walls where graffiti frequently occurs. Desi’s definition of blight includes very different categories than what others mentioned: police are a blight on neighborhoods as an outside occupying force that criminalizes residents; the dumping of all kinds of things, including inferior food and consumer products, actual trash, and toxic chemicals; and the blight of drugs.Congress passed the Organic Foods Production Act in 1990, but the rules for implementing the law did not go into effect until October 2002. From that time forward, all agricultural commodities sold or labeled as organic must be in compliance with the national organic standards developed by the National Organic Program , created by OFPA and housed within the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service. The standards replaced an inconsistent array of state and private certification standards for customer assurance that organic foods meet a consistent and known set of standards. Also, they were implemented to facilitate interstate commerce in fresh and processed organic food. The USDA standards mandate that genetic engineering, sewage sludge, or ionizing radiation cannot be used to produce organic food. Further, organic crop production excludes conventional pesticides and petroleum-based fertilizers with notable exceptions. OFPA requires the establishment of a “National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances” for organic production. The NOP crop standards require that soil fertility, crop nutrients, pests, and disease be managed primarily through cultural practices such as cultivation, hand weeding, crop rotation, and introduction of natural enemies. Only when these methods prove to be inefficient may growers use approved natural or synthetic substances on the National List. For livestock production, black plastic planting pots animals must be fed 100% organic feed and must have access to the outdoors, including pasture for ruminants. Animals marketed as organic may not be given hormones to promote growth or antibiotics for any reason. Although, producers are also prohibited from withholding treatment from a sick or injured animal.
The national standards also require producers grossing more than $5,000 from organic sales to be certified by a third-party certifier that is accredited by the USDA. California is the leading state in organic production. According to the Census of Agriculture 2008 Organic Supplement, California accounted for 36% of all organic farm gate sales in the United States from 19% of all U.S. organic farms and 12% of all organic acres. Looking at the crop breakdown in more detail, California produces 55% of all organic fruit, 90% of all organic tree nuts, and 66% of all organic vegetables—for a total of 62% of all produce. In marked contrast, California represents only 11% of field crop production. While California produces over half of domestic organic fruit, it is even more important for specific crops. Over 90% of all grapes, strawberries, avocados, plums and prunes, lemons, figs and dates—in addition to three-fourths of organic oranges—are produced in California. The only important fruit crops for which California does not dominate are apples, pears, and cherries—these are produced primarily in Washington. Grapes are the most important fruit crop, both nationally and in California— including table grapes, raisin grapes, and wine grapes—with total California farm gate sales at $111 million out of $122 million for the United States. Strawberries show the second highest revenue both in California and nationally, with $40 million in sales in California out of $44 million in the United States. California produces two-thirds of organic vegetables and over 90% of all organic lettuce, broccoli, celery, sweet potatoes, and onions. The most important individual crop both nationally and in California is lettuce, with over one-third of all vegetable sales. California organic lettuce sales are $175 million out of $187 million in sales nationally. To put this in perspective, tomatoes are the second most important vegetable crop with $36 million in sales in California and $59 million nationally. Fruit is grown on almost two-thirds of California organic farms, by far the most dominant commodity group in terms of farm numbers. Vegetables crops are grown on 20% of California organic farms. In contrast, fruit is grown on 23% of U.S. organic farms and vegetables on 27%. Field crops are grown on 11% of California organic farms and 21% of organic acreage. In marked contrast, one-third of U.S. organic acreage is in field crops. California produces 69% of the country’s organic rice, but is not an important producer of any other field crop. Looking at livestock, California produces 43% of organic livestock and poultry and only 18% of livestock and poultry products. California dominates in chicken and turkey production but has a smaller presence in the production of milk from cows and chicken eggs . Nonetheless, milk from cows and broiler chickens are the second and third most important organic commodities in California, with $134 million and $129 million in sales, respectively. Animals raised in accordance with the NOP are required to eat 100% organic feed. California produces only 15% of organic hay in the United States and less than 2% of corn for grain or silage. Therefore, organic livestock producers in California typically import organic feed from other states. It is important to keep organic agriculture in perspective. In California, organic represents only 3% of farm gate sales, $1.1 billion out of $36.2 billion in 2008. Organic penetration is highest for vegetables, at 6% of farm gate sales . While vegetable production is a healthy 20% of all California farm gate sales, it is 40% of organic sales. In contrast, field crops contribute 12% of total sales and only 7% of organic sales. Therefore, organic agriculture is not simply a smaller version of conventional agriculture. Another way to look at organic production is that it brought in only 0.5% of California farm gate sales a decade ago and is now over 3%—a six-fold increase. The growing importance can be explained by a number of reasons. Price premiums allow farmers a way to diversify and increase revenue. The growth in processed organic foods provides additional opportunities for organic farmers. According to an ERS report, over 3% of new food products introduced in retail outlets are labeled as organic. Consumer demand for organic food has risen from $8.6 billion in retail sales in 2002 to $29.2 billion in 2011— according to the Organic Trade Association—compared to fairly flat food sales overall. Early in the decade, annual growth in retail sales hovered at 20% but has slowed in the past few years. With this rate of growth, the organic industry faces several unique challenges. Worldwide demand is rising and organic imports and exports are becoming increasingly common. The United States signed an equivalency agreement with Canada in 2009 and another with the EU in 2012. These agreements will undoubtedly escalate trade of organic foods. California’s dominance in domestic organic fruit, nut, and vegetable production corresponds to a reliance on exports out-of-state and internationally.