Acting under the direction of campus administrators, UC Berkeley officials cleared crops Friday planted by Occupy the Farm protesters at UC-owned research land in Albany.
According to Krystof Lopaur, a member of the Occupy the Farm movement, campus workers arrived on the Gill Tract last Wednesday and cleared a “large portion” of the land excluding the crops planted by the protesters but returned Friday to remove the crops the protesters planted.
In an open letter released by the campus Nov. 16, UC Berkeley College of Natural Resources Dean Keith Gilless outlined the campus’s intention to turn over the soil and clear the remaining plants this winter to make room for cover crops that would add nutrients to the land. According to the letter, the clearing of crops last week is part of the campus’s plan to use all of the farmland for the “investigation of food systems and food security issues.”
Despite Gilless’ claim in his letter that the campus gave Occupy the Farm members “advance notice” of its intentions to clear the tract, Lopaur said that members of the movement were unaware of the operation beforehand.
Occupy the Farm activists took over a portion of the Gill Tract in April and planted crops there in protest of the campus’s plans to develop another part of the land into a housing and retail center. Protesters continued to break into the property throughout the summer and into the fall to tend to the crops, arguing that the land should be accessible to the community as an urban farm.
“We’re going to continue having meetings with the community, and we’re going to continue organizing people,” Lopaur said. “These projects are not contingent on whether the UC is going to destroy our crops.”
Occupy the Farm will release a response to the removal of its crops and Gilless’ open letter on Monday.
The campus could not immediately be reached for comment.
Justin Abraham covers academics and administration. Contact him at [email protected].
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[“We’re going to continue having meetings with the community, and we’re
going to continue organizing people,” Lopaur said. “These projects are
not contingent on whether the UC is going to destroy our crops.”]
If this ass-clown is so freaking serious about farming, why doesn’t he drag his ass to Iowa or Kansas where unused farmland is dirt cheap? Lopaur is no better than some ten year old kid with a skateboard whose ideal place to ride is right in front of some local business with heavy foot traffic. He’s not really interesting in farming. He merely wants attention and to get in the way.
Krystof Lopaur doesn’t give a crap about farming, or Albany. He’s a professional activist and an opportunist who jumps on whatever issue seems sexy at the moment. His involvement speaks volumes about the “local” character of occupy the farm. Just google his name to see how committed he is to any one issue. Particularly interesting were his efforts to shut down the Oakland port, because screwing union workers in Oakland would somehow help poor people in that city. Same think with screwing small businesses in downtown Oakland using a “diversity of tactics”, or screwing commuters on BART to make a point about police brutality. Now it seems he’s committed to screwing the citizens in Albany by making an end run around the democratic process. God forbid that the citizens of Albany should make a decision without being told what to do by the Revolutionary Vanguard. Chris Hedges called this kind of crap a cancer at the heart of Occupy. Yup.
Lopaur’s name is really. Chris Cantor. Ivy league rich kid trolling as a poor protester.
“These projects are not contingent on whether the UC is going to destroy our crops.”
Translation: Our play toys were removed by the adults, but we will still here squat here like rebellious parasites and leeches.