Occupy the farm!

One way in which the people of Occupy Wall Street haven’t necessarily thought of occupying is on the farm. At first you wouldn’t think that farming is revolutionary. But in a strange way, farming could very well be the most revolutionary idea since the writing of the Communist Manifesto.

Activists in California might very well be the first of their kind. About a month ago, activists with ties to Occupy Berkeley began to occupy 2 acres of land owned by the University of California at Berkeley. There they planted vegetables and other things that could feed the hungry. But police in full riot gear arrested nine of them after removing them from the land.

It’s a new low for the police in Northern California.

"What I believe in is food justice," Ashoka Finley said. Finley stated that he plans to secretly continue watching over the garden regardless of the consequences. "That's why I am here, and that's why I'll continue to be here, planting crops, seeding crops and harvesting crops, and sharing them with our community."

After most companies outsourced precious jobs to the developing countries of the world in order to keep their profit margins, many Americans were left without work. Or, they were forced into low paying service sector jobs to stay afloat. Entire cities in the “rust belt” have fell into disuse and have literally rusted away. One only has to look at Detroit: a population that shrank from a peak of 1.8 million in 1950, to a mere 700,000 in 2010. Cleveland and Pittsburgh both had similar problems due to corporate greed.

However, those same cities are starting to revitalize their inner cores with urban farming. With these inner city farms comes jobs. Not to mention: food, the most prized possession.

Therefore farming just might be the best way to undermine the corporate system, and put some jobs back on the map.