Rotary learns of struggles, triumphs of LA’s South Central Farmers
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula News
Published: August 06, 2010
It was more than a garden: a movement when a group of determined mostly South American immigrant Angelinos fought over their parcel of land, a battle that started a revolution in sustainability.
“Tezo” Tezozomoc, manager of the South Central Farmers’ Cooperative, and Mira Tweti, a journalist and executive director of Blue Planet Film Fest, were the featured speakers at a recent Santa Paula Rotary meeting where they urged more become involved in cooperative community gardens as a way out of poverty and towards improved health.
In 1992 the City of Los Angeles leased a 14-acre parcel - located in South Central LA - to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank to begin a community garden in an area that had long struggled with poverty and was recovering from the recent riots. The parcel would become one of the nation’s largest urban gardens and it truly reflected its name - South Central Farmers Feeding Families - with more than 100 species of fruits, vegetables and herbs grown on the property.
In 2003 the city - which Tweti said had told the group the land was theirs - sold the property, and a notice to vacate was issued in 2004. The group fought the eviction in court, gaining widespread support from community members and nationally, including actress Darryl Hannah, who conducted a highly publicized tree sit-in. The determined farmers and their struggle became the subject of the acclaimed and Academy Award-nominated documentary, “The Garden.”
Ultimately, the South Central Farmers were evicted in 2006, but the next year they were gifted 85 acres of prime farmland in Buttonwillow, California. While leasing land in Bakersfield, they made needed improvements to the donated farm, including adding a water well.
Among the group’s supporters were Madland Toyota-Lift of Bakersfield, Santa Maria and Oxnard, which donated equipment. Mary Madland was a guest of the Oxnard location’s general manager and Santa Paula Rotarian Bill Linder at the Rotary meeting.
Tweti said she was intrigued by the farmers and their goals, and “I started to make cold calls” to raise funds for the effort. And Madland Toyota not only donated a forklift, but Linder organized a work team.
Now the cooperative is farming on the 130 acres of leased land in Bakersfield and is featured at 15 farmers’ markets as well as donating thousands of pounds of produce each year. The farm, noted Tweti, is becoming an incubator of similar efforts where “It will help farmers help themselves.” And the struggle and triumph of the farmers “is a testament to the fact that it galvanized” people from Beverly Hills to South Central in a common effort.
Tezo noted the negative influences and price fixing of corporate farms, which when the bubble burst laid off a tremendous amount of workers they “manipulated and then were unable to rebound.”
A certified organic gardener, Tezo said South Central Farmers is the organization that sprang from the effort for Angelinos to keep their garden. “We’re trying to develop a foundation” utilizing “all the lessons learned” to help others create such cooperative farms, where they will enjoy ownership and the returns from their own labor.
And that 14-acre plot in South Central Los Angeles where it all started? The farmers are still trying to reclaim it as their own, and have never stopped raising funds or meeting with elected officials to make its return a reality.
For more information visit www.southcentralfarmers.com
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