Someone needs to replace the ignorance bushes growing in the yards of Berkeley Code Enforcement Officers with some trees of knowledge. As I write this article, Berkeley urban farmer Asa Dodsworth is being persecuted by Officers Maurice Norrise and Gregory Daniels for having fruit trees and vegetables in his home’s front yard. While every home & garden publication in the United States is urging homeowners to tear out their useless, unsustainable lawns and plant food that could make the difference between making this month’s mortgage payment or not, Berkeley Code Enforcement Officers are fining Asa Dodsworth $90,000 a month for using his small piece of land to put dinner on the table.
What in the world is going on here?
Please, take a moment to read this SFStreets Blog Post which gives further details on this appalling situation and in which, lo and behold, you will be startled to find a reference to LBAM.
Don’t Spray California.org founder Maxina Ventura was in the neighborhood and pointed out to the author of the SFStreets blog post that insect traps had just gone up in the nearest park. Ventura explained that she views the harassment of Asa Dodsworth as one step in a developing campaign to force massive pesticide use on urban areas. If local officials and agribusiness can team up and say that urban food gardens host ‘invasive’ insects like the light brown apple moth (LBAM), then both parties can walk away with pockets bulging with money while citizens quietly fade away from pesticide-induced autoimmune diseases behind the closed doors of their targeted homes.
Whether what is happening to Asa Dodsworth is LBAM-related or not, I view the actions of Berkeley’s Code Enforcement Officers as a threat to his health and life. As an organic farmer, I can readily imagine that the Dodsworth household was figuring their homegrown produce into their budget over the summer months. When you don’t have to pay Whole Foods $150 a shopping trip for their industrial organic fruits and vegetables, maybe you can put that money towards getting some dentistry done that you’ve been putting off. Maybe you can devote more time to volunteer work in your community because of that extra money, or take your child to see a specialist about an ongoing health problem, or even just take your family on a camping trip because the incoming produce of your land has given your budget just a tiny gasp of breathing room in these tough financial times. For all we know, the food growing in Asa Dodsworth’s garden may mean the difference for him between plenty and starvation this year.
California is broke, and every Californian who invests $1.29 in a packet of seeds is making an incredibly smart, instinctive, time-honored choice to cultivate the available land to feed himself and his family. To see this turned into a crime is to watch bureaucrats and industry make breathing illegal.
I am absolutely appalled by this backward, anti-human action on the part of the City of Berkeley and I want food cultivation to be recognized as an inalienable human right. Government and industry must not be allowed to control the human food supply. Being born on planet Earth entitles us to eat, and let no man assert that we must pay for that privilege.
Please call the following people and tell them to get their hands off of Asa Dodsworth’s garden:
Deputy City Manager Lisa Caronna, (510) 981-7000
Neighborhood Services Officer Angela Gallegos-Castillo (510) 981-2491
City Manager Phil Kamlarz (510) 981-7000
If you feel as shocked by the City of Berkeley’s behavior as I do, let them know that they are not acting in a vacuum and that concerned citizens are interested in seeing the rights of urban farmers cherished and protected. Sunset Magazine would be treating Asa Dodsworth as a hero. The City of Berkeley should not treat him as a criminal. Please, let them know.
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Update Sent To Me By Don’t Spray California:
CONSCIENTIOUS PROJECTOR FILM SERIES of the Social Justice Committee of the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists presents:
URBAN GARDENS UNDER ATTACK?
DEFEND OUR LOCAL FOOD SOURCES!
Berkeley Code Enforcement is selectively fining activists for supposed “violations” in their gardens with fines that amount to extortion and eviction. They target neighbors actively engaged in helping communities gain some self-sufficiency by organizing permaculture skill shares, work parties, and growing diverse, edible, organic gardens that inspire and feed hungry people, wildlife, bees and other beneficials. In this time of global climate change, ecological collapse, and economic distress, tax dollars are wasted on harassment of urban gardeners by city officials who single out activists for otherwise ignored code, as well as on county and state insect trapping programs that frequently target such gardens with pesticides and quarantines. Homegrown food and ecology is not a crime!
Film: FRIDAYS AT THE FARM
Speakers:
Asa Dodsworth (Acton House Victory Garden)
Maxina Ventura (East Bay Pesticide Alert)
Nik Bertulis (Regenerative Design instructor, Merritt College)
Music: by Carol Denney and Max
Food: by Food Not Bombs
Community Participation Invited
Support Urban Gardens by Growing one Yourself: Sign up for a Community Work Day in Your Yard
Monday, June 22, 2009 7-10pm
BFUU, 1924 Cedar Street (at Bonita) in Berkeley
(SCENT FREE, PLEASE)
Event sponsored by East Bay Pesticide Alert / Don’t Spray California
Contact us if your garden is targeted with harassment or pesticides: (510) 895-2312 or beneficialbug@netzero.net
www.DontSprayCalifornia.org
Flyer for the event:
http://dontspraycalifornia.org/62209defendurbangardens.pdf
2 users commented in " Berkeley Code Enforcement Tries To Starve Urban Farmer "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackThanx, Mim, for covering this important issue!
We here at East Bay Pesticide Alert / Don’t Spray California don’t view Berkeley Code Enforcement as involved in some LBAM-related conspiracy with the State, as seemed to be implied in the otherwise excellent SFStreets Blog Post, but instead recognize that urban gardens are under attack from more than one agency.
It is noteworthy that while Berkeley’s bureaucracy is harassing Asa and other activists in the area, a great variety of traps are going up around town for various so-called “pests”. These traps are placed mostly by the county, often under state and federal order. Whether they are placed deliberately or just carelessly, we’ve noticed that these traps often go up around organic gardens, as well as around vulnerable populations (in Oakland several have been observed around senior housing and community centers).
So what’s wrong with insect traps?
Many of them contain chemical lures which are specifically designed to saturate the area near the traps with the chemical vapors, so that insects are attracted to them. Passers-by are exposed to these fumes as well, and many traps are hung quite low and in easy reach of children. These chemicals are often pesticides themselves, but because of bureaucratic loopholes they are being categorized as pesticides only if they are used as part of an “eradication” or “control” program, but not if they are used as part of a “monitoring” program, even though the chemical is in fact the same.
In the white, tent-shaped traps for LBAM the lure contains the same synthetic “pheromone” as is in the aerial spray and the twist ties, both of which have injured people. The green, tent-shaped traps are for gypsy moth and contain another so-called “pheromone”, disparlure, which has been shown to persist in the human body for many years, and has been largely untested for safety. Other common traps observed around the Bay Area include those for glassy-winged sharpshooter, Japanese beetle, emerald ash borer, and various fruit flies.
Aside from the toxicity of many of these traps, there are even larger implications with all of them, whether they contain toxics themselves or not: Where traps are placed it is inevitable that certain insects, which these government agencies have determined are “dangerous pests”, are caught. When this happens, quarantines may be put in place, causing economic hardship for many, and are usually followed by mandatory pesticide applications, causing injury to health for many more. In essence, traps target neighborhoods with potential pesticide applications.
But traps do not determine whether an insect is causing any trouble, and neither do the arbitrary decisions of these government agencies, as we’ve clearly seen with the LBAM most recently. Trap finds determine whether a particular insect is present in the environment, but not whether the insect is doing any damage, likely to do any damage in the future, or whether it is being kept in check by the local ecology. Trap finds are meaningless, but they are being used as an excuse for agencies to implement expensive, invasive, and toxic “control” and “eradication” programs, that do far greater damage to our health and our environment than any insect every could.
What Asa and other urban gardeners are doing matters far beyond their own enjoyment and food source. It shifts the balance from the dominant, water-guzzling, chemically-dependent lawn culture, to one that embraces a non-toxic, useful, and deeply ecological aesthetic. It should also be noted that Asa’s household actively engages with the community, feeds others, and organizes skill shares and work parties to help others grow sustainable and responsible gardens. Truly organic and diverse gardens are some of the best tools in the fight against toxics. They establish healthy and resilient ecosystems that prevent such “pests” from taking over in the first place, and can remediate previous damage done by chemicals and other ecological imbalance.
Greetings, Isis!
What a fabulous response from you and the folks at East Bay Pesticide Alert/Don’t Spray California. I’m blown away that you even know which colors of traps target which insects. Of course, I see them all over the Bay Area, but look at them as mysterious sources of evil and danger. I never knew before that they were more-or-less color coded.
I really thank you for explaining that Maxina’s quotes in the SFStreets blog post weren’t quite right. This happens very often in print media, and I have a much clearer sense now of what she must have meant when speaking to the reporter.
You have done everyone who reads this article a tremendous favor in explaining that:
1) The traps themselves contain fumes and pesticides that are harmful to humans.
2) The presence of traps means the contemplation of a so-called ‘eradication’ program (read: massive pesticide spraying) in that area.
3) Traps are a totally worthless way of judging whether an insect damages anything. It only judges whether it is there, but is used as proof that pesticides must be sprayed, even in the total absence of damage, as in the case of the LBAM scandal.
4) Citizens are noticing these traps all over the place, often near organic gardens or the residences of especially sensitive people like elders.
I truly, truly thank you for sharing all of your knowledge with us, Isis. We feel that Don’t Spray California is the most informed of all the pesticide education organizations in California and we are so grateful for your research and work.
Take care!
Mim
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