Across the country and political spectrum, the Occupy Movement has raised awareness of the ever-growing inequality in our current political and economic system. Regular people have a smaller voice than the top 1%, and this has led to a system that privileges profit over people. While the rich have gotten richer, 99% of the population has experienced ever-shrinking access to basic resources including food, land and shelter.
This dynamic has impacted urban and rural populations alike. Our goal is build links within the Occupy Movement, forging relationships between occupiers in the city and occupy farmers who have been impacted by corporate corruption and greed. We aim to share stories, engage with the skeptical, have honest conversations about our current democracy’s shortcomings, and demonstrate solidarity by actively serving the needs of our nation’s farmers. Furthermore, we intend to call to light the connections between farmers’ struggles and our larger struggle, showing the interconnectedness of our food system, medical system and foreign policy and the society-wide structural inequality from which we all, inevitably, suffer.
Through collective action and service, we will demonstrate that it is possible for farms to not only subsist but thrive outside the current system. Indeed, no food system can survive if it prioritizes the profit motive over human need.
Our Work
We are engaging this struggle on all fronts, including:
1. Working On-Site
* We provide assistance in the form of labor.
* We provide a method for farmers to obtain materials or resources by pooling those resources.
2. Community Building
* We provide a psychological outlet for occupiers to escape the city for a while and reconnect to the land base.
* We seek to connect farmers to “downstate” markets.
* We work with sympathetic farmers to provide food to the Occupy movement.
3. Activism
* We bring our beliefs to the street by demonstrating for farmers’ issues.
* We spread awareness of the policies that harm small farmers and organize against these policies.
4. Mindfulness
* We spread awareness of the connection between urban and rural laborers by bringing the needs of farmers to the attention of the urban population, and by demonstrating that “urban” issues (our prison system, public health crises, et cetera) are directly connected to “rural” issues. Both struggles are the same struggle.
* We learn from farmers, and engage with farmers to gain a better perspective on our movement through their history.
* We promote sustainable ways of living, promoting practices that demonstrate sustainability such as seed-saving and small scale gardening, and working against practices such as the promotion of GMOs, seed patenting, high-input monoculture farming and any other practice that compromises the well-being of the land and the people.