User:S an editor/sandbox

History
Community gardening has been an important fabric for the city of Berkeley since the 1970’s, and in the 1990’s slowly began to emerge in the city of Oakland in a new radical form. The forming of the People of Color Greening Network (PCGN) served as a vehicle to fuse social justice with urban agriculture by planting in empty and vacant lots in order to promote green space and bountiful gardens. In addition, a school garden movement began in which schools around Alameda County began teaching basic gardening skills and food education. With the majority of abandoned flatlands located in West Oakland, the PCGN movement began to spread most in this area. In 1998, the city of Oakland’s Mayor’s office of Sustainability proposed their commitment to the Sustainable Community Development Initiative as part of a global initiative towards sustainable development. Due to West Oakland’s lack of access to nutritious and healthy food, many other organizations besides the PCGN began to emerge and fight back against the impoverished and polluted conditions experienced within the community, working towards creating a sustainable impact within the local food system. City Slicker Farms is one of those organizations and was originally founded in response to the multitude of empty urban lots that could be used to produce nutritious food for the surrounding community. Through land donations from key players like Willow Rosenthal, a network of urban farmers and farm stands was created and began to flourish. In 2005, Mayor Jerry Brown joined forces with mayors from cities around the globe and signed the UN World Environment Day Urban Environmental Accords, pledging to become a more sustainable city by the year 2012. This gave rise to many Oakland City Council Resolutions, such as Resolution No. 76980 and Resolution No. 80332, both of which helped develop a Food Policy Council (FPC) to achieve the city’s intended goals. The FPC has teamed up with organizations like the Health for Oakland’s People & Environment (HOPE) Collaborative, which works with city leaders and departments as well as local grassroots organizations like City Slicker Farms, in order to improve the health and wellness of Oakland’s residents that experience social inequities. Through the successful funding and creation of this council, there have been successful reformations to urban agriculture and improvements to the local food system.

Community Background/Demographics
Oakland has a rich history of African-American heritage in which many residents settled here to be in close proximity to manufacturing jobs during WWII. In order to prevent tension from rising between the African-American and White population, African-American housing projects were created in West Oakland and the Whites were set up in the East part of the city by order of the Oakland Housing Authority. With the advent of exclusionary covenants as well as redlining practiced by banks, capital was kept out of West Oakland and the African-American population was crowded in. After the deterioration of many manufacturers, work became scarce, and West Oakland evolved into a place of industrial poverty blocked off from the rest of Oakland. According to a study by the American Planning Association, in the year 2000, African-Americans accounted for 77% of the population in West Oakland. Hispanics and Caucasians accounted for 14% and 9% of the population, respectively. Although the most recent and reliable data available is from the year 2000, other sources suggest that West Oakland is beginning to experience gentrification in which Caucasians are beginning to move in while African-Americans are selling their property in order to escape the inner-city.

Urban Agriculture and the West Oakland Food System
There are a number of organizations that represent different processes that connect the Urban Agricultural movement in West Oakland to its local food system. These organizations are instrumental in fighting food injustice in West Oakland.

Mandela MarketPlace
Mandela Marketplace is a non-profit organization operating in West Oakland which provides West Oakland residents with healthier, more sustainable, and locally grown, produce. They work in partnership with West Oakland residents to increase education about sustainable and healthy diets and to address systemic economic and health inequities. Mandela MarketPlace connects local farmers from various Bay Area counties with local residents interested in purchasing fresh produce. In doing so, they cut out the middle man that stands between farmers and the consumers who purchase their produce, which allows for affordable and healthier food to be purchased by West Oakland residents. They also kickstarted the Mandela Food Cooperative and the Healthy Neighbourhood Store Alliance which both strive to combat West Oakland's food desert by increasing local access to produce including at liquor stores where it is typically not available.

Phat Beets Produce
Phat Beets Produce is a food justice collective that started in North Oakland in 2007. They "started as a means to close the gap between small farmers’ of color that lack market outlets and urban communities that lack access to healthy, affordable, culturally appropriate food." They focus on providing economic opportunities for "historically disenfranchised" farmers by initiating the distribution channels for them to sell produce to local Oakland residents. They also strive to stimulate the local economy by incubating sustainable businesses related to urban agriculture.

City Slicker Farms
City Slicker Farms works with the West Oakland population in enabling them to grow healthy organic foods for themselves and other West Oakland residents. Their goal is to provide the resources necessary, from education to distribution, in order for West Oakland residents to develop urban farms that sustain the local produce needs of the community. They do this through three main programs which include the Community Market Farms Program, the Backyard Garden Program, and the Urban Farming Education Program. Their main mission was sparked by the high prevalence of empty and vacant lots in the flatlands of West Oakland. In 2010, they were granted 4 million dollars through California Proposition 84 in order to develop an urban green space in West Oakland, which is their latest project in helping low-income communities achieve food security.

Planting Justice
“Planting Justice is a non-profit organization based in Oakland, CA dedicated to food justice, economic justice, and sustainable local food systems”. Planting Justice has a “door-to-door organizing model” that focuses on spreading food education, increasing their volunteer base, and decentralizing their funding base. They focus heavily on educating Oakland residents about food related issues and hold weekly workshops focusing on various subjects such as "food justice, culinary arts, and permaculture design". These workshops provide a hands on education that both motivates students and equips them with the necessary tools for creating and sustaining urban gardens. Planting justice also has a Create Green Jobs initiative that promotes the initiative that green jobs do not need to only be in the industrial sector. The initiative promotes sustainable and local urban farming as a means to economic growth. "[Their] green jobs program will provide dignified jobs to disenfranchised urban residents that make them feel proud and of benefit to their community."

Current Initiatives and Legislation
In November 2010, City Slicker Farms, a West Oakland urban agriculture company, was awarded a 4 million dollar grant for which they are using to develop an urban farm and park. They are developing a 1.4 acre lot in West Oakland in which they will have a community garden, chicken coop, fruit orchard, and a vegetable plot. They’ve been granted this money due to California’s Prop 84 (passed in 2006), which will generate 5.4 billion dollars to spend on “statewide park development and community revitalization”. When completed, the space will be completely open to the public.

On September 28th, 2013, California state Assembly Bill 551 was approved. This Bill is known as the “Urban Agriculture Incentive Zones Act” and it provides a framework for local cities and or counties to come into contractual agreement with city residents in providing them with “vacant, unimproved, or otherwise blighted lands” to use as small-scale farms. This Bill was enacted at the state level in California and requires California’s urban cities and counties to implement it locally. If approved in Oakland, it allows the city to legally reserve unwanted lands to be specifically used for urban farming purposes. The city of Oakland would be able to enter into 10 year contractual agreements with its residents allowing them to use these lands for farming on “[rates] based on the average per-acre value of irrigated cropland in California”. Each county and/or city must opt into the Urban Agriculture Incentive Zones Act, and as of now the city of Oakland has not enacted it; at the end of 2013 Oakland’s city council was considering enacting the bill. If enacted by the city council, it will “improve [the] financial viability” of urban farming in West Oakland and Oakland in general.