"If You Ain't a Gardener, You Ain't Gangsta!!!" TED Talks Hosts a Guerilla Gardener

A qoute from Ron Finley.

Here's another.

"Growing your Own Food is Like Printing Your Own Money- Ron Finley.

That's why I believe it has been discouraged as a solution to our food crisis.   That's changing.

Ron Finley was invited to give a TED talks lecture. Ron is a Guerilla Gardener. Guerilla gardening is growing food on abandoned lots, in parks, and public land. Ron was planting on vacant lots, yards that people ask Ron to garden, etc. It's something that zoning laws discourage- even if you own the land in many cases.  For myriad reasons, someone complained and what started as a citation turned into a warrant for Ron Finley's arrest for growing food.  That was  until his friend's in his gardening group got support through the internet. The charges were dropped because to prosecute him would be an embarassment to the city and an exposure of just how much power the current laws take from common people. As Ron Finley put it, "Come on. A warrant for growing food on land the city doesn't even want."

But now, I guess it's not guerilla anymore now that Ron has the blessing of City of LA. It's becoming acceptable.  And the sign to me that it is becoming acceptable is that TED hosted him.  No longer something done on the fringes of society, the mainstream left has supporters of guerilla gardening and urban gardening. It's no longer dirty to many people.

It's probably the most hopeful thing I have seen in a long time to see the mainstream left and TED get behind this . Guerilla gardening is now becoming an anachronistic term, because people are less likely to be fined for growing there own food. Fundamentally, it's a sign that the mainstream left is getting behind people's right to grow their own food.

I have disliked many TED talks for their technocratic lovefests and their slick talks, "Is Genetically Modified Food Bad?" comes to mind.  The solutions are often costly and with a high net carbon and waste ratio. 

But paramount to my problem with the technocratic solutions is that the solutions require specialists to be trained to maintain such systems.  Such solutions can not be adopted en mass. Why do they then talk about them then?  

That's why I love this so much! It is simple, cheap and is accessible to able bodied people. Unlike technocratic solutions this can be done enmass. And the masses are needed for a real food revolution.

This is a great sign that people are getting to the food issue by it's roots. I don't apologize for the pun.

http://www.ted.com/talks/ron_finley_a_guerilla_gardener_in_south_central_la.html#.UTykmM1k9wc.facebook