"It seems like I always have a wonderful day, being around lots of people doing something great that’s beautiful.  Something is going on in SF - people are into growing their own food and eating food that’s grown locally."

 

Tree spoke a bit about other projects that are going on in the area for urban agriculture and local food production....

 

He said “I’ve heard that in Colma, California there is a temple Emanual that has a garden called Peah… It means ‘corners’ in Hebrew and refers to Leviticus where a farmer leaves the corners of their field for the strangers and the hungry.”

 

In support of the Free Farm Stand, Tree said he also gleans unharvested fruits from urban trees and when I asked him if he has heard of Asiya Wadud, a woman in Berkeley, CA who is doing this and the creator of the Forage Oakland blog, he said, “There is so much synchronicity going on - so many people doing this kind of stuff now.”  

 

A number of other projects exist in the bay area doing this work for local communities, such as Urban Youth Harvest, a project of PUEBLO (People United for a Better Life in Oakland) and Village Harvest.

 

Tree went on to say, “I was talking with a friend who knows a CPA and he was saying that people have been living in the fantasy world where debt doesn’t matter - It’s just spend, spend, spend … and that now people are waking up.”

 

“So you met Sam!” He asked (Sam is a mutual friend of ours who is one of the many people involved in Urban Agriculture in the Bay Area). “It is fabulous how we are all connecting in this way, so many inspired people doing good projects.”

 

“I spend as little time as possible ’in the city’ myself; I spend lots of my time in gardens in the city. We need to transform the city, I’ve planted trees and I’ve seen city streets change over time.

 

Tree supports the principles of volunteerism and non-fundraising and it is evident that his Urban Agriculture project embodies them.

 

“These things we do are not realistic right now in regards to being able to be free from buying food, but I think it creates community when we bring people together to grow and distribute food. It brings neighbors together when they grow food together in their back yards and share it together. It grows community - all the people get inspired and want to do something good and bring food together to share it.”

 

“Back in the day [referring to the 1960's], it was like a lot of people wanted to just get back to the land and help themselves, and now I sense there is a strong community element.  There is a still a tension going on with people who are still stuck in the old way of thinking, talking about green jobs and all those kinds of things. The people who are into selling their goods are doing things the way things are done today. People who are doing things for free are doing things the way they want the world to be in the future. In a way, we are kind of doing theater and providing dreams for people.”

 

I expressed that my feeling is that people in a local community growing and sharing food is a wonderful thing - a sustainable system of community interdependence, bartering, and gifting, and that the concept of free - a radical idea in modern society - doesn’t really need to enter into it…. it often seems the idea of “free” puts people off and when that happens, the people are missing the point and benefit.

 

“One criticism I’ve heard is that when you grow food and give it away, people do not appreciate it or value it as much, and it devalues the farmer and his work. So, the argument is that it’s better to charge people money so it has a sense of worth.”

 

“Another argument that is even harder to deal with is like we see in this new business called My Farm [a Community Supported Agriculture program]. The argument is that they need to survive and they would like to be able to make their money off of what they like to do [farming]. So to them, the concept of free seems threatening.”

 

“…But to me, this is just my calling - I do this because it is in kind of the dream world of things… giving people an idea of how we could be doing things differently.”

 

I mentioned the SF Free Charts and he said he knows about that. So, I asked if he knows of the ‘Digger movement’ and he said “Oh ya, some of us lived together for years and were inspired by them, and they're beautiful.”

 

The “Diggers” is a movement in the bay area started in the late 1960’s.  Focused on kindness in the true spirit of community and ‘Gift Economy’, it was adopted from the practices of the Digger movement in 17^th century England. A lose network of people continue to operate today on these same principles, working to serve the community in the spirit of a Gift Economy. One of the many manifestations of the natural human drive to serve, this underground posse of compassion has served for centuries in various forms as an inspiration and a model of a better way to live.

 

Tree then said. “I was fed by the Diggers in 1967 and was so excited by them that I was inspired to come back to San Francisco in 1970 and start a program giving away free food in the park.”

 

You can find additional inspiration and how-to information for sustainable agriculture at http://smithfamilygarden.wordpress.com/