More than 100 Occupy the Farm protesters return to University of California-owned Gill Tract

Chanting "Whose farm? Our farm!" some 150 people marched from Albany City Hall to a weed-strewn plot of University of California-owned land where they yanked out 3-foot-tall weeds and planted squash and tomato seedlings. 

 The plot is adjacent to the land many of the same protesters occupied for three weeks in April and May last year before police removed them.


As protesters entered the area Saturday, bringing with them two chickens, three goats and a rabbit, police informed them via bullhorn that they were trespassing and subject to arrest. As of late Saturday afternoon, no arrests had been made.

The announcement did not trouble Occupy the Farm activist and urban farmer Ashoka Finley, who said that while some called their actions "illegal," the protest in fact was moral. "The community needs to manage public resources," he said, adding that they were "not just talking about (taking over the land), they were doing it."

"We're here to get this land preserved, to show that it is agricultural land," said Matthew McHale, an Occupy the Farm spokesman. McHale said they want to grow the food and give it away to the poor. And they want to set up an urban agricultural center to teach people to use available spaces to grow healthy food.

Lesley Haddock, Occupy the Farm spokeswoman, said the activists had gotten the message out "that an urban farm serves the East Bay better than any commercial development could ever do."