Here’s something worth paying attention to:

http://www.southcentralfarmers.org

The community has been growing food that feeds 350 low income families, using 14 acres in LA. In 2003, the city sold the land to developers to build a warehouse. Now the farm is struggling to raise the funds needed to fight off their pending eviction. The video at their site does a better job relating the story…

Markets are good. They function efficiently and they help us make great use of scarce resources. Unfortunately the political process often intereferes with how communities would otherwise choose to support themselves. I’m not completely against political regulation of markets. So what am I?

I’m strongly in favor of community initiative. These people have organized something far more meaningful than a $5.1 million dollar real estate deal, or the likely modest economic impact of a successful warehouse. The farm has been running successfully for 14 years.

I know very little about this specific situation. I know a little more about the importance and urgency of establishing models for urban farming. This seems like a case where the political process has failed the local public interest, and now it’s apparently up to the public at large to make a correction.