This is the most interesting civil disobedience locally in a long, long time...It also brings back memories of being arrested with Toronto Action for Social Change for planting a vegetable garden at Queen's Park in Toronto in the fall of 1996 (it was Winter Wheat and Jerusalem Artichokes that time) to protest the slash and cut policies of the Provincial Conservative government. rk.
The Carrots and Garlic of Climate Change
The Hamilton 350 Committee is participating in the global day of climate action on Sunday, October 10 – 10/10/10. We need your help.
As the title suggests, our action focuses on the implications of climate change for food security. Hamilton lost 20 percent of its agricultural land between 1991 and 2006. On October 13, 2010, city council decides whether to convert an additional 2050 acres of foodland around the airport into an aerotropolis industrial zone.
On the morning of October 10 (Thanksgiving Sunday) we’ll be planting a message on those aerotropolis lands – with garlic. You can get there on our Garlic Bus and we’ll supply the garlic. Tickets are $3 per person to cover our costs. These may not be public lands and we may be trespassing. We are looking for peaceful radicals!
Garlic is one symbolic crop for our campaign. Not only is it is planted in the fall, but nearly all the garlic now available in Hamilton is imported from China. By planting local garlic on lands designated for aerotropolis development, we are sending a strong message to city hall: Productive agricultural land should be used to grow food, not warehouses!
Without a protected and supported local food system, Hamiltonians will be vulnerable to global price fluctuations and world food shortages. It's about our fundamental right to food security. It's about our community's need for food sovereignty. And it's about climate change. Global climatic disasters this summer in Pakistan, Russia, Saskatchewan, Australia and elsewhere pushed wheat prices up 70 percent! We need to guarantee access to locally-grown food so that we can also reduce the number of miles our food travels from farm to fork-thereby reducing the contributions our food makes to greenhouse gas emissions.
The Hamilton 350 Committee is also using “giant carrots” (see photos at http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Climate-Carrot/124094217640246) to alert the public about our concerns. Unlike garlic, there are still lots of locally-grown carrots available. We’re distributing the attached carrot flyer – and need your help to do this before October 10! Please respond to this email if you can help. Please forward the flyer to all your friends and connections!
Want more information about aerotropolis development plans? Check out Hamiltonians for Progressive Development.
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