OAKLAND, Calif. -- Since the end of World War II, the west side of this city has struggled to break away from its industrial roots. Sandwiched between the city's downtown corridor and the busy Port of Oakland, West Oakland is overwrought with old railways and abandoned warehouses.
Not one major supermarket can be found in the eight-square-mile area, and 60% of the neighborhood's 20,000 residents live below the poverty line, according the latest U.S. census survey. Yet, amid the snaking freeways and dilapidated buildings, a bit of green is growing. Since 2001, more than 80 urban farms have been cultivated in the backyards and vacant lots of West Oakland.
Produce from zucchini to watermelon is grown for consumption by local residents; goats and chickens are raised on some farms. Last year, over 10,000 pounds of produce were harvested, according to Oakland's City Slicker Farms, which is at the epicenter of the neighborhood's urban-farm push.
"We're about feeding the community and teaching it to feed and sustain itself," says Barbara Finnin, executive director of City Slicker Farms. The efforts mirror a larger eco-gastronomy initiative, the Slow Food movement, started in Italy in 1986 by food writer Carlo Petrini, and championed in the U.S. by the likes of chef Alice Waters, based in Berkeley, Calif.
Typically popular among those wealthy enough to afford price premiums, it promotes the consumption of organic, unprocessed and local foods, rather than factory-made fast foods. Slow Food has mainly been seen in the rise of farmers' markets and eco-friendly restaurants.
San Francisco, just across the bay from Oakland, will play host to the first Slow Food USA festival this weekend, and expects about 50,000 attendees. But the Slow Food movement has been criticized for being elitist and unrealistic for those who can't afford pricey farmers' markets and artisanal foods.
The majority of Slow Food's 80,000-strong membership comes from a wealthier demographic than that of West Oakland. Though gardens have popped up in gentrified districts in Brooklyn, N.Y., and Berkeley, inner-city locales have largely remained on the fringe of Slow Food even though they may be more in need of it.
Officials hope the West Oakland gardens will serve as an example of how the movement can be embraced by a range of income levels. They also hope the effort will help solve pressing health problems.
The gardens, spearheaded by a collective of volunteers and nonprofits, are meant to help combat the dearth of healthy-food outlets in the neighborhood. Until the creation of these gardens, residents had to rely mostly on the more than 50 liquor and corner stores for groceries in the immediate area.
The sale of fresh foods was a scarcity, and West Oakland has struggled with high rates of obesity. A 2007 report by the Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative found that West Oakland residents can expect to live on average 10 years less than their counterparts living in neighboring Berkeley and attributed the lack of sufficient food resources as a significant factor in this disparity. It's not all bleak: Gentrification has begun to turn some of the industrial warehouses into sleek lofts and condos
"The demographic in West Oakland is different than our membership base, but the values they are pushing are well in line with our effort," says Anya Fernald, executive director of Slow Food Nation, a local subsidiary of Slow Food USA. "If the movement should focus anywhere, it should be West Oakland."
Ms. Fernald says widening the movement has been difficult, partly because the message appeals to an affluent crowd that has the luxury of being more discretionary in their food choices. West Oakland's City Slicker Farms, a nonprofit organization, was founded by a community activist in 2001 to help combat blight in the neighborhood.
Operated by a small band of volunteers, the group bought a half-acre lot at a tax sale with the intention of planting produce and selling it to local residents at a discount. The outfit has now grown to five community farms throughout West Oakland.
In 2005, the organization also started a backyard-garden program to teach residents how to set up their own farms and maintain them. Thus far, the group says it has helped create 83 residential gardens. Ms. Finnin, executive director of City Slicker, says the organization's goal is to cultivate about 77 acres of land in Oakland.
As of last year, the group said it had accomplished about 2%, or 1.28 acres, of its objective. Most of the group's funding comes from donations and individual contributions; its 2008 budget is about $150,000. "They've not only saved me money," says one participant, Lyzz Parker, "they've really improved my health."
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