Photos from the Farmer's March on Wall Street

On December 4th there was a food policy protest in Manhattan. The farmers joining Occupy Wall Street was a co-production of Occupy Wall Street's food justice committee and Food Democracy Now.


In the afternoon people came to the La Plaza Cultural Community Garden to hear local farmers and activist explain everything from why a food policy that is based on $30 a barrel oil cannot sustain itself to how much local farmers have been hurt by this industrial food policy. After the gathering to hear speakers hundreds of farmers and their allies marched to Zuccotti Park to be seen and heard.



I went along with my camera and listened as I took a few pictures of the people demanding justice. For photos and stories about the gathering and march from the East Village to Zuccotti Park.

It was a holiday season event and a La Plaza Cultural pine tree was decorated.



La Plaza Cultural de Armando Perez is a green space and open air garden on 9th Street & Avenue C, a place for the people.



When you consider how many farms there are on the Lower East Side, it would seem that there was a surprisingly large turnout.



The speakers came up one by one to tell their stories. A list of speakers can be found at this link from The Paramus Post.

George Naylor - Iowa farmer and president of the National Family Farm Coalition.
Jim Gerritsen - Maine based farmer who was named one of 20 world visionaries by Utne Reader in 2011 and is the lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against Monsanto.
Karen Washington - Founder of City Farms Market and board member at NYC based organization Just Food.
Severine von Tscharner - Food advocate and producer of the film Green Horns, profiling young farmer entrepreneurs.
Jalal Sabur - Founding member of the Freedom Food Alliance and advocate working on the alliance of black urban communities with black rural farmers.
Mike Callicrate - Colorado cattle rancher, entrepreneur and rural advocate .
Andrew Faust - World renowned permaculture expert and educator.

Examiner.com took a closer look at some of the speakers and Jim Gerritsen even has a little piece in today's NYT, A Maine Farmer Speaks to Wall Street. But there is little else from the media and I didn't see any politicians there.

This was yesterday's view of the speakers from the upper balcony.



It seemed to me that the event was mostly to point out that this nation's agricultural system is at the center of the world's global warming crisis and that the government has supported big agriculture for too long at the expense of the family farms. A quote from the Food Democracy Now invite.

Occupy Wall Street was born out of a legitimate frustration with the collusion between Big Business and elected officials of the U.S. government. And nowhere is that collusion so great as in food and agricultural production, where 4 firms control 84% of beef packing, 66% of pork production and 1 company (Monsanto) controls more than 93% of soybeans and 80% of corn grown in the U.S.

Pointing out the fact that it was "our government" that has made our food unhealthy, moved our food thousands of miles from our homes and transformed our food supply into junk that needs so much salt, sugar, chemicals and preservatives. Food that is harmful to the population in a nation where big agricultural corporations own our government. The speakers spoke and the people responded.



It wasn't just about the speakers and it wasn't all about protest protest. There were tables with useful information for small farmers, one table that was all about mulch and most everyone was exchanging ideas. You could also pick up a tee shirt to spread the message.



There was a map of America where you could post your food issue in the section of the nation where you lived. The nice lady handing out the index cards was wearing one great hat.



It was all about the people.



And the message was very clear.



Two nice drummers I met who were waiting to help bring that message to Wall Street. One of them had previously the pleasure of playing outside of the Bloomberg mansion.



Here are a few photos from the march as the protesters walked along Houston Street.



You can learn a lot from farmers.



Like simple arithmetic that even the smartest politicians can't seem to grasp.




But there are two sides to every story.



I fully agreed with both sides of this sign.



The drummers were making noise.



People were being heard.



Some were having fun.



And the march moved on, to Zuccotti Park.



There were many other topics at a gathering that was about the benefits of locally grown food. One topic discussed was the horrors of Monsanto and genetically modified seeds. Seeds that are not owned by the farmers who grew the plants that provided the seeds but are the patented property of Monsanto. Stories of how this large corporation with the help of the government has created a hostage situation for small family farms that never wanted anything to do with Monsanto.

So at the end of the march, when the protesters reached Zuccotti Park, there was a seed exchange. Free seeds were handed out, heirloom seeds and seeds that were cross pollinated by farmers, anything but the patented property of some major corporation.

The whole day was all about people helping other people. It turned out to be a good day for the people.

July in Riverdale Sunsets

Riverdale is the very quiet Bronx neighborhood where Archie, Jughead, Betty and Veronica come from. I often attempt to transform Riverdale into the Key West of New York City sunsets. From my window you can see the Hudson River and then the New Jersey Palisades. In this diary you can see the best 31 days of sunsets I've ever seen and the views have been whittled down to just 88 photos.

Because a year ago last week I wrote The Riverdale Tornado: A Disaster Photo Diary I want to start off with an old sunset photo. It took just about one minute for 850 trees between my window and the river to die that day. Here is a photo of where the trees met the water in the end of July of 2010. You can compare the present tree line in the photos below.



But here is the view yesterday afternoon to see the new treeline and as an excuse to show what the Palisades looks like when the sun is shining on the escarpment. Before the tornado the steeple of the Spellman Retreat House looked like a church in the wilderness. The view has changed on this side of the river but across the water the Palisades still seems like it has been spared from the white men's footprint. That is what I love most about my view.



These July sunsets from the Bronx are for my Mom, my Dad and my neighbor, who I think just watched her very first month of sunsets. As this long hot month began I had an elevator conversation with that neighbor who lives in the same apartment line and has almost the same view as I do. Inquiring about the Nikon D7000 hanging from my neck, I explained that I have no photographic specialty but the last on my list was "our wonderful views of sunsets."



To explain why she had never watched a sunset from her window she said "If you see one, you've seen them all." So in less than fifteen floors I tried to summarize eighteen years of sunsets from my window. I was feeling a bit like a sunset missionary as the conversation didn't end with the elevator ride. She was fascinated and wanted to continue the sunset conversation in the lobby but I was all out of steam and anxious to get out in the sunshine.

My Dad, he is pretty much the same way. He closes the western blinds to keep the Florida sun from fading the furniture. Now Mom, she calls on the phone when there is a nice sunset to watch from her Ocean County, New Jersey kitchen. Often we have the same view. Sometimes ninety miles makes a big difference.

And now the July sunset and weather history for the Bronx. I've never actually been able to pin down a best month for sunsets but since July and August are usually the months with the most rain and that rain is most often late afternoon rain storms after steaming hot days, I never thought July would be in the running. Perhaps it was the extreme heat or maybe July is the best month for sunset views.

I often wish I could write what was going on in these diaries on the night of each sunset but I never remember. This month was easy. With each passing day, whatever respect Americans still had left for the elected officials in Washington, it seemed like that respect was seeing a final dull sunset. But on July 1st as I took these three, I was wondering if my neighbor a few floors below was watching her first Skyview sunset.







July 2nd, opportunity knocks. I was working and on a well timed coffee break but without a camera. I asked one of my co-workers "May I borrow your telephone?" Snap, snap, snap followed by "Will you email these to me?" Sundown on West 65th Street.







On July 3rd the maximum temperature was 74° and there was almost an inch of cooling rain. After the July heat wave such a day is hard to recall. The end of a dull but cool day.



But the Fourth of July afterglow offered a fireworks show.









The 5th of July, that always reminds me of Christopher Reeve, had an orange glow with a crescent moon for the end of the show.









And on July 6th, we were in the pink. Frida Kahlo was born on the 6th of July "They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn't. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality."













July 7th began a two day heat wave that nobody remembers. 92° was the high on the first day of the month that the thermometer broke ninety. Seems like a cake walk now. Obscured by clouds, it was an early sunset.







July 9th I remember well. With the temperature down to 88° I got out of the apartment for a three island tour followed by Patsy's Pizza. Then I came home to a big sail boat, the rays of the sun and the shadow of the Palisades on the water.



And an interesting vertical cloud that stayed through the whole sunset show.



July 11th I was working but I saw an interesting view down at the end of 66th Street. So I hustled the two blocks with my pocket camera, then through Trump City and down under the West Side Highway to see what it looked like down by the riverside.







July 12th was a 93° day. It was a bright clear day with a bright clear finish.



July 13th was one of two days each year when the sunset is exactly aligned with the grid of streets in Manhattan. It is called Manhattanhenge and as usual I remembered but was to lazy to go downtown. The sunset from my window didn't line up with nything in particular but dinner at home was tasty.







July 14th, bright sun and a bright moon.





July 15th, the sun came through the clouds for a bright orange mid-July finish.











July 16, the real beginning of the heat wave.



July 17, a hot summer day but the heat was just getting started.



July 18th seems like a cool view but looks can be deceiving. Smoking hot, 95° was the high on that hazy, hot and humid day.







July 19th, air so thick you could cut it with a knife. The maximum temperature and the maximum humidity matched that day. 94° and 94% offered a sun that set into a blue soup.









July 20th, only 89° for the high but once again the sun actually set into a fog of humidity.







July 21th, 97° and once again the sun set well above the horizon into low lying humidity.



July 22nd, 104° without the heat index. The record was set for the date and that day registered as the second-hottest day in the city's history.



July 23th, down to 100° what a relief? It was so hot "that Anthony Wiener went back to Congress for the cold shoulder."







July 24th, down to 91° and it felt really great! I turned off the air conditioners, threw open the windows and took a long walk in a steaming hot forest felling like it was a soft and cool day. The haze that prevented the sun from making the horizon was finally gone.











July 25th was an amazing view. It was the day that the New York heat wave really broke and it cooled off so fast that steam could be seen rising out of the Palisades. The clouds also seemed to be reacting to the violent change in the weather.











July 26th, just before a welcomed rainstorm there was some good rays.







July 28th was a great view.







With a nice golden afterglow.





But on July 29th in the pouring rain, I was very pleased to get this shot.



And then the sky cleared for the sun. It didn't stop raining so the view seemed a bit hazy but a sunset in the pouring rain is a very rare view.













July 30th was another perfect day for a walk in the park.



And yesterday July 31th seemed like the perfect afternoon for an end of month sunset.



But the clouds rolled in and July sunsets ended early.



I think I picked a good month to talk my neighbor into opening her blinds and watching the sunsets. If she did watch I doubt she will be saying "If you see one, you've seen them all." Or perhaps I'm just too visual.