In the new documentary Edible City, goats amble past the Jack in the Box on San Pablo Avenue. Carrots grow near freeways. Guerilla gardeners plant vegetables in front of Frank Ogawa Plaza, then, a year later, take over the Gill Tract Farm in Albany, armed with chickens and seedlings.
The film, which is screening around the Bay Area and online at EdibleCity.net, chronicles the urban farming renaissance over the last few years — the gradual takeover of empty lots and their conversion into organic gardens as a natural and practical response not only to Big Ag, but to urban problems like food scarcity and obesity.
“I need to constantly remind myself that the world has always been crazy,” says Antonio Roman Alcala of Alemany Farm in the film. “… Because you look around and it seems nuts. I went from ‘I’m going to escape to the country, I just need to learn how to grow food first’ to ‘The only place we’re going to solve these issues is the city.’”
Edible City Teaser from Edible City on Vimeo.
