The struggle to save these particular five acres of community gardening land from corporate development continues. However, there are members of our collective who are farming nearby that you can support through this new website:
http://www.drumlinfarmcoop.com/
!March Fourth Comrades!
Sprouting Artists of Drumlin Reception
Fri. March 4th, 6:00 - 10:00 pm, Fitchburg City Hall, 5520 Lacy Road
6:00 - 6:30 pm Meet and Greet, Refreshments including tamales prepared by Celia Barrera and friends
6:30 - 7:00 pm Welcome by John Peck, Family Farm Defenders and Greeting by Jay Allen, Mayor of Fithcburg
7:00 -7:30 pm Music from Son Mudanza, fusing the cultural heritage of Son Jarocho from Veracruz, Mexico with Chicano activism in the spirit of resistance, solidarity and empowerment!
7:30 - 8:00 pm Future Vision for Drumlin Farm, presented by Michael Goldsby, Drumlin Farm producers Co-op, and Ed Kuharski, green design architect
8:00 - 8:15 pm Family Farm Defenders Award Ceremony to Drumlin Advocates
8:15 - 8:45 pm Music from Thistle and the Thorns, spiked folk music sparking revolt!
8:45- 9:15 pm Drumlin video by Luciano of Brazen Productions, testimonials from gardeners, artists, and other Drumlin supporters
9:15 - 9:45 pm More Music from Son Mudanza
From January 20th-March 20th of 2011, the Sprouting Artists at Drumlin Gardens art show will be hanging at Fitchburg City Hall. Thanks to Jay Allen, the mayor of Fitchburg. There will be a reception featuring local live music, amazing food and Luciano’s video documentary of the struggle to save the gardens from the Alexander Company’s plans to turn them into commercial development.
If you would like to submit art to this show, please contact John Peck at jepeck@wisc.edu. The deadline for new submissions is January 15th. Please include a statement about your piece and an artist’s bio. Your piece need not be specifically about Drumlin, but should focus on the promotion of urban agriculture.
From September 1st-September 15th, art from the Drumlin collection will be featured in the Red Gym as part of MECha’s and the Multicultural Student Center’s celebration of art and resistance. Join us for the opening reception at the 2nd floor art gallery located at 716 Langdon Street, from 6-8 PM on September 1st.
Here is how MECha describes itself:
Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA) is a student organization that promotes higher education, cultura, and historia. MEChA was founded on the principles of self-determination for the liberation of our people. We believe that political involvement and education is the avenue for change in our society.
Come view the art of 14 citizen artists at the Electric Earth Cafe on Friday, April 23rd from 6-9 PM while enjoying LIVE MUSIC by Son Mudanza and Thistle and the Thorn and video by Luciano of Brazen Video Productions.
546 West Washington Avenue in Madison
Cheese platters provided by Family Farm Defenders
Salsa and chips from the Drumlin Farm Producers’ Co-op
Sign up for your 2010 gardening spot at this art reception!
Come celebr
ate the birthday of Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers, while celebrating the upcoming season at Drumlin Community Gardens.
We will share food (bring a dish to pass), swap seeds and exchange ideas for the gardens this 2010 season. Garden plot applications will be available at this gathering and online on this web site by March 20th so stay tuned!
If you have questions, please call 608 262 9036 and leave a message for the Friends of Drumlin who will get back to you promptly.
We will talk about canvassing the Southdale neighborhood to match neighbors with plots at the garden, the long-term future of Drumlin and more at this gathering.
Todos son bienvenidos a esta celebracion del cumpleanos de Dolores Huerta y el comienzo de organizar la parcela comunitaria para esta epoca de sembrar! Llame al 608 316 5822 con sus preguntas!
What a wonderful art show reception we had last night at the Froth House, 11 North Allen Street! A big, warm thanks to Terese for hosting us in such a beautiful space.
We left bags of Just Coffee and jars of Drumlin salsa at the Froth House last night for folks who would like to support Drumlin but couldn’t make it to the opening. The art will be on the walls of the Froth for the rest of March so stop in for a cup of coffee, admire the art and get yourself some coffee and salsa!
Hello!
It has been a long time since we have updated this site and lots of exciting new things have happened. For one, we are getting ready to plant again this season with a possible purchase of the gardens by Madison Community Co-operatives on the horizon! It is still not certain, but we are hoping for the best as MCC continues to negotiate with the Alexander Company.
If you would like to sign up for a plot at Drumlin Community Garden for the 2010 season, contact Paula at 608 217 0541 or by email at: pjbrotski@uwalumni.com
To learn more about this historic struggle for the land, come one, come all to the Sprouting Artists at Drumlin Gardens traveling art show. Art by 14 different area artists on the walls of the Froth House for the month of March. 11 North Allen Street, right next to West High School.
On March 11th from 5-9 PM gather at the Froth House to meet and greet with the artists and hear testimonials from gardeners about their experiences at Drumlin. Eat salsa grown and prepared by the Drumlin Producers Co-op, enjoy organic, cruelty-free cheese and crackers provided by Family Farm Defenders and hear the music of Son Mudanza http://www.myspace.com/sonmudanza and Thistle http://www.myspace.com/thistlespace There will be video shown by Luciano of Blazen Video Productions, documenting our movements to save the gardens.
Spring is coming! Time to awaken the gardens again and get ready to plant!
A Good Food Manifesto for America
By Will Allen
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Growing Power
5500 W. Silver Spring Dr.
Milwaukee WI 53218
Phone: (414) 527-1546
Fax: (414) 527-1908
www.growingpower.org
will@growingpower.org
I am a farmer. While I find that this has come to mean many other things to other people – that I have become also a trainer and teacher, and to some a sort of food philosopher – I do like nothing better than to get my hands into good rich soil and sow the seeds of hope.
So, spring always enlivens me and gives me the energy to make haste, to feel confidence, to take full advantage of another all-too-short Wisconsin summer.
This spring, however, much more so than in past springs, I feel my hope and confidence mixed with a sense of greater urgency. This spring, I know that my work will be all the more important, for the simple but profound reason that more people are hungry.
Published on Friday, April 17, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
by Jim Goodman
“Our lives are dependent on the sacrifice of the Campesinos”- Cesar Chavez
On April 17, 1996 1,500 members of Brazil’s MST, the Landless Peasants Movement, having been evicted from their farms two years earlier, marched to the state capitol in Para to demand a return of their land so they could again feed their families. Instead of meeting with government officials they were surrounded by police, who, using machine guns, killed 19 and seriously wounded 69.
Farmers, peasants, the indigenous and the landless are entitled to land only until the government or the corporate interests find a better use for it.
La Via Campesina, the international movement of the small farmer celebrates April 17 as the International day of Peasant’s Struggles. The struggle against the evictions, oppression and marginalization of the farmer. The commemoration of the struggles of Cesar Chavez, the United Farm Workers and the indigenous peoples of the world.
Those who farm in the US distance themselves from the term peasant, thinking it connotes a tenant, sharecropper, a small farmer or mere farm worker. I am a small farmer, a peasant and proud of it. Remember, roughly half of the worlds population are farmers who work the land and tend livestock. While I am a minority in the US, worldwide, I am part of the majority.
More »
The gardeners at the Drumlin Community Garden in Fitchburg can tell you about urban sprawl — they work next to it.
Take a drive. Begin in downtown Madison where businesses are bustling and pedestrians walk the streets, and head toward the edge of town. The change is imperceptible, but once you are in sprawl territory, you know it. The streets and buildings are arranged haphazardly, leading to vacant strip malls, parking lots, and monotonous subdivisions. It is the part that grows, without a plan, out of control. In Wisconsin, we have lost nearly 36 percent of farmland to development since 1950. Sprawl contributes to increased pollution, fragmented communities, and decreased land and water quality. Depressing is how I describe it.
To have survived and found a spark of life in this modern wasteland makes Drumlin Community Garden a bit magical. These 5 acres in northeast Fitchburg sit between two landscapes: the green swaths of farmland to the south, and the gray of poorly planned development everywhere else. Seen from a bird’s-eye view, Drumlin Community Garden is a last stronghold against the march of urban sprawl.
Sadly, these may be the last days for the garden if development presses on as planned. The question is whether the developer, the Alexander Co., will show social responsibility in the Southdale neighborhood.
More »
Check out today’s Isthmus article, complete with photos and a PDF of the letter sent by Mr. Vivian…
Bill Lueders on Wednesday 03/25/2009
Apprised that his rival in the race for Fitchburg mayor has linked him to domestic terrorists, Jay Allen has an interesting reaction: He laughs and laughs.
“He wrote that?” says Allen, a 14-year veteran of the Fitchburg Common Council, between guffaws. “Oh my God! That is just crazy. Just absolutely insane.”
Allen is referring to a March 9 fundraising letter (PDF) sent out by former Fitchburg Mayor Mark Vivian and obtained by Isthmus. The two men are vying for the open position of Fitchburg mayor in the April 7 election. Vivian, who was Fitchburg’s mayor from 1999 to 2003, tied for second place in the primary, and won a coin toss – seriously, that’s how it’s done – for the right to oppose Allen, the top vote-getter.
In his letter, before asking for contributions to beat back Ald. Allen’s nefarious designs, Vivian asserts:
“My opponent, Jay Allen, has introduced legislative action to use the City’s police powers to condemn land owned by the Novation Campus, and threaten 2.5 million dollars of your tax money to interfere in what should be a private matter between current tenants living illegally on Novation property and its owners. The illegal tenants have known ties to an organization identified on the U.S. Federal Government list of domestic terrorist groups.”
Grab the kids and run for cover! Can car bombings in McKee Park be far behind? Will deadly biological agents be added to the produce at the Agora Pavilion farmers market? Will Berbee and Promega become havens for sleeper cells?
Published: March 19, 2009
WASHINGTON — Michelle Obama will begin digging up a patch of the South Lawn on Friday to plant a vegetable garden, the first at the White House since Eleanor Roosevelt’s victory garden in World War II. There will be no beets — the president does not like them — but arugula will make the cut.
While the organic garden will provide food for the first family’s meals and formal dinners, its most important role, Mrs. Obama said, will be to educate children about healthful, locally grown fruit and vegetables at a time when obesity and diabetes have become a national concern.
“My hope,” the first lady said in an interview in her East Wing office, “is that through children, they will begin to educate their families and that will, in turn, begin to educate our communities.”
Here’s a great article about what’s possible when business leaders and government listen to the demands of the people. Hungry children? Out of work farmers? Struggling families? These questions are not impossible to answer, and if the politicians can’t figure it out, maybe it’s time to listen to the people who know: those affected by the crisis.
The questions we’re asking here are about whose interests are served by government spending and civic effort. Read on for a perspective from a city in Brazil that found a way to support local farmers and get food to people who need it.
(reposted from CommonDreams)
————
“To search for solutions to hunger means to act within the principle that the status of a citizen surpasses that of a mere consumer.” CITY OF BELO HORIZONTE, BRAZIL
In writing Diet for a Small Planet, I learned one simple truth: Hunger is not caused by a scarcity of food but a scarcity of democracy. But that realization was only the beginning, for then I had to ask: What does a democracy look like that enables citizens to have a real voice in securing life’s essentials? Does it exist anywhere? Is it possible or a pipe dream? With hunger on the rise here in the United States-one in 10 of us is now turning to food stamps-these questions take on new urgency.
To begin to conceive of the possibility of a culture of empowered citizens making democracy work for them, real-life stories help-not models to adopt wholesale, but examples that capture key lessons. For me, the story of Brazil’s fourth largest city, Belo Horizonte, is a rich trove of such lessons. Belo, a city of 2.5 million people, once had 11 percent of its population living in absolute poverty, and almost 20 percent of its children going hungry. Then in 1993, a newly elected administration declared food a right of citizenship. The officials said, in effect: If you are too poor to buy food in the market-you are no less a citizen. I am still accountable to you.
(follow links in titles for entire articles and audio extras)
Rebecca Smithers, consumer affairs correspondent
The Guardian, Thursday 19 February 2009
In the boom times of the 1980s, councils sold off allotments in their tens of thousands as it seemed no one in the Britain of conspicuous consumption could be persuaded to grow a single leek of their own. But as recession bites, the growing enthusiasm for homegrown veg has seen more than 100,000 people join waiting lists for a patch of land as demand hits an all-time high.
Today, following the initiative of chef and “real food” campaigner Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, the National Trust is throwing its weight behind a campaign to share unused land, creating up to 1,000 new plots for use as allotments or community gardens.
The National Trust is seeking to persuade every household, office and company to grow its own vegetables in a campaign that will create 1,000 allotments on its own land.
Gordon Brown is being urged to plant a vegetable patch at 10 Downing Street, and down the road the trust is to practise what it preaches by letting staff dig up the garden of its Westminster premises.
The trust has identified 40 sites that it hopes can be turned into allotments within three years, or where the former kitchen gardens of country houses can be restored and used to teach gardening skills.
Marv Balousek
608-252-6135
mbalousek@madison.com
Officials of the Alexander Co. said Monday they are willing to sell a controversial community gardens parcel near Rimrock Road to the city of Fitchburg.
The company, which is developing the 70-acre Novation Campus business park, also is willing to sign a lease with the Community Action Coalition to make the land available for community gardens this year and possibly in 2010.
“We want to provide a temporary solution,” said company president Joe Alexander. “The onus to provide a permanent location has to be on the neighborhood.”
From the Nine Springs E-Way, Drumlin can be seen on the right of the photo. The Big Pink sits in the trees, and the remaining woodland on the north edge of the Farm stands in contrast to the cleared area. To the left rise the crane and new construction of the Novation Campus. The Drumlin fields are out of view behind the trees.
[check out the original article at the Daily Cardinal]
By: Tom Hart /The Daily Cardinal - February 10, 2009
The red-orange sun was setting over the frozen marshes of beige and grey as I came around the pink stucco house perched on top of a hill in suburban Fitchburg. I understood why the Swedish immigrant who built the Arts and Crafts style home over 100 years ago had situated the front porch facing in that direction. The view was awe-inducing for a brief moment, but then it hit me: this could all be gone within a matter of months.
A Swedish master carpenter by trade, Albert Anderberg moved to Madison at the turn of the 20th century to help reconstruct the fire-ravaged Madison Capitol building. He picked out the perfect plot of land to build his house upon. The rich soil above the Fitchburg marshes provided a perfect space for a garden and the commute to the Capitol building was brief.
It hasn’t been updated in forever, but we’re putting a bunch of pictures in the gallery, so check back often for more inspiration to get yer garden on this year…
[Head over to the Wisconsin State Journal to see more photos and today's full article.]
Paula Brotski, a single mother and full-time UW-Madison student, remembers times when she didn’t have enough money to buy a carton of milk. But last summer, she and her son, Aden, always had fresh vegetables.
Their community garden plot at Drumlin Garden in Fitchburg yielded so much fresh produce that Aden, 7, earned his allowance going door to door selling basil to neighbors. And Brotski, 37, had enough tomatoes and other homegrown vegetables to last them through the winter.
But now the garden, like many farms before it, is being threatened by development.
(photos by Kyle McDaniel - State Journal)
