Dan Stormer, Patrick Dunlevy, & Cornelia Dai
- Hadsell and Stormer, Inc.: (626) 585-9600
*For copy of court ruling, please call Carrie – (626) 585-9600

PRESS RELEASE

JUDGE ALARCON THROWS OUT RALPH HOROWITZ’S LAWSUIT
AGAINST THE SOUTH CENTRAL FARMERS

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Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Alarcon has dismissed the lawsuit developer Ralph Horowitz filed on February 23rd,2006 to retaliate against the South Central Farmers Feeding Families for having filed suit against him and the City of Los Angeles in order to save a 14-acre community farm in South Los Angeles. When the Farmers filed their lawsuit in 2003, they obtained a preliminary injunction that prevented the demolition of the 350 farm plots on the land. Mr. Horowitz and the City appealed the order granting the injunction, and in June of last year, the Court of Appeal reversed the order granting the injunction. In February of this year, Mr. Horowitz sued the South Central Farmers organization and 14 of the individual farmers contending that they had abused the legal system by obtaining the preliminary injunction. In his lawsuit, Mr. Horowitz sought $645,199.22 in damages and $84,546,50 in attorneys’ fees.

Using a special statute designed to protect the right to free speech and public participation, the Farmers argued that the Horowitz lawsuit was merely an attempt to intimidate and punish them for having filed a lawsuit contesting the City’s sale of the property to Mr. Horowitz. In a written decision mailed to the parties late last week, Judge Alarcon agreed with the Farmers and granted their motion to dismiss the lawsuit. In a 13-page opinion containing numerous citations to the law regarding abuse of process, the judge ruled that the lawsuit was a “Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation” and threw it out of court. “This was nothing more than a blatant attempt by Horowitz to use his money and power to abuse poor people,” says Dan Stormer, attorney for the South Central Farmers.

“The South Central Farmers are ecstatic about finally having found a small bit of justice in the legal system. Mr. Horowitz’s SLAPP lawsuit has strengthened our resolve to take the principled stand that we have been taking for the last 15 years in our community,” said Tezozomoc, spokesperson for the South Central Farmers.

Reclaiming the southcentral community farm would reweave together the permaculture farming safety net so ruthlessly destroyed by CAT bulldozers under the orders of Ralph Horowitz..

In this age of worsening petroleum resource wars (ie., US military occupation of Iraq), salinization of Central Valley soils from industrial agriculture's irrigation, continued dependency on petrochemically derived pesticides/herbicides/fertilizers (aka; pesticide treadmill) and the ecological threats of genetic tampering (GMO/GE), the permaculture methods of south central community farm are key examples of the safety net that people will require in the near future to remain alive..

The Permaculture Institute of Northern CA is concerned that commercial industrial agriculture will not be able to maintain the nutritional needs of the population for much longer. To prevent a massive die-off from famine after collapse of industrial agriculture systems, it is most important that community permaculture farms recieve support and are multiplied into other communities. That also means that willful destruction of a very successful permaculture farm like south central farm is contributing to possible genocide from famine in the future..

From Permaculture Institute;

"Commercial agriculture, says Livingston, is not sustainable. "The more we buy food that's been produced in a way that's creating soil loss and ground water pollution, and then sucks water out of the ground to irrigate it, and then salts the soil as a result of evaporation of that irrigation -- the more we pay that, we are buying our demise right there. I don't want to sound doom and gloom, but every single culture that was based on irrigation of dry lands has failed. Every single one." Eventually, she says, "Deserts are created, and, through convection, they actually propagate themselves, they spread." She points to civilizations of the once Fertile Crescent (now Iran and Iraq) and the Sahara. She talks of our own Central Valley, now dealing with created salinized soil problems.

The permaculture alternative is an abundance of family gardens -- "every garden can produce more food than the inhabitants can consume" -- and local, small-scale, bio-regionally adapted farms -- "the bread baskets that should be surrounding cities and towns." The goal is to provide for human needs in the places we live, instead of importing everything. It is not only much more environmental friendly, but basic, common-sense food security, surprisingly rare in the age of globalization. "You support your local farmers first and foremost," Livingston insists."

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"Livingston smiles easily, in no hurry although consultations are scheduled for her afternoon. "It's important to recognize that we are a part of nature. That's the promise of permaculture, to reunite people back in the garden again."
"
read more on permaculture institute @;
http://www.westbynorthwest.org/summer02/dedanan.perm.sum02.shtml

and/or;

contact info:

Permaculture Institute of Northern California
P.O. Box 341
Point Reyes Station, CA 94956

htttp://www.permacultureinstitute.com

email: info@permacultureinstitute.com

It is most important to reclaim the southcentral farm and continue the tradition of permaculture community farm in LA and elsewhere!!

The saga of LA's southcentral community farm inspires me to write about the potential for a permaculture community farm of the future in every city/town/region, modeled after the southcentral community farm..

When talking of ecopsychology, we need to measure a culture's sanity based on their behavior as if the whole ecosystem matters. In the modern US, based on the dismissive attitudes and destructive actions taken against southcentral farm (y Iraq, y otras lugares), our culture is borderline psychotic. Madre Tierra, Mother Earth, Mama Africa, etc.. are all shared Earth-centered sanity concepts found in pre-Colombus Mexico, pre-colonialist Africa/Asia and pre-Christian Europe. Indigenous peoples throughout the planet recognized the need for a shared lifestyle that respects the biodiversity of Earth's ecosystems, healthy food given to us by our nurturing mother. Sanity is measured by living together on Madre Tierra as if our ecosystem is important for it's own sake AND our source of sustainance. What could be a better way to put aside differences in language (?Ingles vs. Espanol?), culture (?Catholicism vs. Protestantism?) and color-coded ethnicity (? "red, brown, yellow, black & white" ?) than celebrating our shared human heritage of permaculture, living our lives on Madre Tierra as if her well being is a priority..

That being said, the importance of restoring southcentral farm also applies to permaculture poultry, los pollos being raised free range without the suffocating disease factory farms..

This from sfimc about Foster Farms factory farmed poultry cruelty and the correlation between factory farmed poultry and avian flu outbreak..

This could be considered 'off topic' to any direct news about scfarm, though indicates the importance of restoring and reclaiming scfarm for it's unique contributions to permaculture farming methods, an urban classroom for sustainable, healthy agriculture..

entire article @;
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/09/20/18312855.php

Selling Foster Farms products, Berkeley Bowl Marketplace is the largest grocery store in Berkeley, California. After learning about the practices of the poultry company, the president of Berkeley Bowl, Glenn Yasuda, was ready to make a bold and creative move to protect chickens and educate consumers. The company is now posting a point-of-sale notice regarding the mistreatment of animals at Foster Farms.

In a letter to East Bay Animal Advocates (EBAA), Mr. Yasuda expressed his commitment to truth-in-advertising: “Informed customers will have a choice whether to buy Foster Farms chickens or not. If your notice is successful in convincing customers not to buy Foster Farms chickens, your objective has been met.”

In addition, EBAA has launched an online advertising campaign with http://www.Google.com to educate consumers in California, Oregon and Washington about animal abuse at Foster Farms.

Thank Berkeley Bowl for fostering the facts:
http://www.berkeleybowl.com/pages/contact.html
http://www.fosterfacts.net

added comment;

factory farmed poultry responsible for increased avian flu transmission

Berkeley Bowl is getting wise to the risks of avian flu (and other resistant microbe strains) coming from factory farmed produce. In another case of misplaced solutions for preventable crisises, Donald Rumsfeld promoted mass consumption of "Tamiflu" as an effective pharma product to treat human cases of avian flu outbreak..

Just as Bush's promotion of Eli Lilly pharma products for nationwide depression screening, the solutions prescribed by the corporatist regime usually falls short of success by a long shot..

The source of avian flu in poultry is most likely factory farming methods, where close quartered poultry can rapidly transmit antibiotic/antiviral resistant microbes to one another. The close living quarters in factory farm encourage the rapid evolution of fecal/feather habitat living pathogens and their fast transmission throughout the battery cages. This accelerated evolution amonst the microbe pathogens enables them to develop resistance to the myriad of antibitoc/antiviral pharma products that the poultry are forced to consume..

Peter Singer has more info on avian flu;

"As University of Ottawa virologist Earl Brown put it after a Canadian outbreak of avian influenza, ``high-intensity chicken rearing is a perfect environment for generating virulent avian flu viruses''.

Other experts agree. In October, a United Nations task force identified as one of the root causes of the bird flu epidemic, farming methods ``which crowd huge numbers of animals into small spaces''.

Supporters of factory farming often point out that bird flu can be spread by free-range flocks, or by wild ducks and other migrating birds, who may join the free-range birds to feed with them or drop their feces while flying overhead. But, as Mr Brown has pointed out, viruses found in wild birds are generally not very dangerous.

On the contrary, it is only when these viruses enter a high-density poultry operation that they mutate into something far more virulent. By contrast, birds that are reared by traditional methods are likely to have greater resistance to disease than the stressed, genetically similar birds kept in intensive confinement systems. Moreover, factory farms are not biologically secure. They are frequently infested with mice, rats, and other animals that can bring in diseases."

Singer's entire article @;
http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/20051114.htm

Peter Singer is reputed as a radical animal rights activist who believes that humans should avoid eating any meat whatsoever for ethical reasons, "eating animals is wrong, thus no meat". This stance causes many to dismiss any of Singer's critique of factory farming methods as based on this initial "no meat" premise. However, many farmers who endorse eating free range poultry also agree on the ravages of viral and bacteria transmissions occurs in factory farmed poultry regulary overdosed with antivirals like amantadine..

"In fact, the widespread use of the antiviral drug amantadine to control viral outbreaks in animals on Chinese farms has made bird flu drug-resistant, rendering the drug useless to protect humans.6 And the problem is not restricted to birds: Factory-farmed cows and pigs, who also live in crowded and unsanitary conditions, can get and spread influenza and similar viruses.7 Hans-Gerhard Wagner, a senior officer with the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization, has called the “intensive industrial farming of livestock” an “opportunity for emerging disease.” In other words, giant factory farms are veritable flu-making facilities.8 Learn more about how factory farming causes diseases to become drug-resistant."

article con'ts @;
http://www.goveg.com/birdflu.asp

The permaculture farmers are not happy being blamed by the authorities as the cause of avian flu outbreak when international research indicates that factory farms are the source of avian flu..

"However in a factory farm situation, perfect conditions
exist for a virus to mutate from a low pathogenic to a high
pathogenic form. Thousands of hosts (chickens) with near
identical genetic makeup, all the same age and size,
crowded in close conditions, allow a virus to kill its host,
and move onto the next victim with great speed and ease.
The HPAI virus depends on the factory farm system to
continue supplying it with new hosts through the vertically
integrated industrial poultry operations, linked to each
other via the global trade in live birds, eggs and virus contaminated
feed and manure."

downlowd flyer @;
http://www.factoryfarm.org/topic/poultry/facts/avian_flu_factsheet.pdf

also;
http://www.factoryfarm.org/topics/poultry/

Neither Tamiflu nor any other pharma product will protect humans and avians from the ravages of microbial pathogens, only a return to permaculture farming methods performed as if Madre Tierra mattered. Ironically, it is the small-scale outdoor permaculture poultry farms that are being blamed for avian flu, despite the culprit being factory farmed poultry..

"BARCELONA, Spain, February 27, 2006 (ENS) - Small-scale poultry farming and wild birds are being unfairly blamed for the bird flu crisis now affecting large parts of the world, according to a new report from an international nongovernmental organization based in Barcelona. The report says initiatives are multiplying to ban outdoor poultry, squeeze out small producers and restock farms with genetically modified chickens.

Instead, the transnational poultry industry is the root of the bird flu problem, says the report issued today by the organization GRAIN, which promotes the sustainable management and use of agricultural biodiversity based on people's control over genetic resources and local knowledge.

"Everyone is focused on migratory birds and backyard chickens as the problem," says Devlin Kuyek of GRAIN. "But they are not effective vectors of highly pathogenic bird flu. The virus kills them, but is unlikely to be spread by them."

Kuyek says the spread of industrial poultry production and trade networks have created ideal conditions for the emergence and transmission of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of bird flu."

read more @;
http://www.avianfluawareness.org/factoryfarming.htm

What we witness recently with the spinach E.coli recall is that industrial agriculture and factory farming are not the safest method available to provide the world's population with adequate nutrition. We need to dispell the prevalent myth that industrial agriculture is the only way to feed the world's population..

"Myth one: Industrial agriculture will feed the world

The truth:
World hunger is not created by lack of food but by poverty and landlessness, which deny people access to food. Industrial agriculture actually increases hunger by raising the cost of farming, by forcing tens of millions of farmers off the land, and by growing primarily high-profit export and luxury crops."

more industrial ag myths dispelled @;
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13900