UAI

Urban Agriculture Initiative (Stage of Proposal)

The inefficiency of the capitalist economic system is crystal clear for us to see here in Ireland since the so-called Celtic Tiger has been neutered. Vacant apartment blocks, crumbling half finished ghost estates, deteriorating infrastructure, zombie hotels and unused industrial units plague our cities and landscape. A consequence of a market system which allocates human and material resources for the purposes of profit and a quick buck. However, beyond the physical structures which we see wasted are the hundreds of acres of land in the Dublin area alone which was purchased by the Irish entrepreneurial class and primed for the construction of yet more Lego blocks, and but is now left idle due to a downturn in the capitalist market.

The working class which has been left to pick up the pieces and bail out these entrepreneurial parasites are facing mass unemployment and significant increases in the cost of their weekly shopping bill. With increasing mortgage repayments, fuel and heating costs, many people in Ireland, beneath the glitz and glam of existent societal wealth are in fact going hungry. As but one recent example: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056198493″

The Dublin Citizens Defence Committee believes it is both politically and morally just to liberate these idle lands for the purposes of helping communities grow their own food in these increasingly desperate times. It is no good to simply distribute food to those in need, as many charitable organisations do. The CDC, as one of its initial initiatives to be implemented, will attempt to organise communities towards empowerment and activism through urban agricultural schemes. This UAI will be implemented in tandem with other initiatives to encourage and develop community involvement.