In the 1930s, Larpenteur Avenue on St. Paul's northern border was the favored getaway route for bank robbers seeking sanctuary in the Saintly City. Now a different kind of conspiracy--crop mobs of urbanites looking for a chance to dig in the dirt--is finding what it needs along the same road, on the University of Minnesota's St. Paul campus. The
Twin Cities Daily Planet explains:
"Though sustainable small-scale farming may be seen as a return to low-tech methods of growing food, Anderson is organizing Crop Mobs using very contemporary mediums. One third of Saturday's volunteers signed up through his Fair Food Fight website or follow his Twitter feed, Anderson said, another third came through the Twin Cities Crop Mob page on Facebook, and the rest were students.
"Fair Food Fight started as an online blog and conversation sponsored by Equal Exchange, an employee owned cooperative committed to fair trade relationships with farmers for crops like coffee and chocolate. River Cook, an Equal Exchange sales representative who participated Saturday, said that Fair Food Fight and the Crop Mobs are 'our way of making a local connection to the work we've done internationally.'
"After cleaning up, the Cornercopia Crop Mob air-dried while eating lunch donated by the University of Minnesota's Campus Club in a classroom. The mostly urban twenty- and thirty-something volunteers filled up tables and talked with those around them. Conversations ranged from the mainstreaming of organic products to farming experiences and plans to attend future Crop Mobs."
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here.