Occupy the Farm

On Earth Day 2012, over two hundred protestors broke the locks protecting a ten acre parcel used by UC Berkeley agriculture researchers to "take back the tract."  They told the world this was the last class 1 agriculture soil in the urban East Bay that would soon be paved over to make way for a Whole Foods supermarket and Senior Living Center in the upcoming year.  In a statement to the press, "Occupy the Farm" implicated UC Berkeley for developing most of the original 104 acres of Gill Tract with a "deliberate disregard for public interest..."  But how valid were the occupiers' claims?