"The City Council voted Tuesday to eliminate the ban on selling homegrown produce, a relic of an era when cities wanted to distinguish themselves from rural areas.
But the old code, which was updated, has come into conflict with a growing but relatively new movement, urban farming. Urban farmers generally seek deeper connections to their food by growing it themselves, and the money helps. Kitty Sharkey harvested 80 pounds of heirloom tomatoes Tuesday from the 3-by-24-foot raised bed at her home in the Havenscourt neighborhood of East Oakland. She thinks she could make up to $400 at a farmers' market, which would help her finances.
"A little bit more money makes it more enticing," said Sharkey, 47, who devotes time to being an urban homesteader and growing almost all of her own food. "I might work a little harder on that winter garden."
Others saw a larger significance in the change.
"It's the first step in legitimizing urban agriculture in Oakland," said Esperanza Pallana, 37, who has a 1,200-square-foot backyard plot in the Grand Lake neighborhood and has been pushing for the change. "It's also preserving our right to grow our own food for ourselves and our community."
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