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I live in South Central.

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This is South Central:

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liquor stores,

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fast food,

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vacant lots.

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So the city planners, they get together and they figure

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they're going to change the name South Central to make it represent something else,

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so they change it to South Los Angeles,

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like this is going to fix what's really going wrong in the city.

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This is South Los Angeles. (Laughter)

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Liquor stores,

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fast food,

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vacant lots.

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Just like 26.5 million other Americans,

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I live in a food desert,

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South Central Los Angeles,

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home of the drive-thru and the drive-by.

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Funny thing is, the drive-thrus are killing more people than the drive-bys.

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People are dying from curable diseases

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in South Central Los Angeles.

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For instance, the obesity rate in my neighborhood

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is five times higher than, say, Beverly Hills,

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which is probably eight, 10 miles away.

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I got tired of seeing this happening.

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And I was wondering, how would you feel

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if you had no access to healthy food,

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if every time you walk out your door you see the ill effects

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that the present food system has on your neighborhood?

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I see wheelchairs bought and sold

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like used cars.

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I see dialysis centers popping up like Starbucks.

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And I figured, this has to stop.

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So I figured that the problem is the solution.

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Food is the problem and food is the solution.

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Plus I got tired of driving 45 minutes round trip

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to get an apple that wasn't impregnated with pesticides.

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So what I did, I planted a food forest in front of my house.

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It was on a strip of land that we call a parkway.

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It's 150 feet by 10 feet.

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Thing is, it's owned by the city.

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But you have to maintain it.

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So I'm like, "Cool. I can do whatever the hell I want,

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since it's my responsibility and I gotta maintain it."

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And this is how I decided to maintain it.

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So me and my group, L.A. Green Grounds, we got together

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and we started planting my food forest, fruit trees,

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you know, the whole nine, vegetables.

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What we do, we're a pay-it-forward kind of group,

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where it's composed of gardeners from all walks of life,

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from all over the city, and it's completely volunteer,

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and everything we do is free.

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And the garden, it was beautiful.

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And then somebody complained.

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The city came down on me,

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and basically gave me a citation saying that I had to remove my garden,

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which this citation was turning into a warrant.

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And I'm like, "Come on, really?

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A warrant for planting food on a piece of land

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that you could care less about?" (Laughter)

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And I was like, "Cool. Bring it."

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Because this time it wasn't coming up.

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So L.A. Times got ahold of it. Steve Lopez did a story on it

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and talked to the councilman,

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and one of the Green Grounds members,

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they put up a petition on Change.org,

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and with 900 signatures, we were a success.

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We had a victory on our hands.

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My councilman even called in and said how they endorse

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and love what we're doing.

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I mean, come on, why wouldn't they?

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L.A. leads the United States in vacant lots that the city actually owns.

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They own 26 square miles of vacant lots.

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That's 20 Central Parks.

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That's enough space to plant 725 million tomato plants.

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Why in the hell would they not okay this?

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Growing one plant will give you 1,000, 10,000 seeds.

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When one dollar's worth of green beans

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will give you 75 dollars' worth of produce.

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It's my gospel, when I'm telling people, grow your own food.

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Growing your own food is like printing your own money.

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(Applause)

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See, I have a legacy in South Central.

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I grew up there. I raised my sons there.

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And I refuse to be a part of this manufactured reality

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that was manufactured for me by some other people,

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and I'm manufacturing my own reality.

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See, I'm an artist.

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Gardening is my graffiti. I grow my art.

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Just like a graffiti artist, where they beautify walls,

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me, I beautify lawns, parkways.

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I use the garden, the soil, like it's a piece of cloth,

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and the plants and the trees,

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that's my embellishment for that cloth.

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You'd be surprised what the soil could do

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if you let it be your canvas.

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You just couldn't imagine how amazing a sunflower is

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and how it affects people.

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So what happened?

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I have witnessed my garden become a tool for the education,

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a tool for the transformation of my neighborhood.

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To change the community, you have to change the composition of the soil.

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We are the soil.

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You'd be surprised how kids are affected by this.

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Gardening is the most therapeutic

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and defiant act you can do,

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especially in the inner city.

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Plus you get strawberries.

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(Laughter)

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I remember this time,

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there was this mother and a daughter came,

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it was, like, 10:30 at night, and they were in my yard,

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and I came out and they looked so ashamed.

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So I'm like, man, it made me feel bad that they were there,

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and I told them, you know, you don't have to do this like this.

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This is on the street for a reason.

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It made me feel ashamed to see people

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that were this close to me that were hungry,

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and this only reinforced why I do this,

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and people asked me, "Fin, aren't you afraid

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people are going to steal your food?"

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And I'm like, "Hell no, I ain't afraid they're gonna steal it.

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That's why it's on the street.

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That's the whole idea.

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I want them to take it, but at the same time,

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I want them to take back their health."

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There's another time when I put

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a garden in this homeless shelter in downtown Los Angeles.

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These are the guys, they helped me unload the truck.

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It was cool, and they just shared the stories

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about how this affected them and how

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they used to plant with their mother and their grandmother,

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and it was just cool to see how this changed them,

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if it was only for that one moment.

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So Green Grounds has gone on to plant

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maybe 20 gardens.

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We've had, like, 50 people come to our dig-ins

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and participate, and it's all volunteers.

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If kids grow kale, kids eat kale.

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(Laughter)

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If they grow tomatoes, they eat tomatoes. (Applause)

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But when none of this is presented to them,

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if they're not shown how food affects the mind and the body,

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they blindly eat whatever the hell you put in front of them.

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I see young people

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and they want to work,

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but they're in this thing where they're caught up --

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I see kids of color and they're just on this track

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that's designed for them,

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that leads them to nowhere.

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So with gardening, I see an opportunity

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where we can train these kids

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to take over their communities,

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to have a sustainable life.

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And when we do this, who knows?

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We might produce the next George Washington Carver.

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but if we don't change the composition of the soil,

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we will never do this.

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Now this is one of my plans. This is what I want to do.

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I want to plant a whole block of gardens

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where people can share in the food in the same block.

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I want to take shipping containers

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and turn them into healthy cafes.

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Now don't get me wrong.

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I'm not talking about no free shit,

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because free is not sustainable.

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The funny thing about sustainability,

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you have to sustain it.

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(Laughter) (Applause)

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What I'm talking about is putting people to work,

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and getting kids off the street, and letting them know

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the joy, the pride and the honor in growing your own food,

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opening farmer's markets.

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So what I want to do here,

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we gotta make this sexy.

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So I want us all to become ecolutionary renegades,

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gangstas, gangsta gardeners.

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We gotta flip the script on what a gangsta is.

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If you ain't a gardener, you ain't gangsta.

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Get gangsta with your shovel, okay?

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And let that be your weapon of choice.

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(Applause)

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So basically, if you want to meet with me,

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you know, if you want to meet,

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don't call me if you want to sit around in cushy chairs

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and have meetings where you talk about doing some shit --

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where you talk about doing some shit.

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If you want to meet with me, come to the garden

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with your shovel so we can plant some shit.

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Peace. Thank you.

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(Applause)

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Thank you. (Applause)