For their own health and for that of the environment, we encourage people to eat a diet that is made up mostly of fresh, local, organic produce. Better yet if they can grow that food themselves. And even better if that fresh, organic food is being grown locally in one of the most blighted parts of an urban metropolis by people that reside there, and have been living far below the poverty level for decades.  That is the story of the 14-acre South Central Los Angeles Community Garden as told in Scott Hamilton Kennedy's new documentary "The Garden".

The film follows the 350 families and more than 3000 people that made up the South Central Farmers and shows the evolution of the farm from its birth during the aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles riots to a working, self-sustaining organic farm in the middle of a predominantly Hispanic immigrant and incredibly impoverished neighborhood in Los Angeles. Ultimately though, The Garden is not about the farm. The Garden is about the underclass in American society. It is the story of the way our cities treat immigrant populations, of backroom politics, of land developers with little conscience. It is a story of money, greed, poverty and power. And it is also the story of a group of people that nobody thought would have a voice, standing up to powerful interests and making themselves heard.

It is a film with both a sad and a happy ending. Due to greed, politics and broken promises, this green oasis was bulldozed in June of 2006. After years of court battles and just after these farmers, many of them impverished, in just over 5 weeks raised the more than $16 million asking price that the developer, Ralph Horowitz, (who bought the land back from the City in 2003 in a backroom, sweetheart deal that cost him the same $5 million the City had paid for it in 1988) had set, he refused to sell it to them. In addition, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who had campaigned for Mayor and won, in part on his support for the South Central farms, refused to get involved.

But the South Central Farmers did not give up. In fact, they bought 85 acres of land in Bakersfield, California, where they now run a Community Supported Agriculture farm. It will be a good two years before the farm is fully functional, however. And although the city did grant some 7.8 acres of land in the city for community farming, the loss of the incredible oasis that was the South Central farm is still felt. Farming in Bakersfield is not the same as having a local, community farm. And the 7.8 acres the city donated needs to be cultivated from scratch.

The 14 acres that were once the farm have sat empty for two years. The developer recently was approved for plans to construct a warehouse facility and distribution center with approximately 643,000 square feet of warehouse and ancillary support space in a 46-foot high, two-story structure on a 10.04 acres site. Interestingly, the city waived the need for an environmental impact study. The community is fighting the development and continues to appeal the decision to grant the land back to the developer in the first place through a secretive process that, as one judge put it, "didn't pass the smell test."

Ultimately, the story may not be as clearly about good and evil as the film portrays; the land was bought from Horowitz under imminent domain laws to build a trash incinerator that the community successfully fought and once he repurchased the land, he was paying a hefty sum of $25,000 a month in mortgage and insurance. Hamilton Kennedy clearly has an opinion about Horowitz and his greed, but to his credit, the film maker does not shy away from also showing the in-fighting among the farmers as the situation becomes increasingly stressful and dire.

In the end, the real villain may not be Horowitz at all. The real villain may be a City that has cared little for its poor, minority and immigrant communities and a system that placed a greater value on money and private interests than it did on the physical, psychological and environmental health of its most vulnerable residents and its poorest neighborhoods.