STARS COME OUT FOR FARMERS CELEBS SUPPORT KEEPING COMMUNITY GARDEN OPERATING.

Byline: BRENT HOPKINS Staff Writer

Farmers facing imminent eviction from their urban plots of land played the ultimate trump card Wednesday: They called folk singer Joan Baez and stuck her in a tree.

The Los Angeles South Central Farm has been an oddity for the past 14 years. Tilled by mostly Mexican and Central American immigrants amid warehouses and train tracks, the 14-acre plot stuck out as a verdant block in a drab, industrial sector off the Alameda corridor.

Created in the wake of the 1992 riots, the farm has a future that looks increasingly imperiled. An attempt to raise $16.35 million to buy the land from developer Ralph Horowitz came up $10 million short, paving the way for the closure of the more than 300 plots and creation of more industrial property.

Though the farmers' attorney vowed Wednesday to appeal an eviction order, they elected to augment their legal strategy by bringing in folk singers and movie stars.

``Do I have to get all of Hollywood down here to save this place?'' said Tezozomoc, an organizer in the struggle to keep the area open.

To plead for money and support from City Hall, the one-name farmer assembled an unusual scene beneath a walnut tree in the middle of the farm plots.

Slide guitar ace Ben Harper arrived with actress-wife Laura Dern to speak up, actress Daryl Hannah read some prepared remarks, while a ponytailed former Santa Monica mayor eagerly anticipated some possible civil disobedience.

Up amid the branches, Baez, whose music fueled many a 1960s protest, dangled on a small platform a few boughs away from renowned tree-sitters Julia ``Butterfly'' Hill and John Quigley. Though the folk singer said she'd eventually have to go home and leave the tree-sitting to her more seasoned counterparts, she praised the farm as an important cultural icon and sang a few powerful bars of ``We Shall Not Be Moved'' in Spanish to illustrate her point.

Hill spent more than 700 days aloft to save a 100-year-old redwood in Northern California, and Quigley gained notoriety for his two months in an old oak tree in Santa Clarita in 2002. The tree was moved rather than chopped down.

``This farm is irreplaceable and priceless,'' Hill said, occupying the more precarious of the pair of perches. ``It's the heart and soul of South Central, it's the heart and soul of Los Angeles, it's the heart and soul of this community.''

To Lucy Maldonado, who's worked the land for the past 10 years, the farm represents a link to the past and a place where her kids can run around freely. Amid rows of cactus, paplotl, pipicha and alachi, a collection of more than 150 different indigenous plants, vines and herbs, she grows food she couldn't otherwise find at the grocery store.

``It's important because it's something for our children,'' she said in Spanish. ``They can learn about the land and their culture here. We can get the food we need.''

But to Horowitz, who bought the plot in the early 1980s and has since seen it shuffle back and forth in a confusing series of deals with the city, the farm represents a property dispute. As the rightful owner of the land, he wants to be able to develop it however he sees fit.

``They've been on the land for 14 years for free now,'' he said. ``It's time for them to say thank you instead of demanding to stay.''

Since the funds weren't available to meet Horowitz's asking price, Deputy Mayor Larry Frank said the city found eight acres at 111th Street and Central Avenue owned by the Department of Water and Power that could accommodate up to 200 farmers.

``We have 30 farmers here now to see how it works and hope to add the others on a lottery basis,'' Frank said. ``We're trying as best we can to accommodate the farmers, but the costs are higher than we anticipated, and it's difficult to raise money for the project.''

Harper, who said he wished he had ``super, deep, stupid dough'' to just buy the farm outright and keep it open, appealed to the landowner's sense of fairness. The guitarist implored Horowitz to lower his price.

``I bet he can recognize what this community has been through and what it means to them,'' he said. ``It is his land, but life isn't all about money. There are far more valuable things than money, and this is one of them.''

Staff Writer Rick Orlov contributed to this report.

brent.hopkins(at)dailynews.com

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CAPTION(S):

3 photos, map

Photo:

(1 -- color) John Quigley and Julia Hill protest the planned closing of the South Central community garden by sitting in a tree.

(2) Actress Daryl Hannah helped protest the planned destruction of the South Central Farm.

(3) Adrian Cardoza, 3, helps his mother harvest crops from their section of the South Central Farm on Wednesday. The farm, in which individual families tend small plots, is scheduled to be bulldozed by the land's owner.

Tina Burch/Staff Photographer

Map:

14-acre urban garden