Food Deserts: implications and solutions - a new approach to analyzing and tackling food insecurity
GLOBALIZATION TECHNOLOGY & SOCIAL CHANGE
Food deserts are defined according to where a person resides without taking into account places that they travel regularly, like work or school. Using Lehman College as a center point, my research uncovered many ways in which the community has come together to tackle this issue.
Source: http://www.zdnet.com/article/food-desert-a-lazy-explanation-for-obesity-in-poorer-neighborhoods/
A food desert is a low-income census tract where either a substantial number or share of residents has low access to a supermarket or large grocery store. "Low income" tracts are defined as those where at least 20 percent of the people have income at or below the federal poverty levels for family size, or where median family income for the tract is at or below 80 percent of the surrounding area's median family income. Tracts qualify as "low access" tracts if at least 500 persons or 33 percent of their population live more than a mile from a supermarket or large grocery store (for rural census tracts, the distance is more than 10 miles. 1
Food deserts have been a hot topic since the 90’s when policy makers and social scientists began to try to understand the relationship between access to healthy, whole foods and public health. A number of studies have resulted which examine the role of the location of a person’s home and how that correlates to various other factors such as disease and school achievement.
Source: https://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/coach_gs_teaching_tips/2010/09/rise_and_shine.html
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Inability to access healthy, whole foods has consequences for students. Residing in a food desert has been shown to negatively affect achievement scores in elementary school children. 5 College age students are also affected. In one study, more than half of the students described themselves as unable to access adequate food at some time during the prior 30 days. 6
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Food insecurity is also an issue that affects millions of Americans on a daily basis. An estimated 12.3 percent of American households were food insecure at least some time during the year in 2016, meaning they lacked access to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members. 7 According to a recent study, Hunger on Campus, approximately half of the students surveyed reported being food insecure at some time during the prior 30 days despite the majority of them working at least part time. 6
Research
In my research, Lehman College was used as the center point in the same way that a residence would be used in determining its location in a food desert. Because more than half of CUNY’s full time undergraduate students receive enough need based student aid to pay for their full tuition 8, and because of Lehman’s geographic location in an underserved area of the Bronx, it was selected as the study site. In-person visits were made to surrounding supermarkets and bodegas to accumulate information regarding food availability and cost. Visits to the campus food pantry were also completed and assessment of the partnership between Corbin Hill Food Project and Lehman College was also conducted. Additional research was conducted regarding ways in which food is secured in areas where it is not readily available such as through community gardens and guerilla gardening. All of my research was completed during the fall of 2017.
Screenshot by Patricia Novelli from Google Maps
Since most other studies of an individual’s access to healthy foods are done based on where a person lives, they don’t take into account other areas that the person regularly travels to, like school or work. Using Lehman as a center point, I looked at grocery stores that were within one half of a mile walking distance. I found many supermarkets, bodegas, and fruit and vegetable markets within that range. I decided to focus on the stores that had the widest selection.
Of the four with the widest selections, one was a fruit and vegetable market, one was a small grocery store, and two were supermarkets, C-Town and Morton Williams. All of these stores sold fresh produce, whole grains, and dried and canned beans. One market in particular located at 14e Bedford Park Boulevard was the smallest by square footage, but it offered a vast variety of fruits, vegetables, types of rice, nuts, and beans. The prices here were almost always better than larger supermarkets..
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Screenshot by Patricia Novelli from Google Maps
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"Why is the cost of local and organic foods often higher than prices at the big supermarket? Because it is based on the true price of producing food, unaided by government subsidies of commodity crops, cheap oil, and underpaid (and under-benefited) workers. We pay more for our food than we realize because at tax time we pay for those subsidies. Small family and organic farms rarely get the subsidies, and they often pay their workers a living wage." 9
An extreme example of this is bananas grown in the Dominican Republic where about ninety percent of the banana plantation workers are from Haiti. They do not have legal status in the Dominican Republic, so they are often taken advantage of by being paid a less than living wage and living in slum conditions. This enables companies to sell their bananas cheap to overseas markets. 10
Source: https://instituteforliteracystudies.org/alc-partners
I visited four times over the season. They offered kale, apples, beets, carrots, peppers, and collard greens. Their prices are similar to supermarket prices, but could not compare to the small market on Bedford Park Blvd. CHFP has offered farm shares where Lehman College is the pick-up site. This way, a student or faculty can be assured to access to farm fresh produce each week.
Lehman College has an “edible garden” which was founded in 2009 as a way to bring fresh produce to the Bronx, a low-income area. It is located on Goulden Avenue between the guard house and Gate 4. Many kinds of produce are grown here including tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers, and zucchini. They also offer a Gardening and Cooking class each summer that combines work in the garden with classroom instruction. 11
The Lehman College Food Bank was the idea of Suzette Ramsundar, associate director of campus life. “For many of our students, food insecurity is a really big problem,” explained Ramsundar. “Most of the students we see are international, and it’s because they can’t legally work and are not eligible for government services, such as SNAP.” Together with her students, they formed the food pantry. 12
As part of my research, I visited the food pantry. In order to receive food, you must have a student ID and make an appointment on the appointment website, https://lehmanfoodbank.setmore.com/ The pantry is located in the Student Life building in the basement. Every time I visited, I was asked if I had an appointment and was asked to show my student ID. I was allowed to take two grains which consisted of brown rice, white rice, corn flakes, oatmeal, or grits. I was also allowed three proteins, of which they had a few different kinds of canned beans. I was also encouraged to take five fruits and/or vegetables, which consisted of canned fruit in light syrup, applesauce, canned beets, and other canned vegetables. A student can save about 7 or 8 dollars a week by obtaining food from the pantry. The food provides about ten meals.
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Source: http://www.lehman.edu/news/Tackling-Food-Insecurity-at-Lehman-College.php
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While brown rice and oatmeal are good whole-food nutritional sources, canned vegetables cannot rival their fresh counterparts. On my first visit to the pantry, I was asked if I would like to see fresh fruits and vegetables available. I said that I would, and was asked to sign a form that others had also signed. I was told that a refrigerator would have to be purchased for the produce and the signatures were to show that the fresh produce was indeed wanted by the students. The Herbert H. Lehman Food Bank is located in Room 120 of the Student Life Building, next to the College radio station. The hours are Monday 9:30-11:30 a.m.; Wednesday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; and Thursday 1 a.m. to 4 p.m. 12
Community Gardens
Source: http://www.swaleny.org/
Mary Mattingly had a very innovative idea for Bronx residents to gain access fresh produce. Through a grant from A Blade of Grass, she pioneered a project called Swale. It is a garden located on a barge floating in the East River. The idea was that the barge could be moved to different places to offer free, fresh produce to community members who otherwise wouldn’t have access. Foraging on city owned land is illegal. But by creating the garden on a floating barge, the Swale project found a loophole.
Many people who were born and raised in the Bronx are not familiar with how to grow food. Many have never picked a fruit of vegetable from the vine or had their hands in the soil. Visiting the barge brings them in direct contact with how food is grown. According to Mattingly, once people begin to care about the plants, they will begin to care about the soil and the water. She asks us to imagine what it would be like if access to food were a right. 13
Many people who were born and raised in the Bronx are not familiar with how to grow food. Many have never picked a fruit of vegetable from the vine or had their hands in the soil. Visiting the barge brings them in direct contact with how food is grown. According to Mattingly, once people begin to care about the plants, they will begin to care about the soil and the water. She asks us to imagine what it would be like if access to food were a right. 13
Read about Swale and Mary Mattingly in this New York Times article 14
Guerilla Gardening
Guerilla gardening is the act of cultivating land that one does not legally have to right to cultivate. Often these sites are abandoned lots, city owned land, or unattended private property. People choose to garden on land that they do not have a legal right to garden on for a number of reasons. While some see gardens as a way to beautify a neglected area, others see gardening as a way to grow food for themselves or their community.
Photo Credit: Craig Wescoe
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I had the opportunity to interview a guerilla gardener, Craig Wescoe, who commandeered a piece of city-owned land just a few miles from Lehman College. I asked him what motivated him to start his garden. "I am motivated by my religious beliefs to maintain the garden behind my house and to grow food in it. The bible says at the beginning of Genesis that God designed humans to be gardeners and caretakers of animals. So I grow fruit and vegetables in my garden. The neighborhood animals and insects eat what they want and there is plenty left over for me and the people in my neighborhood to eat."
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I asked him about the differences between the food that he grows and typical supermarket food. "Growing food in your backyard saves money. It is healthier because you aren't ingesting preservatives and pesticides found in commercially produced produce. It is also ecologically better because you avoid the pollution caused by transporting the produce from garden to market. And you don't unknowingly contribute to unfair labor or food shortage in countries where food is grown and sold to American grocers. It just overall feels like the best choice."
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Photo Credit: Craig Wescoe
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Photo Credit: Craig Wescoe
I asked Craig about the fact that he is using land that is owned by the city. "The land that I used was overgrown with weeds. It was being neglected. All I did was replace the weeds with fruits and vegetables."
Click here to read Craig's blog!
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Living in a food desert should not be the only criteria in determining a person's access to fresh, whole foods. Where a person works or attends school should also be taken into account. There are several supermarkets and small grocers surrounding Lehman that offer fresh produce at reasonable prices.
There are ways that a community can come together to combat food injustices. Lehman College has tackled this issue head on by providing access to fresh food through the incorporation of a farm stand and their edible garden. Lehman is also tackling food insecurity by providing food through their food bank. And individuals such as Mary Mattingly and Craig Wescoe are using public lands to grow fruits and vegetables.
Individuals and communities are controlling their own food production and distribution without involving global markets.
Bibliography
1. “Food Desert Locator.” Food and Nutrition Service, www.fns.usda.gov/tags/food-desert-locator. Last accessed 17 Dec 2017.
2. “Go to the Atlas.” USDA ERS - Go to the Atlas, www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-research-atlas/go-to-the-atlas/. Last accessed 17 Dec 2017.
3 Hruby, A., & Hu, F. B. (2014). The Epidemiology of Obesity: A Big Picture. PharmacoEconomics, 33(7), 673-689.
4 Indiana University. "Higher rates of diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, stroke in 'food desert'." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 5 November 2013. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131105081527.htm>.
5 Seth E. Frndak An ecological study of food desert prevalence and 4th grade academic achievement in New York State school districts Graduate School of Education, University at Buffalo-State, University of New York Buffalo, NY, United States 2014
6 Dubick et al. October 2016. Hunger in Campus The Challenge of Food Insecurity For College Students http://studentsagainsthunger.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Hunger_On_Campus.pdf. Last accessed 17 Dec 2017
7 Coleman-Jensen et al. September 2017 Household Food Security in the United States in 2016 https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/84973/err-237.pdf?v=42979. Last accessed 17 Dec 2017
8“Federal and State Grants – The City University of New York.” – The City University of New York, www2.cuny.edu/financial-aid/federal-and-state-grants/. Last accessed 17 Dec 2017.
9 “Why Is Locally Grown and Organic Food so Expensive?” National Catholic Reporter, 17 Aug. 2010,
www.ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/why-locally-grown-and-organic-food-so-expensive. Last accessed 17 Dec 2017.
10 Levitt, Tom. “Lidl Is the Latest to Switch to Sustainable Bananas. Will It Make a Difference?” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 6 Feb. 2016, www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/feb/06/lidl-sustainable-bananas-commitment-workers-dominican-republic-supermarket-prices. Last accessed 17 Dec 2017.
11 “The Farm & Garden Project: Lehman College Adult Learning Center & Institute for Literacy Studies.” Www.crowdrise.com, www.crowdrise.com/o/en/campaign/alc-farm-and-garden-project/jayattajones1?utm_campaign=oc&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=crowdrise%29. Last accessed 17 Dec 201
12 Lehman College News, www.lehman.edu/news/Tackling-Food-Insecurity-at-Lehman-College.php. Last accessed 17 Dec 2017.
13 “About.” Swale, 25 Oct. 2017, www.swaleny.org/about/. Last accessed 17 Dec 2017.
14 Levine, Alexandra S. “A Forest Floats on the Bronx River, With Free Produce.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 7 July 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/07/07/nyregion/a-forest-floats-on-the-bronx-river-with-free-produce.html?mcubz=1. Last accessed 17 Dec 2017.