Having saturated the rural landscape, shuttering local stores in small town America along the way, now, in the wake of stagnant sales and increased competition, Walmart desperately needs to expand into urban markets.

And what better urban market than one full of eight million people? While the big box retailer is eager to enter the Big Apple, challenges loom large. Given the negative reputation Walmart has earned for being hostile to workers among other problems, many New Yorkers are skeptical, to put it mildly.

To counter the opposition, Walmart is positioning itself as the solution to urban food deserts – areas where finding real food is next to impossible. But as Anna Lappé has eloquently argued, the big box chain isn’t the answer: “Let’s be clear, expanding into so-called food deserts is an expansion strategy for Walmart. It’s not a charitable move.”

Research Shows Walmart Kills Both Jobs and Food Access

Now a report released last month by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer concludes that not only would bringing Walmart to Harlem spell disaster for labor, but it could also make an already dire food access problemthere even worse.

Based on data from Chicago’s negative experience, the report found that within two years of a Walmart store opening in New York:

- Between 48 and 66 fresh food retailers could go out of business, representing a net loss of between 56,500 to 82,000 square feet of food retail within a one-mile radius;

- Closure of these stores would represent a loss of 50 to 57 percent of the fresh food retail square footage added in recent years by New York City’s incentive program;

- All of this would negate more than $4 million in public finance investment and four years of effort to improve fresh food access in the area.

As Stringer explained, Walmart shouldn’t be undermining city programs to improve fresh food availability: “Walmart would be a bane, not a boon, to the health food economy of Harlem – or any other New York City neighborhood.”

Moreover, previous economic analysis has shown that Walmart’s promise of jobs doesn’t pan out either. In a report from last summer called “The Walmartization of New York City,” researchers at the City University of New York concluded that, “despite Walmart’s promises of jobs and lower prices for the community, the longer term impact is actually the opposite.”

Assuming Walmart opened the 159 stores needed to reach 21 percent grocery market share in New York City (the same proportion the company enjoys nationally), the impact would be a net loss of almost 4,000 jobs, and a loss of more than $453 million in wages per year for all remaining workers.

What about the new Walmart jobs? According to the report, 4,279 new low-wage Walmart workers would have to “rely on social services to make ends meet, costing New York taxpayers over $4 million per year” in health care benefits alone. This, in a city where the mayor has asked for $2 billion in budget cuts.

Current Walmart Locations Confirm Bleak Outlook

Other areas of the country have already had real world experiences to back up these projected findings. According to New York’s Food for Thought report, of all the employers in Ohio, Walmart has the greatest number of associates and dependents enrolled in Medicaid, which in 2009 cost taxpayers $44.8 million.

Similarly, a 2004 study found that for each of California’s whopping 44,000 Walmart employees, taxpayers had to spend $730 on health care and $1,222 on other forms of state and federal assistance such as (ironically) food stamps.

In 2006, Walmart entered Chicago and recently convinced local officials to approve two additional locations, including (after a long battle) on the city’s South Side. How have things fared so far in the original Chicago location? Not so well.

A three-year study released by Loyola University Chicago in 2010 revealed that Walmart had not enhanced retail activity or even employment opportunities. In fact, “the probability of a local retailer going out of business during the study period was significantly higher for establishments close to Walmart’s location.” Specifically, researchers found that a nearby business had about a 40 percent chance of closing over a two-year period – not very good odds.

If You Can’t Beat Them, Buy Them

Of course Walmart paints an entirely different picture, and is spending a ton of money to hide these sobering facts in a massive PR campaign. According to the Walmartization report, in the first half of 2011 alone, the company spent $2.1 million lobbying in New York, as much as they spent there in the past four years combined. There’s even a dedicated website complete with a “fact-checker” and the heartwarming tagline, “Helping NYC Save Money and Live Better.”

Philanthropy is another time-honored corporate tactic, often used to buy silence from critics, curry favor with community leaders, or, in this case, grease the wheels to gain entry into a reluctant-but-lucrative market.

In December, Walmart announced a combined gift of $250,000 to five various New York City charities, including a home food delivery service and a soup kitchen. Of course $250K is chump change to a company whose net sales topped $405 billion in 2010, but to these five groups it no doubt means a lot. Moreover, in its press release, Walmart made sure to point out the company’s “more than $13 million” in donations in New York City since 2007. (Similarly, Walmart pledged to donate $20 million to Chicago charities.)

But Walmart will need a lot more than a few million dollars in tax-deductible contributions to make up for all the job losses, decrease in available fresh food (and even increased obesity) that could befall New Yorkers.

Other cities should also brace themselves, as the company is opening four stores in Washington, D.C. later this year, with additional area sites planned. Other locations on the agenda include Boston and San Francisco. But mostly the company is keeping quiet about its urban expansion agenda, at least publicly. Last year in Boston, the company was said to be “quietly chatting up city officials” while scouting neighborhoods.

I shudder to think of the consequences to American’s already suffering urban populations if Walmart succeeds in duplicating its rural retail takeover. What to do about it? Support the United Food and Commercial Workers, which has an important campaign called Making Change at Walmart. See also the Big Box Tool Kit, which is chock-full of news and practical resources. Communities can work together to fight back, we just have to act before it’s too late.

Originally published on Food Safety News

We get it. Organic food typically costs more than conventional, that that’s a significant barrier for people under financial strain. Food activists are working toward big-picture, systems-wide changes that could make organic food more affordable, but in the meantime one company in New York State is trying to make organic food more affordable and accessible–one dozen eggs at a time.

Dean Sparks is already working hard to scale up the organic dairy and egg market in New York. His NYFoods company makes organic farming a viable options for farmers–and organic options more available for consumers. The eggs, cheese, butter, and milk sell in nearly 30 stores throughout the region and supplies all the milk and cream for Brooklyn’s adored Blue Marble Ice Cream. But after reading Start Something That Matters by Toms Shoes founder Blake Mycoskie, Sparks wanted to do more.

If Mycoskie could give away a pair of shoes for every pair he sold, could NYFoods give away a dozen eggs for every dozen it sold?

Sparks is trying out this model at the Mott Haven Farmer’s Market in the South Bronx. Working in partnership with fresh food distributor Regional Access and local community organizers, NYFoods gives away a dozen eggs to every shopper at the market. This not only delivers free organic eggs to the community, it also provides an enticement for the community to shop at the market in the first place. It didn’t hurt that at the program’s launch on September 28 shoppers got samples of Blue Marble Ice Cream as well.

“Organic eggs from pastured hens are a healthy source of protein that’s so hard to find in many food-desert communities, even in New York City,” says Dean Sparks of NYFoods. “Free, certified organic pastured New York eggs from our small, family-owned farms in upstate New York are full of protein, vitamin E and omega 3 fatty acids. Any family in need can use them at home, regardless of their cooking skills or kitchen tools.”

How is this a viable business model for NYFoods? By making judicious use of what the hens produce. The company selects only extra-large eggs for the cartons sold for a premium at stores like Whole Foods. But those pastured hens are also laying smaller eggs–a bit too small for retail but still high-quality and nutrient-dense. The smaller eggs would otherwise be sold as egg whites, but NYFoods is distributing them for free.

The food news has been devastating lately with widespread contamination outbreaks emerging seemingly every day. Hearing about a food company working on positive change gives me a bit of hope for our food system. Wouldn’t it be amazing to see similar programs spread across the country?

The Alameda Point Collaborative Urban Farm is a one-acre farm growing a variety of fruits, vegetables, herbs, eggs, honey, and–with the introduction of new aquaculture ponds–will soon offer fish as well. Neat rows of plants are surrounded by olive and stone fruit orchards, but beyond this farm, towering cranes are positioned on the horizon. This farm is in a unique location.

The Naval Air Station at Alameda was founded in 1927 when wetlands were filled on the tip of this island in the San Francisco Bay to build runways for military planes. As a naval port, the base was most active during World War II and later during the Cold War. In 1997 the station was closed, as part of the fourth round of closures under the Base Realignment and Closure Act. But the closing of a military installation is often seen as a development opportunity in urban areas, as it opens up land for growth and expansion within city limits.

In the case of the Alameda Station, 1,734 acres became available for other uses. At least three other former military lands are slated for redevelopment in the San Francisco Bay Area, including Mare Island, the Presidio, and Treasure Island–most in some form of combined mixed-use, housing, and open space plans. Typically, some portion of the land is also set aside for use by government agencies and non-profits as a “public benefit conveyance.” One such public benefit, a portion of the former Alameda base is used by the Alameda Point Collaborative (APC), a “supportive housing community” that provides homes, job training, and other services to formerly homeless families.

The APC Farm grew out of a food community assessment that found widespread difficulty in obtaining nutritious and fresh food due to availability and cost. The community was stranded in a food desert. In 2008, following these findings, the farm was created to provide produce for the residents and to educate youth and community members on the benefits of healthy eating. The APC Farm now offers a CSA-style weekly produce delivery service and sells at a farm stand and to local restaurants, and produce from the farm also serves the community kitchen. The farm’s focus on education was nationally recognized in late August, as members of the Growing Youth program traveled to Philadelphia to help draft the Youth Food Bill of Rights at the Rooted in Community Conference.

The APC Farm is an example of the public benefit communities can reap from former military lands, one that addresses multiple levels of the urban food system, including food security and food deserts. In urban areas, lack of available land restricts potential for growing food. But base closings free up large swaths of land which can be used for farming. In fact, the very scale of lands available in these former bases indicate the possibility for much larger, more ambitious farming projects.

Areas around a former base are often economically depressed, having weathered a sudden loss of population and jobs. They are also poorly served by grocery stores and public transportation. By bringing productive landscapes to the base (and setting up market stands and CSAs, too), the neighborhood is served with a fresh, nutritious food source.

So why don’t we see more proposals for farms on former bases? One major constraint is contamination issues: Military bases are often highly polluted from former operations at the base, and many are Superfund sites.

In the case of the APC Farm, the farm is located on a former playground, which means the risks of contamination are low (soil was tested to confirm lack of contamination before the farm was cultivated). Depending on the past uses of a base, there can be many low-risk areas suitable for agricultural uses, including buffer areas at the base edges, former housing and administration areas, or undeveloped areas. In most cases, soil health has to be rebuilt and soil testing must be performed.

Communities will emerge around land that can support a population. If we consider the option of repurposing natural landscapes, integrating agriculture as a core element, then we can grow new types of neighborhoods and marketplaces which are strong enough to provide for local populations and the city beyond their borders.

Farm programs on abandoned military land are opportunities to strengthen food deserts. We shouldn’t ignore their potential.

I’ve got a problem with the food system conversation in the U.S.  It neglects to include what I call the “first food”—breast milk—and emphasize the critical importance of breastfeeding. No conversation about equitable food systems can truly exist without including the first food and understanding how the racial and social inequities around breastfeeding adversely affect vulnerable populations.

If access to healthy food is a basic human right then doesn’t that right start at birth? Shouldn’t our smallest and most vulnerable citizens have fair and just access to the healthiest food for them?

Consider the facts: For the past 30 years, breastfeeding rates among black women, particularly those in underserved, food desert communities, have been significantly lower than all other ethnicities. In the U.S., African American infants are more than twice as likely to die before their first birthday than other infants. In some cities, the stats are even more sobering: Memphis, Tennessee ranks at the top of the list for infant deaths in American cities—where a baby dies every 43 hours.

A recent study [NS1] concluded that increasing breastfeeding rates alone could help close this racial gap across the board.  The many health benefits of breastfeeding, including an improved immune system and fewer ear and respiratory infections would address some of the leading causes of infant death in low-income communities.

In addition, several studies, including one by researchers at the University of Copenhagen show that breastfed infants are more likely to try new foods later in life. Because breast milk contains flavors from foods eaten by mothers, breastfed infants are exposed to a variety of tastes early in life. In contrast, artificial baby milk (formula) always tastes the same. These nuances are simple yet powerful steps that can lead to a greater likelihood for more varied and healthier food choices as an older child.

Given these sobering facts, it is hard to argue against the fact that by removing the barriers to access to the first food we can have a tremendous impact on infant nutrition and maternal health. And it is equally hard to understand why the food movement isn’t talking more about breastfeeding.

Instead, far too many babies are born into “first food” deserts, communities with limited breastfeeding resources and support.  The reasons why more African American women aren’t relying on the first food for their newborns are a multifaceted mosaic—ripe with politically nuances, deep racial undertones, social taboos, and complex cultural subtleties—similar to many other areas of the food systems work.

Some of the barriers may be related to historical trauma. During slavery, slave owners used and purchased black women as wet nurses for their own children, often forcing these mothers to stop nursing their own infants to care for others.

“On the one hand, wet nursing claimed the benefits of breastfeeding for the offspring of white masters while denying or limiting those health advantages to slave infants. On the other hand, wet nursing required slave mothers to transfer to white offspring the nurturing and affection they should have been able to allocate to their own children,” writes historian Wilma A. Dunaway, in the book The African American Family in Slavery and Emancipation.  And since breastfeeding reduces fertility, slave owners forced black women to stop breastfeeding early so that they could continue breeding, often to the health detriment of their own infants, Dunaway writes.

Although African American women had a stunted and complex breastfeeding experience at the hands of slave owners hundreds of years ago, that may still linger culturally today. Perhaps an unconscious legacy of thinking that breastfeeding is something we did for others and not for ourselves.

Then there’s something I call the National Geographic factor—that is, most of the images we see of black women breastfeeding are semi-naked women in Africa whose lives seem so far away from our modern, African American lifestyle and experience.

A lack of culturally competent breastfeeding resources in our communities also play a part.

Whatever the root causes, the correlative impact is clear: A woman is more likely to eat nutritious food when breastfeeding. Conversely, when a woman lives in a food desert and knows her diet is not and cannot easily be healthy, nutritious and affordable, she is less likely to breastfeed.

Our destinies are inextricably linked.

By breaking downs the racial and social barriers to the first food, we can give more infants a healthier and more equitable start in life; make the first food, fair food and improve the health of their mothers, too.

That would be true justice for all.

Many believe local farmers and businesses could help supply these retail outlets, and grow new jobs in the process, if provided more business development support.  America’s largest farm finance network, the Farm Credit System (FCS), is considering a proposed regulatory rule that could help deploy such expertise.

In 1916, Congress established the FCS to ensure that farmers and ranchers have reliable access to financing.  In 2010, FCS institutions owned $231.3 billion in total assets and generated a $3.49 billion profit.

Within tight-knit agricultural circles, the FCS is an indispensable industry asset.  But its federal regulator, the Farm Credit Administration (FCA), says the 84 borrower-owned and locally controlled lending associations aren’t doing enough to meet their federal mandate to deliver financing and “related services” to young, beginning, and small farmers.

This week, the 60-day public comment period ended for the FCA’s proposed “diversity and inclusion” rule.  If approved by the FCA board, every FCS institution would be required to create plans to diversify their workforce and market services to all potential “creditworthy and eligible borrowers.”  The proposal states that the FCS must “commit to embracing diversity and inclusion in lending, employment and governance” or “risk losing…relevance in the marketplace.”

Food Desert Farming?

The growing diversity among farmers and significant changes in their markets, such as rising demand for local products, are among factors the FCA cites in its call for more innovation in how FCS operates internally and externally.

Farming to supply food deserts, places where residents cannot easily find fresh, affordable produce, is among the local market opportunities.

Food desert farming wasn’t in Michelle Obama’s script.  But the concept intrigues people who are trying to find market-based solutions.

One of the initiatives the First Lady announced is the California FreshWorks Fund–a $200 million public-private loan portfolio.  The California Endowment selected NCB Capital Impact to underwrite the credits and manage loans that will be made available to grocers, farmers markets, corner stores, and farm-to-table programs.

NCB Capital Impact is a nonprofit Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI). CDFIs are financial intermediaries that supply capital for health and elder care, housing, and education in low-income communities.  Food system work is new to their portfolio.  But a new nationwide training program for CDFIs through the Obama Administration’s Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) puts them at the forefront of efforts to finance the supply chain from urban and rural farms to needed retail outlets.

NCB Capital Impact’s chief operating officer, Annie Donovan, believes that FCS could bring strong farm financing expertise to this farm-to-food desert work in lower-income communities. “All the pieces of the food system puzzle are there. Maybe Farm Credit System could help CDFIs put them in place.”

Institutional Change

The FCS’ Washington-based lobbying arm is Farm Credit Council. Its CEO, Ken Auer, said: “If there is a desire for FCS to get more involved, then there may be a need for both regulatory and legislative change that would provide the system with greater flexibility to fully serve the market.”

Auer contends that legislative and regulatory constraints impede FCS’ ability to deliver financial services for the local food marketplace. For example, only farmers can qualify for loans, and full-timers qualify for more credit than do part-timers.  Farm-related processing and marketing businesses must have farmer ownership and other farm-related service businesses have limited eligibility.

But the FCS’s sole purpose is not to book loans. Federal law specifies that the FCS should also supply young, beginning, and new farmers with “related” financial services. FCS also secures its funding through capital markets.  As such, federal tax dollars wouldn’t be needed to support FCS investment in programs that help make fresh and affordable food more readily accessible to low-income consumers.

To do that, advocates say FCS needs to take further those efforts it is already making to reach young, beginning, and small farmers.  “Farm Credit should be partnering with organizations like Extension, community colleges, and non-profit agencies to develop seamless business training programs that help new farming populations develop the skills they need to qualify for loans,” said Juan Marinez, Michigan State University Extension’s point person for Latino farmers and ranchers.

Support is coming from local food advocates who belong to the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC).  In an NSAC action alert, policy director Ferd Hoeffner said Farm Credit, which supplies nearly 40 percent of all U.S. farm financing, “has the capacity to bring badly needed capital to local food producers, and to leverage other sources of capital for the task of rebuilding our local and regional food system infrastructure.”

The Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HHFI) is an important avenue, says Rebecca Flournoy, associate director at PolicyLink–a California-based national research and action institute. “HHFI is a proven model that has generated great results in states like Pennsylvania.”  She says Farm Credit’s participation in the agricultural production side of the equation would help build Congressional support for further investments in urban and rural redevelopment.

Originally published by National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

The surprise darling of the Community Food Security Coalition conference last May was a little-known city councilman from Cleveland. He spoke fervently about his city, a city of flourishing community gardens, backyard bee hives, and chicken coops, a city where all farmers’ markets accept food stamps, where schools get discounts for sourcing local food, and where both trans-fats and smoking on playgrounds are banned. His name? Joe Cimperman.

A 4th term Democratic city councilman whose parents hail from Slovenia, Cimperman is a vocal advocate of community gardens, which create community and self-sufficiency. He told of coming together with community leaders, public health officials, doctors, and foundations to pass the Healthy Cleveland Initiative — a series of audacious policy goals that will improve the health of Clevelanders for years to come. (That is, if Ohio’s Republican-majority legislature doesn’t pre-emptively squash them.) He ended with this rallying cry: “Why are we in food policy? Because we want our friends to live longer!”

What are Cleveland’s secrets for becoming a food justice utopia? I recently interviewed Cimperman to find out.

How did you get involved in food justice issues?
It was Marge Misak at the Community Land Trust, Kristen Trolio, who is a community organizer and a farmers’ market pioneer, and Morgan Taggart from OSU land extension. In about 2002, they came to me about the garden on west 45^th Street, St. Paul’s Patch, asking me how we could preserve both the garden and the housing next door. The developer was working behind everyone’s backs and told the community gardeners that it was city-owned land and zoned residential. He wanted to turn the garden into a parking lot and evict the family next door.

I had barely been on the council for a term — I had no clue about anything. They said, “The only way you’re going to change anything is if you change the zoning code.” I thought, well this sounds like a great idea, and these are people who I admire and trust. I’m learning from them. So we did it.

So all of a sudden people in the community started saying, “Hey, what about this? And what the hell are you doing about this?”  It was the education of a Councilman. They started to pull me under their wings and say, “You don’t have to think about this now, but this is something you’re going to have to think about in five years.” We’re servants so we have to fix these things.

So, Cleveland really was the first city to pass an urban farm zoning law?

Well, we passed it in 2007. The only way to create justice in this situation was to create a permanent garden there — change the zoning of the community garden. So we start calling around — Portland, Boston, Seattle. No other cities of any size had such a law. That’s when we wrote the legislation ourselves. It ensures that no one can rip out the community’s investment overnight. After that, community gardens would come forward and say, “We’d like to zone our garden this way, too.” People think twice now about threatening gardeners because it’s there.

What other efforts is Cleveland taking to ensure that all residents have access to affordable healthy food?

A funny thing happened on the way to the community garden. There are so many people out there doing urban gardening and agriculture that it’s changed the tenor of the city. So much so that the City of Cleveland has said, “This is important enough for us to change laws. Now the city gives out $3,000 forgivable loans to market gardeners — more and more people are keeping their own chickens and bees. There are 250 community gardens that we know of and we think that there are an additional 75 that operate with some support from the city.

There’s also a strong agricultural ring around Cleveland and that has yielded a great farmers’ market situation. Amanda Dempsey, who is now managing Cleveland’s West Side Market, is the reason we’re having an international Public Markets Conference in Cleveland. I’m really proud of what Cleveland is doing.

All of Cleveland’s farmers’ markets now accept food stamps (aka SNAP benefits), right? That’s impressive. How did that come about?

John Mitterholzer at the Gund Foundation has a real passion for social agricultural justice. He came to me and said, “I’d like to fund a program to give people on food stamps an incentive to shop at farmers’ markets.”  We meet, come up with an idea on four specific farmers’ markets which were willing to accept both EBT (the debit card for food stamps), and a $5 matching program. In some cases, the number of food stamp shoppers doubled. Then we did a study with John, on the zip codes around the farmers’ markets and showed the amount of money available if everybody with food stamps and WIC used the farmers’ market.

Farmers were like, “You mean, I get to go home with an empty truck? And I get to sell to people who really need this food?”

Everyone agreed it was a good idea but it had been kicked around for a decade. With the Gund Foundation and people in policy and politics like me backing it, it was hard for farmers’ markets to say no.

[Today, 14 of Cleveland’s 15 farmers’ markets accept food stamps and 13 are part of the EBT Incentive Program.]

You gave a rousing talk in May at the CFSC food policy conference in Portland, Oregon. Portland is often cited as a model for farm-to-school and urban agriculture. What can Cleveland take from Portland’s example?

I was out on Sauvie Island to visit Sauvie Island Organics and the Food Works youth gardening program. I saw four school buses pull up while I was there. If you want to educate kids in every way, that’s how you do it. I want to figure out how to do that in Cleveland. The conference was great — we got so many ideas and talked to so many people. There are many programs on the horizon in Portland — beautiful new public housing projects like New Columbia, which has a community garden called Seeds of Harmony. They’re opening up corner stores with affordable, healthy food like Village Market.

There’s a debate about whether or not it’s necessary to bring full-service grocery stores to food deserts. Some in the food justice world think you can you just bypass the big box grocery stores in favor of community gardens and family-run bodegas (that are stocked with lots of fresh produce). What are your thoughts on this?

In the 90’s, there were areas of Cleveland where there were 100 blocks where you couldn’t get fresh produce. The Department of Economic Development is working on changing that — they’re giving huge subsidies to local grocery store chains such as Dave’s (a family-owned chain with great labor relations).

Now we’re doing the bottoms-up approach. We have a pharmacy, Sheliga Drug, that’s started carrying a line of produce. They’re supported by the Ohio State extension. There’s a hardware store in a Latino community that has bins of apples, bananas, everything else. We’re definitely not where we need to be — but my opinion is that if we start from the grassroots, do the community gardens, family-owned shops and so on, somewhere heaven and earth will meet.

Tell me about the Healthy Cleveland Resolution.  What part of it are you most excited about?  What’s going to be the most controversial aspect?

We are going to have Dr. Anthony Iton, the doctor from Place Matters, come back to Cleveland, and we’re going to do a day-long session for thought leaders: politicians, foundation people, corporate folks.

What I’m really excited about is that our school system has shown itself to be very interested in food justice. They want to help us achieve a garden per five blocks, by reinstating this program that came from the Victory Garden movement. Cleveland was the leader in school gardens nationally back then. There’s a new book about it called Cleveland School Gardens by Joel Mader.

We’re also working with cafeterias, which are continuing their progression of sourcing healthier food.

The chief purchaser for the Cleveland Public School District was nominated for something called the Walnut Award. His name is Regis Balaban. He has figured out how to get sugared cereal out of the schools by getting wholesome cereal with skim milk and fresh fruit. He said to me, “Please don’t stop passing legislation.” I said, “It’s kind of funny you’re saying that to me, because you’re exempt from the stuff I’ve been pushing through.” But then he said, “I can use what you’re doing to force my providers to provide us with better food.” For me in terms of food justice, that’s kind of the big.

At the CFSC Conference, you said that the life expectancy discrepancy between an African American community in Cleveland and the white community was 24 years. Fully half of those years were attributable to smoking and diet.

In neighborhoods with community gardens there is less crime. There are more people attending school. We have a high-rise in downtown Cleveland that’s 22 floors. There are about 24 seniors who live there — mostly African American. They’re petitioning me to purchase containers because they want a container garden on the rooftop. They left their homes, they like walking to the theatre without the burden of a mortgage.

It’s not specific to one community, though. The fact of the matter is that the neighborhood that has the 24 year disparity, Hough, is almost 100 percent African American. There are a lot of other issues, of course: violence, the ability to access health care.

As you and I speak, the Ohio state senate has introduced legislation into the budget banning the city of Cleveland from banning trans-fats. Let us die early! Let our children be morbidly obese! They admitted that their restaurant industry wrote the legislation.  So now the battle for food justice has begun.

If the state senate does this, it’ll strike down Cleveland’s law. [Last month, that's exactly what the Ohio state senate did, tucking the provision into a 5,000-page budget law. Cimperman has said he'll challenge it in the courts.]

It’s ridiculous! The trans-fat ban came from doctors and public health professionals. The four major health systems in the state  — Cleveland Clinic, St. Vincent’s, MetroHealth, and University Hospitals — have all signed on to the Healthy Cleveland Resolution. The hospital systems are the number one job provider in Ohio. How do you say to these hospitals, “You don’t know what you’re talking about”?

I may not understand trans-fats, but why the hell is the government telling locals what we can and cannot do?  They haven’t found a way to ban community gardens.

Here’s my gut feeling. What’s going to happen when those 300 gardens that we have in Cleveland double? When in 2020 the city of Cleveland will have a community garden within five blocks of every resident? All of a sudden, local grocery stores are working with local farms. What’s going to happen when the hoop houses start to provide food three seasons a year? What happens with canning? What happens when agribusiness starts to see this? We have a multinational food production company here in Cleveland. I was at a meeting a couple months ago and some folks from this company started asking me about local food. I think we’re starting to get people’s interest. We’re not a threat yet, but what happens when we become a threat?

What can other cities learn from Cleveland when it comes to food justice?

We let the policy be informed by the practice. We have a lot of people who have been doing this for generations. There’s recognition of that: the importance of learning from our elders. Also, we all really like each other. We enjoy each others’ company. Entire weddings are filled with friends and guests who they meet from within the food justice world. Regardless of your political background or racial background or your proficiency in English, there’s something about the gardens that brings people together!

Community gardens just make us a nicer city. They make us share more, pay more attention to each others’ kids, understand each others’ cultures more. There are just so many ancillary benefits to community gardens — we can’t imagine.

The business community is also excited about the hope of urban agriculture and food justice. It means so many things in terms of employment and in terms of people having a purpose and getting out and getting to know your neighbors. I think if we can keep doing what we’re doing, we’re going to be in a really good spot.

Originally published on The Faster Times

Washington, D.C. sports its proud identity as the nation’s capital, but it also suffers the typical problems of urban blight, including food deserts, impoverished areas with limited access to healthy food. Almost 16,000 people reside in such food deserts within the city.

Fortunately, a number of forward-thinking organizations have resolved to end food insecurity in the nation’s capital through food access, affordability, and community education. As a result, D.C. capitalizes on its dual local/national character and acts as a role model for initiatives that support access to good food throughout the nation.

How do we lead the shift from processed, unhealthy products to fresh, nutritious food? While accessibility and affordability are certainly crucial, community education is a key component, notes Neighborhood Restaurant Group’s Michael Babin, and founder of the Arcadia Center for Sustainable Food & Agriculture.

In a comprehensive solution, Arcadia will launch a mobile farmers’ market, a yellow school bus retrofitted to carry about 50 crates of fresh produce. The mobile market will educate schools and neighborhoods on healthy food choices, traveling to food deserts filled with fast food restaurants and convenience stores. In a counter-intuitive business strategy, the long-term goal of the mobile farmers’ market is to become obsolete, by encouraging grocery stores to open in low-income areas.

Two traditional farmers’ markets are playing their part as well. Both the long-established Ward 8 Farmers’ Market and the Aya Community Market (launching at the end of this month), provide fresh produce while empowering local residents and entrepreneurs to participate in local commerce. Chris Bradshaw, Executive Director of Dreaming Out Loud, founded Aya Community Market as a self-sustaining enterprise, empowering high school students, formerly incarcerated residents, and low-income members of the community to claim ownership of their marketplace through employment at it. Aya Community Market accepts EBT food vouchers, and to increase buying power, vendors at Ward 8 Farmers’ Market markets will double the value of SNAP, EBT, WIC or senior food vouchers, up to $10.

As the idea of food access becomes visibly linked with community empowerment, economy, and health, farmers’ markets emerge from the grass-roots movement with a holistic focus. Aya Community Market provides services for spiritual and financial health, such as yoga and credit counseling. Live music, acupuncture, and cooking demos are also offered as an integral part of the plan to educate and include community members. DC Central Kitchen (DCCK), an organization committed to strengthening DC’s local food system through food distribution, job training, and community-building projects, is present in its community through a culinary training program.

The Culinary Jobs Training Program is a 12-week program, which trains unemployed, previously incarcerated, and homeless adults in the skills necessary to rise out of poverty. It also coaches students on basic life skills, such as résumé writing and computer literacy. DCCK was also selected to run a pilot program to provide made-from-scratch meals for seven public elementary schools in food deserts.

These initiatives have been hugely successful in improving the quality and nutrition of school lunches, and the quality of life for at-risk populations. In elementary schools, DCCK’s pilot program meals are complemented by hands-on learning experiences through local farms, cooking clubs, and the use of composting bins. When an 11-year old student told his parents that they “must go shopping every weekend to buy vegetables like they have at school,” Michael Curtin, Executive Director of DCCK, saw this as a great measure of success.

Targeting institutions and retail markets is a smart strategy for reaching large audiences in need of healthy food. Schools are one such building block, supermarkets are another. To encourage existing retailers to stock fresh food, the Ward 8 Farmers’ Market, DC Hunger Solutions (DCHS) and DCCK are involved with convenience stores. DCHS conducted the Healthy Corner Store Program in DC food deserts for two years, but due to lack of funding, the pilot was halted about 18 months ago.

Thanks to new funding from the DC Department of Small and Local Business Development (DSLBD), DCCK is launching the more expansive Healthy Corners Program, and will use their resources to provide a larger distribution network of affordable produce and more comprehensive business development assistance. The program will also purchase produce from local farmers and employ graduates from their Culinary Job Training Program. DCCK has wisely engaged DCHS as a partner, who is lending their expertise and community connections from their pilot program to DCCK’s outreach efforts and store owner training activities. Participating retailers will receive refrigerated display cases and fresh food deliveries, and can return unsold items, creating a zero-waste solution. This means convenience stores can stock fruits and vegetables without the threat of financial loss.

The city continues to make healthy food and access to it a priority. Food Day, a nationwide event to be held on October 24, 2011, aims to expand access to healthy food and alleviate hunger. This event provides opportunities for everyone to participate in and contribute to their local good food movement with organizational and administrative support on a national level.

In February 2010, First Lady Michelle Obama said, “Our goal is ambitious. It’s to eliminate food deserts in America completely in seven years.” She is making great strides with her Let’s Move campaign. This week, she announced a $35 million commitment by the administration, a 2012 budget proposal of an additional $330 million, and a plan to use such funds to leverage additional financial support from the private and non-profit sectors.

In support of the First Lady’s campaign, retail giants Wal-Mart, Walgreens, and SuperValu, along with regional retailers have committed to open or expand over 1,500 stores to bring more healthy, fresh food to areas with limited access. The First Lady said that such commitments can be a “game-changer” for underserved communities across the country. Her call to action requires vision and initiatives such as these to change a food system. In Washington, D.C, commitments to achieve such goals by forward-thinking organizations has established a barometer for healthy, sustainable food solutions around the country.

The local take away from the White House announcement: A full-service grocery store may finally come to the people of West Oakland. It looks like the People’s Community Market, a long-anticipated mid-size retailer in West Oakland, may be a step closer to raising the capital it needs to break ground.

At a press conference Wednesday, FLOTUS announced that The California FreshWorks Fund, a $200 million public-private partnership loan fund and a project of The California Endowment, will help bring healthy grocers to food deserts. The endowment, a private statewide health foundation established to expand access to affordable, quality health care for communities in need, has been joined by prominent investors on the project, including NCB FSB, Kaiser Permanente, and JP Morgan Chase.

The goal of the fund is to provide loans at or below market rates to encourage new stores in Californian food deserts and it is expected to create or retain some 6000 jobs in the state. The First Lady also announced commitments from large chain retailers, including Walgreens and Wal-Mart, to open or expand 1,500 stores in food deserts around the country. According to U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates, 23.5 million Americans–including 6.5 million children–live in low-income neigborhoods that lack stores likely to sell affordable and nutritious foods.

“The FreshWorks funding is so applicable to what we do and it’s a real acknowledgement of the work we’ve done for nine years in the community to be invited to this event,” said People’s Grocery executive director Nikki Henderson, who was summoned to the White House for the announcement. Since 2002, People’s Grocery has provided food education, training, and access to residents of West Oakland, including cooking classes, nutrition programs, urban agriculture instruction, a mobile grocery truck and a CSA delivery dubbed the “Grub Box.”

Read the full story at KQED.

Read a Q&A with Nikki Henderson on Civil Eats.

Originally published on Bay Area Bites

As if there weren’t enough conflicting nutrition information out there already, a professor of human nutrition decided to go on a Twinkie Diet. He then proceeded to lose weight, improve his cholesterol numbers, and make matters even more confusing for the general public. But while the media has taken the easy headline and run with it, I think this story deserves a closer look.

Professor Mark Haub of Kansas State University did the one thing that will guarantee weight loss—he cut his total calorie consumption. Haub limited himself to a total of 1,800 calories a day. A man of his size and weight would normally consume 2,600 calories per day.

The CNN headline that he made news with was: “Twinkie diet helps nutrition professor lose 27 pounds.” It should read: “Cutting calories by nearly half helps professor lose 27 pounds,” which would be far more accurate—but hardly news. In yet another misleading headline CBS news claims, “Twinkie Diet for Weight Loss: Is Professor Haub on to Something?”

The story’s implications are really what concern me. In its coverage, CNN writes, “Families who live in food deserts have limited access to fresh fruits and vegetables, so they often rely on the kind of food Haub was eating.”

I do not see any reason to try and justify this kind of diet. Let’s remember that Haub did this for 10 weeks, not over the course of a lifetime or even several years, which would have shown more accurately what the long-term effects of a Twinkie diet might entail.

Meanwhile, the suggestion remains that those worried about the dearth of healthful foods in poor areas really have no basis for concern. That’s what conservative pundit Rush Limbaugh would have you believe. Not surprisingly, he’s using this story to try and prove that the advice to eat healthful and organic foods is some sort of liberal conspiracy, one spearheaded by Michelle Obama. He claims that he knew all along that the “garbage she’s growing in her garden” does not make people healthy. He’s also undermining the important food policy work she’s doing.

Limbaugh said, “Michelle Obama wants to spend $400 million to combat food deserts. She’s all upset that the only food available to poor urban people are convenience stores, the 7-Elevens…So she’s complaining about food deserts, and Michelle Obama wants to punish Big Food and Big Retail for not putting quality food stores in poor neighborhoods, right? And that’s why there’s an obesity epidemic, right? Okay, along comes Mark Haub.”

You can see where Limbaugh is going with this, and you can see what Haub has unleashed. This is fuel for conservatives who think the talk of eating whole foods, supporting sustainable farming practices, and addressing issues like access to fresh fruits and vegetables is all a sham. Limbaugh and his followers typically say it’s all about personal choice and responsibility. Just eat fewer Twinkies! Maybe that will solve our national obesity and diabetes epidemics?

Supporters of this notion will then point out that Haub’s lipid profile actually improved during his 10-week experiment: His bad cholesterol fell, his good cholesterol rose, and he reduced his triglycerides. But this is to be expected with a 27-pound weight reduction. When it comes to lipid profiles, they are directly related to weight. When you lose weight they improve, bottom line. Haub would have to continue his experiment for much longer in order to see if his lipid profiles continued to improve or would in fact worsen with a long-term nutritionally depleted diet.

Haub could have easily done a different experiment—he could have eaten 1,800 calories a day of whole foods. In fact, I think that’s what he should do next and compare how he feels on each diet. I’m curious about a few other indicators of overall health: What was his digestion like? Did he feel fatigued? Have headaches? Have poor sleep? Experience a lack of energy? His report leaves all this out. You can starve yourself to lose weight—that’s not a new concept, but it will not make you healthy. On any restricted calorie diet, it’s extremely hard to maintain good nutrient status and prevent malnutrition. Your health will eventually suffer, it’s just a matter of time. Ten weeks, however, is not long enough to determine the consequences of any diet.

Haub also told CNN this: “I wish I could say the outcomes are unhealthy. I wish I could say it’s healthy. I’m not confident enough in doing that. That frustrates a lot of people. One side says it’s irresponsible. It is unhealthy, but the data doesn’t say that.”

His data may not say that it’s unhealthy after a 10-week trial period, but consider the data that exists in the United States. Two-thirds of the population is obese or overweight, diabetes is fast becoming an epidemic, heart disease is the number one killer, and nearly all diet and lifestyle related diseases are on the rise.

But according to Haub, a nutrition professor, the data just doesn’t indicate that Twinkies or other packaged, processed foods are detrimental. Professor Haub has succeeded on one front though; he’s confused the public about nutrition and provided fodder for the media in its sensational questioning of what makes a healthy diet and just what’s making our nation’s citizens obese and sick.

Photo: Christian Cable via Flickr

Just around the corner and down the street from where I live on a stretch that includes liquor stores and the dodgy characters who frequent such places, you’ll find Spiral Gardens, a slightly disheveled verdant oasis on a fenced in corner of a formerly empty city lot.

It’s a welcome addition to the neighborhood. For the past six years in this location, the community food security project has developed a four-pronged approach to reaching low-income residents, particularly people of color, on the southwest side of Berkeley. The nonprofit is home to a nursery chock full of edible starts and trees, culinary and medicinal herbs, and California native plants for folks who want to grow their own food. Nursery sales help fund other programs the group offers.

Across the street the urban garden center’s community farm is full of summer bounty, such as tomatoes, greens, and amaranth, in one large collective plot that everyone works on together. Around half the harvest is given free to people in need, such as the homeless and elderly, the remainder is distributed among the volunteers who help the garden grow. There’s a pen with chickens and ducks too.

The organization runs the cheapest produce stand in town; every Tuesday afternoon it offers organic greens, fruit, eggs (supplied by a local jewelry store owner who raises hens), and such from the usual farmers’ market suspects at cost. Note to local readers: The stand serves all comers and appreciates those of means rounding up or kicking in a little extra to support the program.

And on Sundays the nursery-garden provides ongoing free farm classes, such as how to grow food in an urban setting, cooking produce from the garden, and beekeeping for beginners.

Daniel Miller has served as the executive director of this worthy edible experiment for 16 years. It is largely a labor of love. Miller is only paid a few months of the year, he supplements long days at Spiral Gardens with edible landscaping jobs and says he foregoes many standard accoutrements of modern life such as a home he can call his own, a car, and new clothes.

The 42-year-old father, whose Twitter handle describes him as “a gritty optimist dedicated to the compassionate reimagination of how we live,” resides in Oakland. We chatted at the nursery while Miller repotted plum trees.

1. Who are you trying to reach with this project?

We believe everyone has a right to fresh food that’s good for you. Studies show that in areas where people lack access to fresh produce, sometimes called food deserts, there’s a higher rate of negative health outcomes such as heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. On average, poor people of color live 10 years less than those who have access to such food. Our target audience is the poor and hungry.

2. What are some of the obstacles you run into trying to reach your target community?

There are many. We have to first let people in the community know we’re here. We find doing door knocks and leaving fliers an effective way to get the word out. We also educate people about why it’s important to eat farm fresh food. Some people automatically think that organic food is too white, chi-chi, and expensive.

3. Do you feel like you’re making a difference in the neighborhood?

I do.  The farm stand is a positive, wholesome  presence that attracts people. I’m convinced we’ve lengthened some people’s lives. I know we’ve put a lot of plants out there in this community that will provide food for years to come. And we fill a safe, social aspect in the area, we give people something positive to do. I’ve seen people who are homeless, drug abusers, mentally ill, or with other severe obstacles to overcome benefit from our produce and programs — even start growing their own food.

Even in seemingly small ways we have an impact: Our heirloom tomato starts have become the impulse buy down the street at Biofuel Oasis.

With the downturn in the economy all kinds of people are showing up at Spiral Gardens. People are really struggling and there’s an increased interest in growing and making your own food.

4. What are the rewards of this kind of work?

I’m proud that we exist. And that every day we’re doing something to help people eat well and grow food that has a positive impact on their health and environment. I think any time you can get people to interface with soil, which we all need for our survival, that’s a good thing. We have a dozen or so hardcore volunteers who water the plants, weed the farm, feed the animals, and generally keep everything going, though on a farm project day 50-100 people may show up to help. We’ve cultivated a great sense of community.

5. Are there any local food activists you admire?

The people who live at Fort Awesome, which is located not far from here. It’s a collective house with solar panels, graywater recycling, an urban farm with fruit trees and chickens. It’s across the street from my son’s school, sometimes when I drop him off I’ll see a wayward chicken crossing the street.

6.  What’s next for Spiral Gardens?

I’d like to see the nursery expand — it would be great if we could be a full-service, one-stop nursery, selling people their soil when they pick up their plants. I’d also like us to become completely self-sustaining. And it would be great to get paid for what we do. I want to offer more classes and serve more people in need. There’s always more we could do, it just takes resources.

This post also appears on Berkeleyside and Lettuce Eat Kale