5 Innovative Solutions to Food
Deserts
By Cat Johnson
Today
Food deserts are places where it is
difficult to buy fresh food. Defined by
the USDA as "parts of the country vapid of fresh fruit, vegetables,
and other healthful whole foods, usually found in impoverished areas,"
food deserts are largely due to a lack of grocery stores, farmers markets,
and healthy food providers. As they are generally found in low-income
neighborhoods, food deserts point to a broken food system that generates a staggering
amount of waste while leaving entire communities with limited
access to food.
Numerous solutions to get food into these
deserts are being piloted, with some of the most exciting and effective ones
being created by grassroots initiatives working directly with the
communities they serve. Such projects are found in neighborhoods around
the world. Here are 5 of our favorites.
1. Food Co-ops
If you can’t get big grocery chains to come to
your neighborhood, why not start a local food co-op? It’s no small task, but
worker-owned cooperatives can grow the local economy, provide jobs, empower
people to take their life and work into their own hands, and get fresh foods
into food deserts. Two recent examples of food co-ops addressing food deserts
are the Wirth
Cooperative Grocery in North Minneapolis, Minnesota and the Renaissance
Community Co-op in Northeast Greensboro, North Carolina.
2. Mobile Food Market
The Mobile Food Market brings fresh, high
quality, culturally-appropriate, affordable foods into food deserts in Halifax,
Nova Scotia. With a focus on creating healthy, just and sustainable food
systems, as well as building community, the project partners with growers,
nonprofits, businesses, governments and community groups.
3. Bus Stop Farmers Markets
The key to getting food into food deserts is
to make it as easy as possible for people to access fresh, healthy food. Bus stop farmers
markets put food where people already are, making it convenient
to stock up on fresh fruits and veggies on their way home from work.
4. Ujamaa Freedom Market
Ujamaa Freedom Market is
a worker-owned cooperative mobile market. The market provides fresh fruits and
vegetables, healthy prepared foods, household goods and personal care items to
underserved communities around Asheville, North Carolina on a weekly basis.
Another example of a mobile food cart
distributing fresh foods to food deserts is the Green Carts project
in New York City.
5. LA Kitchen
LA Kitchen is
a Los Angeles-based project that recovers healthy, local food from the waste
stream to feed the hungry and gives unemployed adults—particularly adults
exiting prison as well as foster kids aging out of the system—culinary
training. The meals program participants create are distributed to the area’s
most vulnerable populations, with a focus on the elderly. While not directly
focused on addressing food deserts, LA Kitchen gets fresh foods to people who
have limited access to them.
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