Food food everywhere, have we got enough to eat?

This past Saturday I accompanied some co-workers from Lincoln Hospital on a tour of the South Bronx – the neighborhood that we work in but which none of us live in. The tour highlighted lack of park and riverfront access, the prevalence of dirty industry and the food options that are available to residents. There are grocery stores and restaurants in these neighborhoods but as one tour guide pointed out – those grocery stores are not ones known for carrying a wide variety of products and not necessarily improving the health of their communities.

We then paused for several minutes at a small South Bronx farmer's market. The market opened last year in response to a public health crisis that has in part resulted from lack of access to good, affordable produce. It started from a $500 grant, it is completely staffed by volunteers from the community and one of the vendors is an urban farm that is just a few blocks from the market. That urban farm is called La Finca del Sur and it is lead by women of the Mott Haven Community.

This stop was example of a community with little access to healthy food, fighting it's way into having that access. The farmer's market is small – insufficient to provide that entire community with good food and to completely prevent the massive proliferation of diabetes – but it's a valiant expression of a community meeting it's own needs when commercial grocery stores do not.

Now, this a blog for our CSA, it's not supposed to be about urban farming or farmer's markets. The story above illustrates a community which is making it's food delivery system more just for it's residents. The creation of that farmer's market and urban farm allows the residents to have a choice between what a grocery store offers and what it doesn't. Creating that choice is labor intensive but without that choice the health of the community declines.

The CSA that we are all a part of pays a farmer for the food he grows. We have a choice to either pay that farmer and know where our money goes and where our food comes from, or we could pay a grocery store and have that grocery store dictate the health of our community. For the most part grocery stores are not malicious organizations, but is my suspicion that we are healthier if we even just have the CSA as an option.

I am a member of this CSA to help keep this option strong and I am grateful for all of the persistence and the work that goes into it. Food Justice is a hot topic lately, I hope it stays hot for a very long time.


Corrielle Caldwell