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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Farmers Markets Are Helping to Create a New Urban Food Distribution System
  • Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:01:47 -0700


In Search of Food Security

Farmers Markets Are Helping to Create a New Urban Food Distribution System
http://www.seasonalchef.com/security.htm
By Morris Newman

Residents of a housing project in Watts are holding discussions about how
to make money by selling the produce from a newly created community garden.



Michelle Mascarenhas at the Gardena market

Far to the north, in the city of Livingston in Merced County, about 50
households -- some migrant farm workers and some Hmong tribespeople --
receive a box each week of fresh fruits and vegetables grown by one of
their neighbors. And in the City of Gardena in Los Angeles County, about 15
families are currently paying a small amount weekly to receive pre-
packaged baskets of fresh fruits and vegetables purchased at the local
farmer’s market.

Seemingly disparate, these three scenarios have a common theme: each is an
example of a concept called community food security, which holds that all
people should have access to high-quality, fresh produce. The policy
targets working-class and low-income people who traditionally have had
fewer choices, and more obstacles, to buying fresh fruits and vegetables at
competitive prices.

Access to food is the chief problem of inner city residents "because of the
lack of markets and supermarket redlining," according to Andy Fisher,
coordinator of the Community Food Security Coalition, a group that lobbied
for the enactment in the summer of 1996 of a Los Angeles city food-security
ordinance.

Although food-security is a nascent policy, funded programs exist on
federal, state and local levels. These programs represent opportunities for
both farmers and operators of farmers markets to broaden their customer
base and geographic coverage alike. Perhaps more importantly, food-security
programs are creating new market structures that provide a direct
connection between the farmer and the consumer, including -- but not
limited to -- farmers markets.

Supporters of food security emphasize that the effort is not a
donation-based hunger program. "What food security efforts try to do is to
build relationships between different groups related to food, such as
community gardens and farmers markets," said Marion Kalb, executive
director of the Southland Farmers Market Association.

To Gail Feenstra, a food-systems analyst with the Sustainable Agriculture
Research and Education Program at the University of California in Davis,
food security is almost as much about education and "consciousness-raising"
as nutrition. "The only way that people are going to understand where their
food comes from, and to understand the environmental and human consequences
of our food production system, is to form direct connections between
producers and consumers," she said.

Food security goes beyond food production and marketing, according to Kalb.
On the city level, she said, food security policies might take many
different forms, from re-routing bus lines to make stops at supermarkets to
waiving utility fees for water used in community gardens. "Instead of
looking at the negatives, we look at the people, the resources and the
land, and go from there," Kalb said.

Los Angeles Ordinance

In Los Angeles, the food-security movement gained momentum June 18, 1996,
when the City Council approved the Los Angeles Food Security and Hunger
Policy. The policy provides $280,000 in funding for the next four years. An
18-member commission, the members of which are to be named in November, are
charged with ensuring that all residents of Los Angeles have access to
fresh, affordable and nutritious food, including the "non-standard" produce
items favored by different ethnic groups.

Although several other cities -- including Hartford, Conn., St. Paul,
Minn., Austin, Tex., and Knoxville, Tenn. -- have already adopted
food-security ordinances, the Los Angeles ordinance has been described as
having special significance, in light of the city’s enormous size and
population.

In October, the U.S. Department of Agriculture entered the food-security
arena, as well, by providing $1 million in grants, and pledging another
$2.5 million in future funding, to 13 community projects nationwide,
including two community- based efforts in California. (The funding is part
of the Community Food Security Act signed into law in April 1996).

One recipient of a federal grant is the Watts project, sponsored by the
Southland Farmers Market Association. The project received $64,000 to train
community gardeners in farming and production techniques, to increase the
availability of locally grown fresh produce, and to provide economic
opportunities for low-income gardeners.

Currently, local residents and Southland officials are discussing ways to
market the produce of the farm. Kalb contemplates a farm stand that would
function as a sort of produce clearinghouse, purchasing produce from some
growers, and selling it to other residents.

The other California recipient of the USDA grant is a pair of projects in
the San Joaquin Valley. A group called CSA West, affiliated with UC Santa
Cruz, has received $45,000, along with a pair of local organizations to
promote the concept of Community-Supported Agriculture projects (commonly
called CSAs) in the cities of Salinas and Livingston.

"The CSA model involves one principal farm linking with numerous families,
who receive a weekly supply of fresh produce throughout the growing
season," said Jered Lawson, project manager for CSA West.

In Livingston, a city in Merced County with a large population of ethnic
Hmong tribespeople from Southeast Asia, the goals are "food assistance" as
well as food security. With the assistance of Casa de la Dignidad, a
program run by Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, the local farmer is Maria Ines
Catalan, who cultivates about three acres of chayote, nopales, onions, red
peppers, broccoli, potatoes, beets, carrots, corn and "everything that is
appropriate to the season," according to Lawson. Participating families pay
about $15 for the produce boxes, although Lawson said he would like to
lower the price.

A similar program, Gardena Market Basket, operates in the South Bay region
of Los Angeles County. A cooperative effort of the Southland Farmers Market
Association and UCLA’s Pollution Prevention, Education and Research
Center, the Market Basket currently provides about 15 families with a
pre-packed bag of seasonal produce. The produce bag, which can be picked up
at a central location in the city, commands any of three different prices,
depending on the ability of buyers to pay: $13, $10 or $7. Program director
Michelle Mascarenhas said she hopes up to 50 households will take part in
the Market Basket eventually.

Mascarenhas described Market Basket, which has been operational for a year,
as a pilot project. She is actively exploring different avenues of
distribution, such as drop offs at day-care centers. "These are people who
spend a lot of time at home and do not have time to shop, but need a steady
supply of fresh produce, especially fruits and vegetables for little kids,"
she said. "We need a place where people can pick up produce and their kids
at the same time."

The Gardena farmers market functions as a discount supplier for Market
Basket. Participating farmers sell produce to the program at a 15-percent
discount. The proceeds from the sale of the baskets are split between the
cost of food and the costs of running the program.

Women and Infant Children Program

Farmers markets are central to another federal food security effort, this
time funded through the Women and Infant Children program. The program
provides coupons that can be redeemed only at farmers markets. Although the
program has severe financial limits -- participants are given only $20
worth of coupons annually -- the end-result is often a change in market
behavior, according to Kalb.

"We found that 60 percent of women who initially shop at farmers markets
end up staying at those markets and continuing to buy produce there," even
after the coupons run out, she said.

Market Basket is funded by the Sustainable Agriculture Research and
Education Program, which was created by a 1986 state law. The program makes
grants on a competitive basis to groups involved in improving food
production and distribution, including farmers, researchers and non-profits
that encourage sustainable agriculture. Funding for the program comes from
both the state and the University of California.

While Feenstra of the sustainable agriculture program applauds the early
success of distribution efforts like Gardena Market Basket, she is clearly
intrigued by the idea of encouraging people to farm, and using farmers
markets as the vehicles for an alternative way of distributing food while
providing at least some economic benefit to small growers. To Feenstra, the
issue is one of "community empowerment."

"The kinds of programs that we are interested in -- and this is where
farmers markets come in -- are those in which you are actually empowering
people to make some of their own food, and," she emphasized, "to get some
return for it, as well."





  • [Livingontheland] Farmers Markets Are Helping to Create a New Urban Food Distribution System, Tradingpost, 02/14/2008

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