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In New Orleans last fall, Dora’s Supermarket in the Bywater neighborhood hard-hit by Hurricane Katrina became the poster child for a joint project of the city government and Louisiana Public Health Institute to place fresh fruits, vegetables, and low-fat dairy and whole-grain products in corner stores. Since New Orleans lost 21 of its 36 major grocery stores in Katrina, corner stores have been a staple food source for residents of all income levels.

In Washington D.C., a similar program involves the Korean American Grocers Association, the city health department, and various community groups.

“It wasn’t as hard as you might think to convince owners to participate,” says Hannah Laurison, a senior associate at Public Health Law and Policy, one of the conveners of the Healthy Corner Stores Network. “One of the challenges for advocates is to create sustainable projects to get the stores to do it themselves,” adding that shop owners are often under the mistaken impression that local residents aren’t interested in fresh produce.

“We’ve done focus groups with low-income residents who said their corner stores didn’t sell quality products, they’re too expensive, unsafe and unclean, so they’re getting on buses to get fruit and vegetables. But the store owners said residents didn’t want fruit and vegetables, only alcohol and cigarettes—so there is a gap there.”

A 2003 report by California Food Policy Advocates describes large unmet market demand for fresh produce in low-income urban areas nationwide, and prescribed market-based solutions including investment by major chain grocery stores and the conversion of corner stores currently specializing in liquor into small groceries.

Food Justice

In New York City, the group Just Food offers a range of programs to support fresh-food access and community economic development. They play matchmaker to connect regional farmers with community organizations to run CSAs—with a total of about 60 CSAs running in all five boroughs. Their City Farms program has helped start more than 600 community gardens including a “training trainers” program where low-income residents receive a stipend to train other locals in gardening.

Additionally, a market program helps community gardeners set up and run their own farmers markets, including helping them obtain insurance, meet city codes, and set up systems to accept food stamps. The City Chicken Project, supported by Heifer Project International, helps low-income people and groups set up humane chicken-raising operations, with initial gifts of coops and chickens that the groups later pass on to new chapters. Just Food’s Community Food Education Program trains people in cooking healthy meals, with a focus on cultural and family culinary traditions. A Food Pantry program connects regional farmers with food pantries. And finally, the group’s Food Justice Program works on policy including the federal farm bill and other legislation to facilitate sustainable local agriculture.

“Our theme is that fresh, locally grown produce should be available to everyone,” said Berger. She adds that there is clear demand in low-income neighborhoods for fresh produce, as demonstrated by the success of farmers markets the group has helped start in the South Bronx, Harlem, and central Brooklyn.

“Once we bring in these farmers markets, they just grow and grow,” she said.

A West Indian immigrant in her late 70s went through Food Justice’s training and now gives presentations on making healthy baby food at farmers markets around the city. Food Justice initially paid her $100 for two-hour workshops, and now she commands similar rates for presentations she sets up herself.

In San Francisco, a city-funded pilot project, San Francisco Victory Gardens, was launched in 2007 and is helping residents of all income levels grow vegetables in their own yards. The project is based on the Victory Gardens movement during World Wars I and II, when city dwellers supported the war effort by growing their own food, freeing up farms to feed the troops. The San Francisco project gives participants, including low-income residents in the Bayview Hunter’s Point neighborhood, a starter kit and lessons in gardening and seed-saving. In a city short on open space, the effort focuses on using rooftops, window boxes, and yard space for growing vegetables appropriate to the local micro-climate.

The project is largely designed by Amy Franceschini, an accomplished artist who views urban agriculture as a form of exploring “the politics of space” and the effects of globalization.

“It’s reminiscent of the early conversations about recycling,” garden education program manager Blair Randall says of the project. “You think what difference does one garden make? But if someone can grow a small amount of greens, that’s food not being transported all those miles. It’s freedom from food made with values we don’t support.”

Randall notes that compared to the World War eras, when city residents weren’t far removed from their families’ farming roots, many urbanites today are completely disconnected from the land.

“When people know more about the growing of food, the back story of plants, they get more interested in food itself,” he said.

Block and other advocates note that the web of health and economic problems afflicting disinvested, segregated low-income communities is too wide and complex to be solved by local community-agriculture projects alone.

“You need a lot more than that,” said Block of farmers markets, CSAs, and the like. “But these things build community connections, and bring in produce that wouldn’t be there otherwise. If you think of building healthier communities on a broader level, they really are important.”