All posts in Meta category.
“Eating local” is nothing more than a turn-of-phrase without defining the word “local.” Although some corporate natural foods stores label blueberries from Northern New Jersey as local to D.C., most agricultural advocates define local as grown or otherwise produced within 100 miles of the buyer. This range is often referred to as a region’s “foodshed.” [...]
This post is the first in a series from Bread for the City intern Allison Burket exploring the basics of food, hunger, and politics in the District.
What’s up with food and hunger in DC? In what ways is DC “food insecure”?
First, some figures. According to the USDA’s analysis, over one in eight families in DC classifies as “food insecure,” of not having sufficient access to nutritious food over the course of a year. Of all households in DC with children, 40.6 percent have had times when funds were not sufficient to put food on the table. The Capital Area Food Bank, which serves over 478,100 local residents, released its own comprehensive profile of hunger in DC in 2010. They find that 1 in 3 DC residents is at risk of or experiencing hunger. The food bank has seen a 25 percent increase in food clients in recent years.
Economic hard times in the city exacerbate the impact of an industrialized food system in which lower-quality foods are produced on the cheap. Diseases related to diet and lifestyle are at an all-time high across the country. In DC, where the obesity rate is 22.2% and levels of residents with hypertension reach beyond 28%, these challenges are disproportionately felt in low-income communities and communities of color. For example, Ward 8, which is 92% Black or African American, has a median income of around $25,000 and an obesity rate of 41.9%. This can be compared to Ward 3’s 84% white population with median income of $72,000 and 11.7% obesity rate. (For more on obesity in DC, see the report from the DC Department of Health.)
Communities that are already struggling to afford fresh and nutritious food might not be able to find these staples in their own neighborhoods. So-called “food deserts” result from policies and development practices that have left many lower-income neighborhoods without access to full-service grocery stores or alternative sources of fresh food. DC Hunger Solutions has led the research on the “grocery gap” phenomenon in a 2010 report that identifies the areas in the city, particularly Wards 7 and 8, most impacted by uneven distribution of full-service grocery stores and draws connections to issues of unemployment, obesity, and the local economy. The DC government has launched an effort to combat this phenomenon, though based on experiences with similar initiatives in New York and Pennsylvania, reducing food deserts alone is insufficient to bring down obesity rates.
More than just hunger at a given moment in time, these studies capture the impact of what is increasingly recognized as a broken food system. If recent headlines are any indication, it’s clear that the factors affecting our ability to feed ourselves in a way that is healthy, equitable, and sustainable are complicated and difficult to track, predict, or control: housing and development trends in DC make it difficult for DC residents to access food pantries and federal nutrition programs; battles on the national level over funding for school lunches and for SNAP benefits have been drawn-out and wonky; though farmers and consumer groups across the country have recently been putting up quite a fight, corporate concentration across the food and agriculture sectors continues to result in lower prices for farmers and higher prices for consumers.
So what would it mean to talk about “food security” in DC? According to the standard definition, a community is “food secure” when all residents obtain a “safe, culturally acceptable, nutritionally adequate diet through a sustainable food system that maximizes community self-reliance and social justice.” This perspective is useful in that it considers all the factors that influence the availability, cost, and quality of food to area households, but gosh, trying to think about all those factors and how to make them work better for DC can be a little overwhelming.
The good news is that, while there’s a lot of work to be done, there are a lot of folks already doing it. Recent developments at Bread for the City, as well as a range of stellar projects, programs, and legislative victories captured on the DC Food For All blog, lead me to believe that DC can take the power of making healthy, sustainable food choices into its own hands.
Check in next week as I begin to explore the federal nutrition programs serving District residents!
DC Food for All Workshop
Thursday (4/22, Earth Day!)
5:30pm-7:30pm
Bread for the City (1525 7th St NW)
Building from the “un”conference style, the participants shape the content. You can come with topics/questions that intrigue or baffle you, or you can come ready to explain and teach…or both. Past discussions have spanned policy, access, supply/demand, innovative community projects and events, and much more…Curiosity, inspiration, and varying levels of experience with food issues and blogging are always welcome.
RSVP to DCFoodforAll@gmail.com if you think you can make it. When you do so, please let us know if you can bring something for potluck dinner and also share any preliminary ideas you might have for discussion groups – itching questions or burning passions around food access.
And spread the word to other folks who might dig what we’re doing!
Posted in MetaBlogging’s great and everything, but here at the DC Food For All we also like to actually see each other in person every so often. So each month we host a workshop at Bread for the City , where participants set the agenda, learn from each other, and of course share a delicious dinner.
The next workshop is tomorrow at 6pm! Bread for the City is located at 1525 7th St NW, right by the Shaw metro. Email us to RSVP, or join the Google Group to stay posted in the meantime.
Posted in MetaThis was the busiest week in 4 months of the DC Food For All! In addition to today’s important reporting on problems with DC’s new farmers’ market WIC program, we featured ample coverage of the fantastic RootingDC conference; testimony from City Council oversight hearings about big trouble with food stamps administration; coverage of the protest of a Safeway closing; coverage of a new Columbia Heights farmers market opening; and… chickens!
We’ve just passed the four month mark and the 100th post mark(!), so it’s a good time to reflect: the DC Food for All has had more than 40 contributors posting on all matters of local food justice issues. There are 150 people (smart and lively ones!) on our discussion list– have you joined it? (Want to stay posted about big announcements and events, but protect your inbox? Join our announcement list.) We’ve also had 4-5 successful workshops and 3 fantastic potlucks. All done entirely by volunteers.
Plus there is a huge swath of ideas and people and energy swirling around us that has yet to tapped. This is exciting stuff!
One important thing that we’ve learned in all this is that it’s not enough to just sit around and talk about important food issues — and it’s not enough to just blog about them either! To create real momentum, we have to gather together, communicate about what we care about, and then take action in our community.
And so we’re developing a regular calendar of events and activities — throughout the year ahead. I encourage you to attend our next workshop: March 9th, 6:30-8:30p, at Bread for the City. Email us at DCFoodForAll@gmail.com to RSVP or ask questions.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed and volunteered so far!
Posted in MetaBy Robert Thomason
When Yao Afantchao first left his village in Togo for the United States relatives and friends showered him with gifts of local foods so that he would not be without his native diet. Loaded with mangoes, the peanuts of his region and dried delicacies he crossed the Atlantic.
But when the US Customs Service inspected his bags at JFK Airport, his first lesson in U.S. food economics and practices was a shock. The foodstuff of Afantchao’s homeland was confiscated.
Hi. You might have noticed that our website is still a little hard to navigate. We’re working on an upgrade, promise! In the meantime, we’d like to take a step back to recap the past month here on the DC Food For All, lest any of these great stories fall through the cracks.
Policy changes
Changes in the city
Triumph over homelessness and hunger
So here’s my question: since low self-esteem leads to repeat homeless, shouldn’t self-esteem building be offered more often to end the cycle of homeless? Where food is concerned, couldn’t more opportunities be aimed directly at the homeless community in the form of shift work, enabling the person to earn groceries they want & are able to fix themselves, thereby providing an avenue for empowerment?
