Week 10: Readings

This week’s readings discussed the involvement of planning in food distribution primarily in the context of farm to school programs and farmers markets. The farm to school programs created connections between schools and farms, supported the introduction of fresh, local food into school menus and it developed agricultural and nutritional literacy for children and adults, while supporting local farmers. There are a lot of benefits to having this program in the school system like increasing the daily consumption of fruits and vegetables, but there were also barriers, such as, the food service operations pressure to standardized meals at a low price and the logistics of ordering, billing and delivery of local food.  Farmers markets make local food more visible, encourage diversification as opposed to homogenization of food, support business incubation and facilitate social and economic interaction. They also help in meeting the financial needs of small to medium size farms, while providing an affordable source of food for low income residents.

City planners have been involved in the efforts of reintroducing supermarkets to low income urban areas through empowerment zone-enterprise community (EZ-EC) designations. I found it particularly interesting that when the city planners of Atlanta “pursued Kroger with an attractive development package, which included tax abatements, employee tax credits, bond financing, and low-cost lease, to anchor a retail development in the predominantly African American Martin Luther Kimg-Ashby neighborhood within the EZ”, they were not interested. It left these planners wondering if the reasons were racial, did Kroger not think it was a worthwhile investment, or did Kroger need a larger store base to justify investing? In previous lectures we’ve discussed when grocery stores were established in underserved areas, even with all the incentives mentioned above, most stores closed within a few years. This makes me wonder if a community food assessment was performed to assist the city planners in determining alternative, long-standing grocer options that could be made available to this community. Do you have any suggestions as to how we can make this community more food secure?