Introduction
The 2008 Farm Bill included a provision
for the creation of a Healthy Urban Food Enterprise Development Center
(HUFEDC) (Peterson, 2008). The HUFEDC, housed at Winrock International’s
Wallace Center, awards subgrants totaling $3 million over three years
to assist the development, growth and expansion of community-based food
enterprises that are working to expand access to high quality,
affordable, nutritious food in underserved communities (Frain Muldoon,
2010). With the enactment of this bill, we are finally seeing more
support from the federal government for two seemingly disparate issues:
local, small-scale farming, and urban community food enterprises.
The connection of these two issues will
simultaneously help to create markets for rural and semi-rural
small-scale food producers, and provide much needed fresh fruits and
vegetables to local urban markets, especially in low-income communities.
This essay aims to explore the motivation and context for the
implementation of this policy, and to highlight the need for much more
funding of this kind in the future. Background and Motivation Our
country is in desperate need of an overhaul of our food system. Today,
what most Americans consider “food” comes in boxes or plastic bags
containing more processed synthetic chemicals than real food. Our
grandparents would probably not recognize 90% of the “foods” that fill
our grocery store shelves. During the last century our food system has
come to be dominated by large agri-business and factory farms. These
operations have succeeded in reducing the cost and labor involved with
growing and preparing our daily meals, and for many people this has been
a welcome technological revolution. It has freed a generation from the
burden of cooking, starting in the 1960 when more women began entering
the workforce and quick, easy to prepare packaged foods helped them
juggle the new demands of work and home (Winne, 2008). However, as these
processed foods have become staples in our diets, to the point that we
no longer have any idea where our food comes from or how it is grown, we
begin to see the price we’ve been paying for this convenience.
First, there is the cost to our farming
communities, which have seen dramatic reductions in diversified
small-scale farming but large increases in commodity crops such as corn
and soybeans, the primary ingredients of most processed foods (Toews,
2010). These commodity crops are not only contributing to the glut of
unhealthy foods on store shelves, but they are routinely sprayed with
petroleum-based fertilizers, toxic pesticides, and herbicides, which
pollute our environment and negatively impact both the farm worker’s and
consumer’s health. In addition, we are increasingly relying on other
countries to supply our population with the food we need (Astyk &
Newton, 2009). If we are concerned about our nation’s dependence on
foreign sources of oil, shouldn’t we be even more concerned about our
dependence on foreign sources of food? And then there is the impact on
the farmers themselves. A small farmer named Elaine Solowey is
eloquently quoted in A Nation of Farmers, saying, “So farmers were
eliminated, one after another, by murder, displacement, bankruptcy, by
taxes that would not let land be passed from generation, by on-farm
prices that left farmers unable to feed their own families, by subsidies
that favored farms beyond human scale. Many studies over the years
showed that the small farm produced much more food with less
environmental damage than larger “economic” models. But the “economic”
models produced more of their one product and looked good on paper,
never mind the cost to the locale, the water or the soil or the people
who lived in the area. Get big, said the US secretary of agriculture. Or
get out. So we got out.” (Astyk & Newton, 2009, p. 38). Second,
there is the cost to our public health. All of these processed foods are
higher in salt, sugar, and saturated fats than natural whole foods,
which leads to increased risks of obesity and diseases such as diabetes,
heart disease, and cancer (Engler-Stringer, 2009; Lucan, Karpyn, &
Sherman, 2010). The situation becomes even more serious for people
living in low-income urban areas, where they are less likely to have
easy access to larger grocery stores with fresh produce, and where there
are urban grocery stores the prices are 14-37% higher (Winne, 2008).
Generally for people in these communities, most of their food shopping
is done at convenience stores that do not stock any fresh produce.
While the last decade has seen an uptick
in the number of small farms run by a new generation of people who
recognize the growing demand for local, sustainably produced food, this
community is largely white and middle class (Winne, 2008). The farmers
markets that provide a place for these new farmers and shoppers to find
each other are generally in the more affluent parts of town or the
suburbs, where the farmers can get the higher price for their produce
that allows their small-scale operations to be feasible. Prior to the
2008 Farm Bill, food stamps were not accepted at these markets, putting
this fresh, healthy food out of reach for low-income people. More and
more of these small, young, sustainably-minded farms have been popping
up just outside of large urban centers, where the farmers have better
access to urbanites willing to pay a premium for high-quality produce.
It is not that people in low-income communities don’t want to eat
healthy foods; it is that they often can’t get to them, and when they
can, they can’t afford them (Winne, 2008). Until the HUFEDC was
implemented, there was no federal support for farmers or organizations
who wanted to connect the dots between small-scale sustainable farming
and getting healthy, fresh food to low-income communities.
Implementation and Stakeholder Influence
The 2008 Farm Bill, also known as the
Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, was passed into law on June
18, 2008, despite being vetoed by President Bush, with a veto-proof
majority in the House and Senate (Peterson, 2008).
The process of implementing the Farm Bill
was radically different than in previous years. New alliances of
stakeholder groups shifted the traditional balance of power that has
controlled the passage of previous farm bills, as illustrated in Figure 1
(“The 2008 Farm Bill – Debate & Influences,” n.d.). In the past,
the large corporate agricultural businesses, generally known as
“Big-Ag”, hired powerful lobbyists who do their bidding to the
Washington politicians from agricultural states. It has not been unusual
for these Big-Ag businesses to actually write portions of the
legislation that suits their interests, and then use their substantial
financial and political muscle to influence legislators to adopt the
policies just as they wrote them (Ferrara, 1998; Philpott, 2009;
“Shaping laws with little scrutiny,” 2010).
However,
the political landscape changed in 2008. The local foods movement had
steadily been gaining in popularity, and they were finding allies with
public health and environmental advocates. They came together and
developed new tools to push the farm bill debate toward their common
goals (“The 2008 Farm Bill – Debate & Influences,” n.d.). The media
had also begun to popularize the concept of local foods, and food
writers such as Michael Pollen (The Omnivore’s Dilemma, 2006), Marion
Nestle (What to Eat, 2007), and Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation, 2005)
were becoming heroes of the local and healthy food movement.
The national spotlight that our broken
food system received during this process helped inspire many
entrepreneurial groups to launch businesses and non-profit organizations
that attempt to solve some of the problems. With the creation of the
HUFEDC at the Wallace Center, the first round of federal grants became
available in 2009 to assist organizations and socially responsible
businesses in developing their programs. Ten organizations across the
country have so far been awarded grants. Two notable groups that are
specifically addressing low-income community access to healthy foods are
Los Angeles Communities Advocating for Unity, Social Justice, and
Action (LA CAUSA), located in East LA, and La Cocina, located in San
Francisco’s Mission District. LA CAUSA is using the award to help open
new or renovated bodega-style markets or corner stores that “increase
the availability, appeal, and consumption of fresh fruits and
vegetables” (Frain Muldoon, 2010). La Cocina is a business incubator
that helps food start-ups, owned primarily by minorities and women in
underserved communities, improve the quality and nutritional aspects of
their products, assist with local sourcing of ingredients, and develop
green business practices (Frain Muldoon, 2010).
Conclusion
The trend toward more sustainable
agriculture practices is increasing every year. The 2008 Farm Bill and
the progressive policies it included, like the Healthy Urban Food
Enterprise Development Center, are impressive but they are just a small
start. Work is already underway for the 2012 Farm Bill, and it is
important that lawmakers listen to all their constituents, especially
those from underserved communities who are often overlooked in these
conversations. $3 million over three years is something, but in
comparison to the $288 billion total bill (“Food, Conservation, and
Energy Act of 2008,” 2010), it is clear that advocates for food system
reform have a lot more work to do.
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