Creating an oasis in Jacksonville's food deserts
This story originally appeared on CNN as part of a national content marketing piece by Aetna. You can read it here.
A middle-aged woman crosses paths with Jonathan Blackburn often enough for her to stand out to him. She walks briskly down the street and into Jonathan's field of vision as she passes his office. She is always alone and carrying too many grocery bags. Jonathan offers to walk with her. They soon get to where she lives — a high rise that has too many floors to carry all the bags up at once. The woman has made this long trip out of her neighborhood to a grocery store, miles away, countless times. Jonathan explains that it's a reality for tens of thousands of people in Jacksonville, Florida, living in food deserts and struggling with food insecurity.
“Food deserts are an entanglement of poverty,” Blackburn explains. “It's a health desert, a financial desert, and a mobility desert.”
Blackburn is the executive director of 2nd Mile Ministries, a community transformation organization in the Brentwood neighborhood of Jacksonville that is funded in part by the Aetna Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Aetna Inc. Through services such as daycare, leadership development, summer camps, and affordable housing support, the organization seeks to help the Northside of Jacksonville in tangible and practical ways. For example, the community garden 2nd Mile Ministries manages helps to meet the most basic needs of Brentwood neighbors.
“In communities like Brentwood, a lot of our neighbors are getting all of their food from local corner stores or convenience stores that rarely have a produce section or a deli, says Marc Nettleton, Director of Engagement for 2nd Mile Ministries. “A food desert is where reliable, convenient access to healthy food choices is not available within your community.”
Food Deserts Defined
Food deserts, usually found in economically impoverished areas, are defined by their lack of whole foods, such as fruit and vegetables. Instead of grocery stores with produce sections, these areas are heavy on convenience stores and fast food restaurants.
According to the USDA Food Access Research Atlas, which reviews 2010 Census data, there are 29 areas designated as food deserts in Jacksonville. Within those 29 areas are 140,068 individuals living in 55,020 households. Of those, 25,360 are designated as low-income with limited access to food stores in their area. That means more than 18 percent of Jacksonville residents live in low-income areas and have limited access to healthy food options either because of distance to the nearest grocery store, affordability, or both.
Keeping It Local
David Dinkins, Putnam County Extension Director & Agriculture Agent for the University of Florida's Duval County Extension Office says that cost and selection are big issues within Jacksonville's food deserts. “Take the Moncrief Road area,” Dinkins says. “You see a lot of Mom and Pop stores, a lot of places selling blue crab, but they are small. Grocery stores have to offer something like 30 produce items. But all those stores right around the Moncrief Road area, they may have an apple or a banana at a dollar a piece, so they're three times as expensive as what it would cost [at a grocery store].”
Dinkins works directly with farmers in North and Central Florida to help them with production issues such as post-harvest handling, distribution, processing, and food waste. He explains that while the disparity of food options between socioeconomic classes has been a reality for millennia, it's only been in the last decade that the U.S. government has made combating food deserts part of public policy. The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (also known as the 2008 U.S. Farm Bill) was the first to define food deserts and featured increased support for the production of cellulosic ethanol (biofuel produced from grasses, wood, algae, or other plants) and money for the research of pests, diseases, and other agricultural problems. It was a wide range of supportive measures aimed at creating more productive farms and more accessible nutritious food options.
“In the Jacksonville area, we can support the local farms and help them be sustainable,” Dinkins says. “Those farmers need to be supported by the large grocery retailers. The guys who are growing potatoes in Hastings, are those potatoes making it [to area grocery stores]? There are 6,000 acres of Asian vegetables being grown in the St. Johns County area. Are those making it into the stores?”
Creating the Oasis
Dinkins says he's hopeful that large convenience store chains and dollar stores in low-income areas will begin to add produce sections to their stores, but says it will take a combination of large-scale policy change and individual action on a grassroots level to make a difference.
“One thing consumers can do is go to your produce manager and ask if they're buying produce that is being grown locally,” Dinkins says. “Frankly, it would be a lot cheaper to buy it locally than having it shipped from California.”
But sometimes it's not just as simple as changing who you buy from, but rather wholesale changes on the part of convenience store owners in what they sell. And that's not always easy.
“Sometimes a produce truck won't come to an area or a store doesn't have the facilities or coolers,” Dinkins says. “In Orlando, I know people working in food deserts and they were able to convince several corner stores to take some of the beer products out and replace with fruits and vegetables.”
Nearly everyone working to serve food deserts and communities struggling with food insecurity agrees that there is a lot riding on this issue. Food deserts aren't a problem quarantined to specific pockets of certain neighborhoods. There are far-reaching consequences for communities of people who are food insecure.
“Duval County has one of the highest rates of food insecurity, and it's a ripple effect,” says Laurel Levy, Regional Director with Aetna. “You're going to see a very high rate of obesity, a prevalence of diabetes, and more. And if kids are not eating, they aren't going to be able to focus in school. Your workforce is going to be impacted long-term. Your health care system is going to be impacted. If individuals don't have access to food, they probably don't have access to health care as well.”
Levy adds that the school system is another important player in the nutrition equation of food desert neighborhoods. “We also have to look at our school systems and what's being offered there in terms of education, teaching proper nutrition, what to eat, and what to buy,” Levy says.
But for the team at 2nd Mile Ministries, solving the problem of food deserts means a holistic answer. It's not just about the food, but rather empowering young people with what they need: nutrition education, job skills, and more.
“We work to equip students with educational skills, relational skills, things like that,” Nettleton says. “That way, they have a better chance to find steady employment, afford a car, and ultimately be able to access grocery stores. Those systemic issues are hard to counter. But you can invest individually into students and hopefully change their future.”
