Investigating Baltimore’s Solutions to Food Deserts

By Katie Marks and Carley Petrone

The Problem of Food Insecurity in Baltimore

The community of Central Park Heights has exactly two food stores: a local convenience store, filled with towers of packaged foods, and a Food City, stocked in much the same way. In neighborhoods such as this one, vegetables and fresh produce are few and far between. As the buyer approaches the cash register to make a purchasing decision, they think: what do I want to eat? What is the best option? $2.50 for a packaged snack or $5.99 for an ingredient?

The reality for many Baltimore communities is that low wages, high prices, and lack of access to transportation result in little choice for dinner. Yvonne DeAndre, a resident of Central Park Heights, said

“I work two jobs, often I eat on the job, so I need something quick and cheap. There’s no quick, cheap, healthy food around here.”

Vacant houses, abysmal job prospects, and constant crime typify ordinary life for these individuals and families. While all of these factors are prevalent in Baltimore, the true question lies in how these aspects relate to food insecurity. To what extent are the current solutions adequately addressing the root of the problem?

According to the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF), Food Deserts are areas where the distance to a supermarket is more than a quarter of a mile away, the median household income is at or below 185% of the Federal Poverty Level, more than 30% of households have no available vehicle and the average Healthy Food Availability Index (HFAI) score for all food stores is low (1).

In Baltimore, 1 in 4 residents live in a food desert.

Food insecurity is a cyclical problem caused by several factors including the limited number of grocery stores and the absence of nutrition education, but most notably, the pervasiveness of poverty. Income inequality and the resulting nutritional problems are rooted in the culture and history of these low-income communities. As Sarah Buzogany, Food Access Planner at the Baltimore Food Policy Initiative, explained it,

“I think the biggest issue is poverty; it’s usually the elephant in the room at meetings when we discuss ways to increase healthy food consumption. That’s why we try to work with the food stamps program to make food more affordable. When you really understand the level of poverty, it’s easier to see why these people don’t want to buy fresh produce, when McDonald’s is more cost effective and easier for them.”

The Shortcomings of Baltimore’s Food Policy Initiatives

The Baltimore Office of Sustainability is constantly working on food policy initiatives to bring healthy food to low-income areas (2). While nearly all of the current solutions address food access, many fail to confront the income inequality piece of the puzzle.

One of the primary initiatives at the Baltimore Office of Sustainability is the healthy corner stores initiative where they work with storeowners and communities to make healthy food options more available in corner stores. While replacing packaged food with fresh produce appears to be a helpful solution, it disregards the fact that many people in these areas don’t have the incentive or the means to buy healthier options. As J.J Reidy, the Founder and CEO of Urban Pastoral, said,

“We are in east Baltimore right now, it’s 60% abandoned, it’s a food desert, we have 168,000 people in Baltimore that live below the poverty line. A lot of these women who are in their 30s or 40s, have never eaten fresh vegetables in their entire life. So step in those shoes, even if I were to put fresh vegetables in the corner store, they’re not going to buy it. Simply because they don’t know how to use it or they are intimidated by it. They don’t see value in it.”

Yvonne DeAndre explained that “I don’t really think twice about the food I buy, I just pick the cheapest thing. I probably should try to eat healthier but I usually don’t think about it. I’m just so used to buying what I buy.”

While increasing the access to these foods is important, both J.J., an expert in the food industry, and Yvonne, a community member, believe that the solution needs to go beyond this step and address the community’s proclivity toward unhealthy options through education and job creation.

Policies That Go a Step Farther

Another initiative that the Baltimore Office of Sustainability has in place is Homegrown Baltimore, an urban agriculture program that allows farmers to lease city-owned land for farming, at a cost of $100 per year (3). This program is also part of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s initiative to reduce vacant land and urban blight. There are three components of Homegrown Baltimore: grow local, buy local, and eat local. Another component of this initiative is an urban agriculture tax credit that gives farmers 90% off their property taxes. These policy initiatives encourage urban agriculture on vacant land by making it more affordable for farmers. In addition to increasing the amount of fresh food being grown locally, Homegrown Baltimore addresses the problem of making the food affordable and easily accessible to all residents. Currently, there are 17 farmer’s markets in Baltimore City and 7 markets that accept Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. SNAP is the USDA’s food stamp for low-income individuals and families. The Baltimore Office of Sustainability is working to increase the number of markets that take SNAP benefits as well as the number of Virtual Supermarkets, which bring food to families’ homes to address the problem of a lack of transportation to grocery stores (4). These policies go beyond food accessibility.

Organizations Fighting Food Insecurity

Real Food Farm. In addition to food policy initiatives, there are several urban agriculture organizations that address food insecurity. Real Food Farm is an innovative urban agricultural enterprise that grows fresh produce on eight acres of land in northeast Baltimore (which they lease from Baltimore City through the Homegrown Baltimore initiative). Real Food Farm’s mission is to “work toward a just and sustainable food system by improving neighborhood access to healthy food, providing experience-based education, and developing an economically viable, environmentally responsible local agriculture sector” (5).

According to Charlotte Proctor, the Community Market and Outreach Coordinator at Real Food Farm, “we sell most of the food we grow in our mobile farmer’s market. We drive around to different neighborhoods, selling our fruits and vegetables to local residents.” Since many residents lack access to vehicles, the mobile market makes buying produce more feasible. Yvonne DeAndre claims, “some of my friends take multiple different buses just to get groceries.” So the mobile farmer’s market greatly benefits people like Yvonne and her friends.

Additionally, Real Food Farm has volunteer programs for students to engage in farming practices. “We understand that part of the problem [of food deserts] stems from a lack of education and employment” says Charlotte. As a result, Real Food Farm, as well as the other urban agriculture organizations, promotes education by giving locals the opportunity to have hands-on experiences with farming. In this way, Real Food Farm is going beyond just making produce accessible — they are getting to the root of the problem.

Whitelock Community Farm. Whitelock Community Farm is another beneficiary of the Homegrown Baltimore initiative. Similar to Real Food Farm, Whitelock also implements its mission through farm-based learning programs such as nutrition education and cooking classes for children (6). Isabel Antreasian, the Programs Manager at Whitelock Community Farm, commented on what Whitelock is doing to help with this issue.

“We do a lot of community outreach programs to teach nutrition to the community members, we especially focus on children. I go to the elementary schools in this area regularly to teach the kids about food and farming. I educate kids on the value of fresh, locally grown food. We have after school programs for middle school and high-school students and we offer youth employment over the summer.”

Whitelock carefully integrated their organization into the community and has brought healthier food options to the local residents. Their commitment to education and community engagement proves to be an integral part of their mission.

Urban Pastoral. Another organization that is utilizing advanced technology to contribute to the fight against food insecurity is Urban Pastoral. Urban Pastoral is an organization that specializes in Controlled Environmental Agriculture (CEA) where they grow fresh produce indoors in a regulated environment. They utilize hydroponics, a soil-less growing system that allows the cultivation of plants using re-circulated filtered water and organic nutrient inputs. They work to grow produce in the most resource and space efficient way possible. All variables such as temperature and nutrient levels are controlled by computer systems. The trailer that they use to house their operations is the size of a school bus but it grows two football fields worth of food using regular farming practices (7). J.J. Reidy has similar ideas as the ones discussed above on how to combat food insecurity. He says, “it’s definitely a misconstrued topic. A lot of people tackle food insecurity from a food access standpoint but that’s a very small piece of the puzzle. Food desserts are like 5% about food access and 95% about income inequality and social inequity.” Urban Pastoral targets job creation in the food sector to address unemployment as well as increase awareness about fostering a sustainable food system. Urban Pastoral works to hire people that would not otherwise be hired — people that have been incarcerated, have no higher education, or are disadvantaged in some other way. J.J. is passionate about the issue of food insecurity and has strong opinions about the topic, which shaped the way he structured his company.

“So what we’re doing here, what we’re looking at is wealth creation, creating jobs in food, to sort of kill two birds with one stone. We get a lot of Bloomberg public health students who come in and say lets bring healthy food to the corner store, I’ve seen that project maybe 25 times. Some of the urban agriculture initiatives you see in town in reality don’t really work.”

Sarah Buzogany said that at the Baltimore Office of Sustainability, “our biggest success has been all of the partnerships we have made. It’s important for external organizations to understand how food insecurity relates to their work. We have worked with a number of these organizations to work towards our common goals.” In the future, getting others to understand the wide scope of food insecurity is essential.

The Future of Food Insecurity

While the current food policy initiatives have made numerous contributions to the community, the fight against food insecurity is far from over. People like Yvonne DeAndre continue to witnesses the issue of lack of food access daily when they are faced with the task of purchasing food. However, as the effects of the current initiatives permeate society, hope for a brighter future is beginning to be revealed.

“Someday, maybe when I have less things to worry about, eating healthy will be more important.”

— Yvonne DeAndre

Footnotes

1. Raychel Santo, Anne Palmer and Amanda Buczynski, “The Baltimore City Food Environment,” Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, http://www.jhsph.edu/research/centers-and-institutes/johns-hopkins-center-for-a-livable-future/_pdf/research/clf_reports/baltimore-food-environment-report2015.pdf (accessed December 1, 2016).
2. “Baltimore Food Policy Initiative,” The Baltimore Office of Sustainability, http://www.baltimoresustainability.org/projects/baltimore-food-policy-initiative/ (accessed December 2, 2016).
3. “Homegrown Baltimore: Grow Local; Baltimore City’s Urban Agriculture Plan,” The Baltimore Office of Sustainability, http://www.baltimoresustainability.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/HGB-Grow-Local-Final-Cover-1.pdf (accessed November 6, 2016).
4. “Baltimarket,” The Baltimore Office of Sustainability, http://www.baltimoresustainability.org/projects/baltimore-food-policy-initiative/food-desert-retail-strategy/baltimarket/ (accessed November 28, 2016).
5. “Our Story — Real Food Farm.” Real Food Farm, http://realfoodfarm.civicworks.com/about-us/our-story/ (accessed December 1, 2016).
6. “About our Farm” Whitelock Community Farm, http://whitelockfarm.org/about/ (accessed December 1, 2016).
7. “FARM UP.” Urban Pastoral, http://www.urbanpastoral.co/farmup/#sustainableapproach (accessed December 1, 2016).

Works Cited

“Baltimore’s food deserts,” The Baltimore Sun, http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-food-desert-20150615-story.html (accessed December 1, 2016).

Bucynski, Amanda Behrens, Holly Freishtat, and Sarah Buzogany. “Mapping Baltimore City’s Food Environment.” Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, 2015, http://www.jhsph.edu/research/centers-and-institutes/johns-hopkins-center-for-a-livable-future/_pdf/research/clf_reports/Baltimore-Food-Environment-Report-2015-1.pdf (accessed December, 1 2016).

Mark Nord and Margaret Andrews, “Reducing Food Insecurity in the United States: Assessing Progress Toward a National Objective,” United States Department of Agriculture, http://permanent.access.gpo.gov.proxy1.library.jhu.edu/gpo55690/fanrr26-2_002.pdf (accessed December 1, 2016).

Michelle P. Corrigan, “Growing what you eat: Developing community gardens in Baltimore, Maryland,” Applied Geography, Volume 31, Issue 4, October 2011, pp. 1232–1241.

Raychel Santo, Anne Palmer, Brent Kim, “Vacant Lots to Vibrant Lots: A Review of the Benefits and Limitations of Urban Agriculture,” Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, http://www.jhsph.edu/research/centers-and-institutes/johns-hopkins-center-for-a-livable-future/_pdf/research/clf_reports/urban-ag-literature-review.pdf (accessed December 1, 2016).