Community markets and urban gardens are cultivating programs to feed the hungry  

Parts of West Dayton are also considered a food desert, or areas which have limited access to affordable and healthy options. 

In Cincinnati, food deserts generally take in Avondale, North Fairmount, Over-the-Rhine and Walnut Hills. Research shows there are fewer food outlets in low-income neighborhoods where people of color live. 

Community markets 

How do you make sure communities without a full-service grocery store like a Kroger, Walmart, Meijer or something else, have access to healthy food options too?  

Brick by Brick’s Hernz Laguerre Jr. reports on two efforts where they can. Meiser’s Market in Lower Price Hill hands out free produce and healthy packaged meals. Gem City Market in Old Dayton also tries to help. One customer told Laguerre Jr., “They don’t use money as a barrier. They say if you can’t get this, we have free stuff for you so you can still eat.” 

Community market challenges 

However, these small markets can struggle to stay open. Problems faced by a now-closed West Oakland, California crowd-funded grocery store included the pandemic, a lack of support and vendor issues. A Raleigh, North Carolina woman had problems even getting her market off the ground. Strong Towns reports Jessica Peacock wanted to reopen her great grandparents’ neighborhood store but after a three-year battle over zoning, she was out of money. In Waco, Texas the Jubilee Food Market has closed. Organizers point to changing grocery store habits that allow participants in a SNAP pilot to shop online. 

How can the community help keep these smaller grocery stores open? Capitol News Illinois and ProPublica studied 24 stores in 18 states, including Ohio. Despite millions of dollars in subsidies from state and local governments, many close their doors soon after opening or don’t open at all. 

Some areas may try grocery stores owned and operated by the government. New York City Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani is proposing them in all five of the city’s boroughs. Chicago is doing a feasibility study and the States of Wisconsin, Georgia and Illinois are incentivizing them in food deserts. 

But the Brookings Institute argues that “singling out neighborhoods without grocery stores as food deserts has failed to produce a successful solution.” 

Senior Brookings Fellow Adie Tomer told Brick by Brick, “Distance from food is not necessarily an indicator of where you choose to consume it.” He says, “The barriers from a transportation context in terms of food access isn’t actually how close the food outlet is to you, but actually your personal transportation accesses.” In other words, people don’t necessarily shop in their own neighborhood. 

An AI solution 

However, maybe there is a way for entrepreneurs to know if their community market will succeed before they open it. It’s called NOURISH. Researchers at the University of San Francisco and San Diego have a developed an artificial intelligence platform for people who want to open fresh food outlets in food deserts. It suggests loans and grants and online maps to optimize the placement of fresh food outlets for foot traffic. 

Research Scientist Amarnath Gupta says AI is being used in two ways, with a community development corporation and another directly with an entrepreneur. “So, somebody has an urban garden and we are working with one such group to understand how they can incubate a new business around their urban garden plus how they can form a partnership network with other food producers to that they can create sort of a food court type of business.” 

NOURISH Principal Investigator Laura Schmidt says, “Coming in the next calendar year, we’ll be moving towards scaling it up,” in places like Texas, parts of New York, the Chicago area and Detroit. 

Mobile grocery stores 

The Census Bureau projects that by 2050 seniors (age 60 and older) will make up about 104 million people in the country. If the current rate of food insecurity holds, more than 9 million seniors will be experiencing food insecurity. 

Many seniors don’t drive and could benefit from something called a mobile grocery store. The nonprofit God’s Pantry and Kroger started one in Lexington, Kentucky. It’s a 64-foot wrapped car hauler that sells fresh fruit and vegetables, meat and dairy to all income levels and travels to every neighborhood once a week. In its first year it served over 1,000 customers, many of them seniors. 

Urban gardens 

Studies show urban gardens can have a positive impact. They produce healthy food for the people planting and harvesting it in community gardens and for the people who go to food pantries and find these healthy options. 

Mission of Mary 

Brick by Brick’s Emiko Moore reports the Mission of Mary Cooperative in Dayton’s Twin Towers neighborhood grows food for the community but also teaches people to plant gardens in their own backyard. 

A 2016 report from the University of California and Santa Clara University found gardeners not only consumed more vegetables by growing their own food but saved on average $92 a month from a backyard garden and $84 a month when growing vegetables at a community garden. 

Dayton has a handful of community gardens designed to alleviate food deserts and so does Cincinnati. Soapbox Cincinnati highlighted a few in this article. 

Brick Gardens 

Founder of Cincinnati’s Brick Gardens Domonique “Dom” Peebles learned as a teenager not everybody has an endless supply of food. After harvesting produce at his family’s Alabama farm, his father would drop off bags of vegetables to neighbors. 

Years later, when living in Over-the-Rhine, his neighbors asked him to buy food for them because they didn’t have a car. In 2020 armed with a grant from People’s Liberty, he started Brick Gardens: 

• Urban farm in Evanston (on Xavier’s Campus) 

• Urban farm in Madisonville 

• Urban Farm in Bond Hill 

• Mushroom Facility in Northside 

• Future farm in Walnut Hills 

This year’s goal is to donate at least 100,000 lbs. of produce to food pantries. And he’s trying something new – a partnership with La Soupe to freeze-dry vegetables, extending the life of vegetables by 25 years in a soup mix for hungry kids (through Cincinnati Public Schools) that they can take home. 

Urban Agriculture Initiative 

The Ohio Aerospace Institute (OAI) hopes to “transform underutilized urban spaces into thriving agricultural hubs,” in the Urban Agriculture Initiative.  

How it intends to create urban farms is by using: 

1.  Drone technology for soil moisture and crop health monitoring 

2.  Data-driven agriculture to improve crop yields and food distribution in underserved communities  

3. Collaborating with urban farmers to develop scalable and sustainable farming models 

4.  Workforce development and STEM Education programs to support future leaders in sustainability. 

The question of land 

Where do you get the land to start an urban farm or community garden? That’s one potential limitation. 

However, Brick Gardens’ Founder Dom Peebles says go to places that have it to lease, like universities, churches and schools. He likes to do 10-year leases.  

Two groups did find the space in Over-the-Rhine; Cornerstone Renter Equity, Preservation of Affordable Housing and Urban Farming Collective Food System announced the new Goose Alley Community Garden this summer. The groups will sell the produce they grow at their new Bodega at 29 Green Street.  

Looking ahead 

Some critics wonder if “It’s time to Stop Using the Term Food Deserts.” The Counter reports the term food desert originated in the 1990s when researchers in Scotland formed a task force to look at nutrition inequality. But more recently the term has fallen into disfavor. Detroit food activist Malik Yakini, The Counter reports, calls it “food apartheid,” because he says food deserts are created with intentionality by public policy and economic practices. And the Brookings Institute reports people often shop closer to work, not their home. 

Can legislation combat food deserts? U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand introduced a bill this summer to help end food deserts. The bill proposes $50 million annually to a Department of Agriculture program that offers loans and grants to incentivize grocery stores in food deserts.  

Brick by Brick recognizes that food banks, food pantries and food rescue organizations all work to end food insecurity. We will focus on them in a future episode.  

What do you think the best way is to combat food deserts and make sure people get the healthy food they need? There are challenges but some communities have figured out a way to do it. We want to build community around context and solutions in our cities. Your feedback is very important to the effort, as we continue to dig deeper into the responses to some of our most pressing social issues, including the housing crisis. Click on the green button below to take a short survey to help reinforce and refine our work. Thank you.