Category: Food Systems (Page 1 of 2)

The Impact of Structural Racism on Access to Healthy Foods

April 15, 2022 / odrozd / 0 Comments

By Emma Vinella-Brusher, Angles Managing Editor

Access to good, nutritious food is essential to our ability to survive and thrive as human beings, but this is not a right afforded to all Americans. Despite being a nation of abundance, the U.S. is plagued by food insecurity and poor diet, though these impacts are disproportionally felt by lower-income families and communities of color. For example, an analysis by Walker et al. (2021) of responses to the 2011-2017 National Health Interview Surveys found that non-Hispanic Black Americans were 1.7 times more likely to be food insecure than their non-Hispanic white counterparts.[i] Food insecurity is also closely tied to obesity, the age-adjusted prevalence of which has been found to be 38.7% among Mexican Americans and 44.1% among non-Hispanic Black people, compared to 32.4% for non-Hispanic white people.[ii] Given these proven disparities in food access and dietary health, it is necessary to understand the racialized history of segregation and discrimination that led to disparate access to a healthy diet. By using the lens of Critical Race Theory, we are able to examine the structural and institutional systems that led to these disparities in Black communities relative to the rest of the United States.[1]

Critical Race Theory

The origin of Critical Race Theory (CRT) can be traced to the philosophical writings of Derrick Bell, a professor at the University of Washington Law School in the 1970s and early 1980s. Many legal scholars, lawyers, and activists at this time recognized that many of the advances of the civil rights era had stopped and even been reversed in some places. In response, scholars began developing alternative legal theories and frameworks to combat the racial inequality continuously experienced by Black Americans. CRT posits that racism is a fundamental part of American society, as it is a nation built by and for white elites, and that racial progress for minorities is only allowed only when seen as in the majority’s self-interest.[iii] This theory helps to explain how inequities in community design and access to resources are manifestations of the structural and systemic racism embedded within American society.

A Short History of Residential Segregation

The United States has had a long history of residential segregation, the impacts of which are still felt today. The 1896 Plessy v Ferguson court ruling and the era of “separate but equal” facilities and communities is thought to have ended with the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education integration of schools, but in reality America’s relationship with segregation extends well beyond both cases.[iv] Academic Richard Rothstein emphasizes the “de jure” nature of segregation – segregation solidified by laws and public policies implemented by the 1933 New Deal, the 1949 Housing Act, the Public Works Administration, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, the U.S. Housing Authority and Housing and Home Finance Agency (now the Department of Housing and Urban Development), and other local municipal housing authorities.[v]

Patterns of food security in places such as the Bay Area, CA follow the original neighborhood grades of the 1930s
(Alameda County Community Food Bank)

Exclusionary racial zoning ordinances across the U.S. reclassified residential areas as industrial if African American families moved in, rendered them ineligible for mortgages and therefore homeownership, and prohibited multi-unit housing, most common for these families, in central residential areas. All of these policies made wealth-building through property ownership nearly impossible for Black families and relegated them to “urban African American slums” located in under-resourced areas close to environmentally unsafe polluting industries and far from the exclusive white suburbs.[vi] This long history of segregation and discrimination has impacted the ability of Black communities to access a healthy diet.

The Impacts of Segregation and Racial Discrimination

Wealth and Social Capital

As mentioned, segregation has had a notable impact on the ability of Black families to build generational wealth and the access to power and resources this affords. A 2020 Brookings Institute report found that the net worth of a typical white family is nearly ten times greater than that of a Black family, and high- and middle-income white families are much wealthier than Black families even within the same income bracket.[vii] A lack of generational wealth has made it much harder to Black families to find affordable, quality, stable housing – the homeownership gap between white and Black households is up to 50% in cities such as Minneapolis and Albany and 25% in DC and LA, and Black renters experience 32% of all evictions in the U.S. despite making up 20% of the renter population.[viii]^, [ix] Eviction affects emotional, social, and physical well-being, and disrupts social capital when families are forced to relocate to entirely new communities and rebuild.

Diet Quality

Bowen, Elliott, and Hardison-Moody (2021) posit that food insecurity and poverty are strongly correlated and are both tied to the structural factors of segregation such as a lack of affordable housing and an inadequate social safety net.[x] Households with physical and financial assets, emergency savings, and stable housing, all more difficult for Black families to acquire due to this history, are less likely to experience food insecurity and poor diet quality and have far more social and economic resources to draw on when needed. Researchers have found that racism is linked to food insecurity due not only to socioeconomic impacts, but also the life-long adversity discrimination brings. Burke et al. conducted a 2016 study of 154 African American respondents, finding that a one-unit increase in the frequency of lifetime racial discrimination was associated with a 5% increase in the odds of being very low food secure. The odds increase was 15% if the discrimination occurred at a workplace or school, 16% if it felt stigmatizing or devaluing, and 39% if threatening or aggressive.[xi]

Geographic Patterns

The legacy of segregation and racial discrimination can also be seen in the geographic patterns of food insecurity. A 2019 Feeding America report found that while majority African American counties make up only 3% of U.S. counties, 92% of these have high food-insecurity rates compared to only 11% of all counties regardless of racial makeup.[xii] Bower et al. (2014) analyzed Census population and InfoUSA food store data and found that at all levels of poverty, predominantly Black census tracts have the fewest supermarkets and white tracts have the most, leading to unequal access to fresh, healthy foods.[xiii]

Outside a McDonald’s in 1980.
(Henbury/Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix/Getty Images)

Beyond a lack of nutritious foods, Black neighborhoods also have a high prevalence of fast food options due to these companies actively seeking out particular land use types. National fast food chains such as White Castle have been known to target urban African American neighborhoods by seeking name recognition and brand loyalty, and this is often made easier by the weak retail climate and surplus of low-wage labor fostered by segregation.[xiv] On the flip side, Black neighborhoods are also commonly stigmatized as culturally inferior regardless of socioeconomic profiles, and many retailers such as Starbucks desiring to attract urban professionals with disposable incomes often avoid opening in these communities. Areas with more wealth, political power, and connections are able to control fast food retailer siting and attract healthier food options through enacting desirable changes and preventing undesirable businesses from moving in.[xv] As a result, the services available in segregated urban areas are typically fewer in quantity, poorer in quality, and higher in price than those available in less segregated urban and suburban areas.[xvi]

The Value of a Critical Race Theory Perspective

Viewing food insecurity and diet quality through a Critical Race Theory lens is essential, as it is well documented that racial and ethnic minorities disproportionately live in places that lack the resources necessary to generate and sustain health. A 2008 analysis by Phyllis Jones et al. of data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System even found that simply being socially assigned as white significantly improved your health status, regardless of how oneself identifies.[xvii] As previously mentioned, American residential segregation and its modern-day impacts are an indicator of structural racism, which facilitates laws and policies that explicitly or implicitly advantage white Americans while disadvantaging Black Americans. CRT is vital for understanding and addressing the disparities in access to good food and healthy diet behaviors. Structural racism, as indicated by racial inequities in poverty, unemployment, and homeownership, has been associated with higher obesity rates, fewer supermarkets, and more fast food restaurants when controlling for socioeconomic status and other factors.[xviii] Disparities in access to fresh fruits, vegetables, and other healthy foods are primarily caused by “ostensibly race-neutral policies espoused by the government that have had racialized consequences.”[xix] CRT enables us to examine how our institutions interact and create racialized outcomes that disadvantage Black communities such as food insecurity and obesity.

Conclusion & Interventions

The dietary health disparities we see today are the direct result of the American legacy of racial segregation and discrimination that has existed even before the founding of our nation. As summarized above, there is a wealth of literature regarding the health impacts of this legacy. Our history of segregation has led to racial disparities in the ability to build generational wealth and access the power and resources necessary to live a healthy life – households with more physical and financial assets, emergency savings, and stable housing, all harder for Black families to acquire than white ones, are less likely to experience dietary health concerns. Disparate homeownership and eviction rates have also resulted in a lack of stable housing and inadequate social safety net for many Black Americans, leading to a higher likelihood of both food insecurity and poor diet quality. The services and resources available in segregated urban areas are typically fewer in quantity, poorer in quality, and higher in price than those in less segregated areas, making “healthy” foods inaccessible to communities of color.

Given these racial disparities, Critical Race Theory is an essential lens to use to tackle the food insecurity crisis disproportionately plaguing our communities of color. Any anti-racist intervention to improve social support and address poor diet must center indigenous and racialized communities and tackle racism at all levels – internalized, interpersonal, and institutional. Community-level strategies to create a supportive culture around healthy foods should be centered around building community through events, mentorship and companionship, and goal setting. A built environment that provides public spaces and amenities for community-building is vital for enhancing social support and the ability to address poor diet, as well as the availability of local, convenient, healthy, affordable food options for communities across the U.S. We cannot solve the food insecurity crisis without an anti-racist approach to improving our policies, communities, and built environment.

[1] For the purposes of this piece, the terms “Black” and “African American” are used interchangeably based on the existing literature, although in reality these are two distinct identities that hold different meanings for different communities.

[i] Walker, R. J., Garacci, E., Dawson, A. Z., Williams, J. S., Ozieh, M., & Egede, L. E. (2021). Trends in food insecurity in the United States from 2011-2017: Disparities by age, sex, race/ethnicity, and income. Population Health Management, 24(4), 496–501.

[ii] Flegal, K. M., Carroll, M. D., Ogden, C. L., & Curtin, L. R. (2010). Prevalence and trends in obesity among US adults, 1999-2008. JAMA, 303(3), 235-241.

[iii]Demaske, C. (2009). The First Amendment Encyclopedia: Critical Race Theory. Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University.

[iv] The Library of Congress. (n.d.). A century of racial segregation, 1849-1950. Brown v. Board at Fifty: “With an Even Hand.”

[v] Rothstein, R. (2017). The color of law: A forgotten history of how our government segregated America. New York, NY: Liveright Publishing Corporation.

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] McIntosh, K., Moss, E., Nunn, R., & Shambaugh, J. (2020, February 27). Examining the Black-white wealth gap. Brookings.

[viii] McCargo, A., & Strochak, S. (2018, February 26). Mapping the black homeownership gap. The Urban Institute.

[ix] Hepburn, P., Louis, R., & Desmond, M. (2020). Racial and gender disparities among evicted Americans. Sociological Science, 7(27), 649-662.

[x] Bowen, S., Elliott, S., & Hardison-Moody, A. (2021). The structural roots of food insecurity: How racism is a fundamental cause of food insecurity. Sociology Compass, 15(7).

[xi] Burke, M., Jones, S., Frongillo, E., Fram, M., Blake, C., & Freedman, D. (2018). Severity of household food insecurity and lifetime racial discrimination among African-American households in South Carolina. Ethnicity & Health, 23(3), 276-292.

[xii] Feeding America. (2019). Map the meal gap: A report on county and congressional district food insecurity and county food cost in the United States in 2017.

[xiii] Bower, K., Thorpe Jr., R., Rohde, C., & Gaskin, D. (2014). The intersection of neighborhood racial segregation, poverty, and urbanicity and its impact on food store availability in the United States. Preventive Medicine, 58, 33-39.

[xiv] Kwate, N. O. (2008). Fried chicken and fresh apples: Racial segregation as a fundamental cause of fast food density in black neighborhoods. Health & Place, 14(1), 32-44.

[xv] Ibid.

[xvi] Richardson, L. D., & Norris, M. (2010). Access to health and health care: How race and ethnicity matter. Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine, 77(2), 166-177.

[xvii] Jones, C. P., Truman, B. I., Elam-Evans, L. D., Jones, C. A., Jones, C. Y., Jiles, R., Rumisha, S. F., & Perry, G. S. (2008). Using “socially assigned race” to probe white advantages in health status. Ethnicity & Disease, 18(4), 496-504.

[xviii] Bell, C. N., Kerr, J., & Young, J. L. (2019). Associations between obesity, obesogenic environments, and structural racism vary by county-level racial composition. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(5), 861.

[xix] New York Law School Racial Justice Project & American Civil Liberties Union. (2012). Unshared bounty: How structural racism contributes to the Creation and Persistence of Food Deserts.

Emma Vinella-Brusher is a second-year dual degree Master’s student in City and Regional Planning and Public Health interested in equity, mobility, and food security. Born and raised in Oakland, CA, she received her undergraduate degree in Environmental Studies from Carleton College before spending four years at the U.S. Department of Transportation in Cambridge, MA. In her free time, Emma enjoys running, bike rides, live music, and laughing at her own jokes.

Edited by Elijah Gullett

Featured image courtesy of Pexels

REPOST: It’s a SNAP: Addressing Food Insecurity in the Face of COVID-19

August 20, 2021 / odrozd

This post was originally published on February 12, 2021. Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the largest single increase to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to date. Beginning October 1, SNAP benefits will permanently increase by 21%, or an average of $36.24 per person. This historic move by the Biden administration will help feed the more than 42 million Americans participating in SNAP each month. As the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to drag on, this piece is once again relevant.

By Emma Vinella-Brusher, Angles Managing Editor

Of all of the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, one that has been at the top of my mind is the exacerbation of the already severe food insecurity problem we have here in the U.S.

Food insecurity, or a lack of consistent access to enough food for an active, healthy life, was a health concern already affecting 35 million Americans, including nearly 11 million children, prior to the start of the pandemic. An October 2020 report by Feeding America projected a 15.6% food insecurity rate for the year, equal to 50.4 million Americans.[1] In other words, 1 in 6 people, including 1 in 4 children, likely experienced food insecurity in 2020.

Here in North Carolina as in so many other states across the U.S., the coronavirus has had a disproportionate toll on Black and Latinx communities. In May, the Durham County Health Department found that Latinx residents (14% of the population) accounted for 24% of county COVID-19 cases, while Black residents (37% of the population) accounted for 42% of confirmed cases.[2] This disproportionate burden of COVID-19 outcomes on minorities stems from longstanding economic and health inequities. Prior to the pandemic, Black individuals were 2.4 times as likely as White individuals to live in food insecure households.[3] We can trace this heightened risk of contracting and therefore dying from COVID-19 back to related health disparities stemming from the harmful history of segregation and redlining here in the U.S.

NC Dept. of Health & Human Services, Weekly Case Demographics for Orange County, NC as of Feb 6, 2021

Many experts are concerned about the long-term inequitable implications of pandemic-induced food insecurity, as households with reduced incomes facing higher retail prices are likely to cut down on the quantity and quality of food consumption, with potentially long-lasting impacts on nutrition and health.[4] Beginning in March of 2020, Congress and the USDA have attempted to address this by expanding the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and creating a temporary Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) program for low-income children. Further investing in this program, sometimes referred to as the nation’s “first line of defense against hunger,” is vital to addressing health disparities across the U.S. The COVID-19 pandemic has spotlighted the immense inequities in health outcomes in our nation, particularly related to race, and presents an opportunity for us to get serious about ending food insecurity once and for all.

So how can you, as an individual, help? Beyond urging your congressperson to expand SNAP benefits and the Pandemic EBT program, there are some great ways to get involved in our community here in the Triangle in a safe, COVID-friendly way (and donations are always a good option if you’re short on time!). Here are a few of the many opportunities right now, ranging from food sorting and packing, to meal delivery, to farming and gardening:

On Campus:

In the Community:

Chapel Hill-Carrboro Public School Foundation
Chatham Outreach Alliance (Pittsboro)
EAT North Carolina (Durham)
Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina (Raleigh)
Inter-Faith Council (Carrboro)
Meals on Wheels Orange County (Chapel Hill)
PORCH (Chapel Hill/Carrboro)
TABLE (Carrboro)
Town of Chapel Hill Food Distribution
YMCA of the Triangle (Raleigh)

[1] Feeding America (2020), The Impact of the Coronavirus on Food Insecurity in 2020

[2] Indy Week (2020), COVID-19 Hits Black, Latinx Durham Residents Hardest

[3] National Public Radio (2020), Food Insecurity In The U.S. By The Numbers

[4] The World Bank (2020), Food Security and COVID-19

Featured Image Courtesy of Caio, Pexels

It’s a SNAP: Addressing Food Insecurity in the Face of COVID-19

February 12, 2021 / odrozd

By Emma Vinella-Brusher

Of all of the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, one that has been at the top of my mind is the exacerbation of the already severe food insecurity problem we have here in the U.S.

NC Dept. of Health & Human Services, Weekly Case Demographics for Orange County, NC as of Feb 6, 2021

On Campus:

In the Community:

Chapel Hill-Carrboro Public School Foundation
Chatham Outreach Alliance (Pittsboro)
EAT North Carolina (Durham)
Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina (Raleigh)
Inter-Faith Council (Carrboro)
Meals on Wheels Orange County (Chapel Hill)
PORCH (Chapel Hill/Carrboro)
TABLE (Carrboro)
Town of Chapel Hill Food Distribution
YMCA of the Triangle (Raleigh)

[1] Feeding America (2020), The Impact of the Coronavirus on Food Insecurity in 2020

[2] Indy Week (2020), COVID-19 Hits Black, Latinx Durham Residents Hardest

[3] National Public Radio (2020), Food Insecurity In The U.S. By The Numbers

[4] The World Bank (2020), Food Security and COVID-19

Featured Image Courtesy of The Denver Post, MediaNews Group

About the Author: Emma Vinella-Brusher is a first-year dual degree Master’s student in City and Regional Planning and Public Health interested in equity, mobility, and food security. Born and raised in Oakland, CA, she received her undergraduate degree in Environmental Studies from Carleton College before spending four years at the U.S. Department of Transportation in Cambridge, MA. In her free time, Emma enjoys running, bike rides, live music, and laughing at her own jokes.

How Immigrants Can Revitalize Rural Communities

August 2, 2019 / odrozd

For much of its history, Siler City, North Carolina was mostly white; now, due to jobs in poultry processing, the town is 40% Latinx. Driving through downtown, the demographic change is marked by the tiendas, beauty salons, and evangelical churches with signs en español that line the streets. Like many towns across the state, Siler City suffered when the furniture and textile industries moved elsewhere. Though the poultry processing plants remained, the workforce changed as native-born workers no longer wanted low-paying, dangerous jobs.¹ Immigrants not only filled job shortages at the poultry plant and storefronts downtown: this new population also brought new life to a dying industrial town.

Siler City is not an isolated example. Across the South and Midwest, rural communities are experiencing an influx of Latinxs in search of economic opportunity. Latinxs accounted for more than half of the rural population gain in this decade.² Initially drawn to work in agriculture or meat processing, many choose to settle in these places, some opening small businesses. In fact, immigrants are twice as likely to start businesses as their native-born counterparts.³ These businesses contribute to economic development and community building in a number of ways including paying taxes, creating jobs, reducing commercial vacancy downtown, and providing spaces for cultural interaction.⁴ Often, they are launched without technical assistance or formal loans which demonstrate entrepreneurs’ resourcefulness and tenacity but also highlights the need for more institutionalized support.

Providing support for Latinx entrepreneurship can be a promising strategy for economic development in rural communities; however, this approach requires an understanding of the unique barriers and needs of Latinx entrepreneurs. Latinxs are more likely to finance their businesses with personal savings or informal loans from families and friends and are less likely to seek loans from financial institutions.⁵ Due to language or cultural barriers, they may not be able to access technical assistance or understand the processes for starting a business. To effectively engage Latinx business owners, local institutions will need to develop greater cultural competency as well as more targeted and inclusive approaches to outreach.

Mural in Downtown Siler City. Mural and Photo Credit: JR Butler, Siler City Mural Society.

Some organizations and institutions have already begun integrating these concepts into their programs. The Iowa State University Extension and Outreach office, for example, has a dedicated facilitator who works closely with Latinx business owners to navigate the start-up process and facilitate community forums with existing residents.⁶ The office also created “A Citizen’s Guide for Change” that offers lessons from four Iowa communities that have experienced an influx of Latinx immigrants. More and more, communities are recognizing the existing contributions and untapped potential of immigrants.

Efforts are already underway in Siler City, North Carolina to better integrate Latinxs and leverage their potential for entrepreneurship. In 2017, Siler City underwent a multi-year community planning process to identify issues affecting the immigrant population and generate public policies. Part of the Building Integrated Communities Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the process involved a community assessment and a series of stakeholder workshops. Over 75 residents representing a diverse sample of immigrants in Chatham County participated, along with town officials and service providers. As a result of these workshops, town officials and service providers have a better sense of what immigrants need and how they can support integration.⁷ In the next year, the town will work toward implementing aspects of the Building Integrated Communities action plan, including having the planning department visit existing Latinx businesses and hosting a starting a business seminar in Spanish.

The extent to which rural communities adapt to change or welcome newcomers could potentially determine their future. At a time when decline and despair are the dominant narratives of rural America, Latinx immigrants are a source of renewal and hope. By welcoming diversity, small towns can demonstrate to the rest of the country how to embrace inclusiveness and collaborate as a community.

About the Author: Lucia Constantine is a recent graduate of DCRP, interested in immigrant integration and inclusive economic development. Prior to coming to UNC, Lucia worked in higher education and nonprofits. She lives in Durham and enjoys taking her dog to the Eno.

Featured image: A family from Siler City enjoying the playground. Photo credit: Siler City, http://www.silercity.org/

Alexander, C. S. (2012). Explaining Peripheral Labor * A Poultry Industry Case Study. Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law, 33(2), 353–399.
Johnson, K. M. (2012). Rural Demographic Change in the New Century. Carsey Institute, Winter(44), 1–12.
Fairlie, R. (2012). Open for business: How Immigrants Are Driving Small Business Creation in the United States.
Mathema, S., Svajlenka, N. P., & Hermann, A. (2018). Revival and Opportunity Immigrants in Rural America.
Bates, T., & Robb, A. (2015). Impacts of Owner Race and Geographic Context on Access to Small-Business Financing. Economic Development Quarterly, 30 (2), 159–170.https://doi.org/10.1177/0891242415620484
McDaniel, P. (2014). Revitalization in the Heartland of America: Welcoming Immigrant Entrepreneurs for Economic Development.
The Latino Migration Project. (2019) Building Integrated Communities in Siler City: Action Plan for Immigrant Integration.

DCRP Students Work on Interdisciplinary Research at the Nexus of Climate Change and Health

April 24, 2019 / odrozd / 0 Comments

Featured Image: Playas de la Costa Verde, near Lima, Peru. Photo Credit: Willian Justen de Vasconcellos, Unsplash.

A strength of the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill is the potential for students to take courses in other departments and engage with faculty and students across the university. This interdisciplinary education is critical for planners-in-training. Planning, more than most professions, requires engaging with cross-disciplinary issues and obligates practitioners to serve as facilitators on teams with diverse backgrounds and expertise. Thus, the opportunity to engage in high-quality academic research on a multidisciplinary team as a student is an invaluable experience in graduate school.

Two DCRPers engaged in this opportunity in spades during the spring 2019 semester. First-year graduate students Emily Gvino (MPH/MCRP) and Leah Campbell (PhD) were members of a five-person team brought together for a semester-long research seminar with the goal of developing a paper that could eventually be published. The theme of the GEOG 803 class, hosted by the Department of Geography, was climate change and health, broadly interpreted. One group in the class focused on the impacts of climate change on agricultural yields in the Southeast United States. Another looked at deforestation and forest livelihoods in Central Africa.

Emily and Leah’s team looked at the impacts of long-term climate change on the prevalence of stunting for children under five in Peru. This research is highly related to Emily and Leah’s academic interests: Leah focuses on integrating equity and resilience into climate adaptation, and she possesses a background in geophysics and environmental science. Emily’s research interests involve how the natural environment can address social justice issues and the impact of climate change and the environment on health.

Stunting is defined by a measured height-for-age two or more standard deviations below the international median determined by the World Health Organization. As a nutritional health outcome, stunting is a critical condition to study because of its association with several subsequent health and social outcomes. The negative repercussions include an increased risk of death, poor adult health, reduced cognitive function, decreased fine motor skills, and decreased lifetime economic productivity and earnings. As of 2011, more than 165 million children under five were stunted worldwide; an additional 25 million are projected to be undernourished (and therefore stunted) by 2050, with projections connecting these results to climate change.

Peru is a particularly interesting place to investigate stunting trends given the overall high rates of stunting nationally. As a result of both pervasive poverty and social inequality, as well as economic and political instability through the 1980s, Peru previously had one of the highest rates of stunting in Latin America. As of the early 2000s, more than a quarter of children in Peru were stunted. Specifically, the Peruvian government ventured on a country-wide, coordinated effort to rectify the public health crisis, which had not improved despite the concurrent economic growth in the region. In particular, the government focused their policy and intervention efforts on improving nutritional outcomes; this program was the most effective on the part of the Peruvian government in two decades, reducing the rate of stunting by 11.7 points in only six years (from 29.8% in 2005 to 18.1% in 2011). The findings from their paper, by examining the connection between climate anomalies and stunting in Peruvian children, may illuminate if these continued governmental efforts will be undermined by climate change in the coming years.

Given these interesting trends, many studies have looked at the relationship between different demographic characteristics and stunting in Peru. The results are consistent with other studies that have been done through the developing world. Unsurprisingly, the highest rates of stunting are typically found in the poorest households, those most dependent on agriculture, located in rural communities, and present in families where mothers have the least number of years of formal education. In Peru, specifically, indigeneity has been found to be another important predictor of stunting with a stunting rate of 47% in indigenous communities versus only 23% in non-indigenous households.

Plenty of research has also been done on the ways in which climate change may increase the prevalence of stunting globally and exacerbate the socioeconomic disparities in stunting rates. Three main mechanisms have been proposed for how climate may impact child height. The first is that fetal stress will permanently inhibit child growth if a mother is exposed to climate extremes while pregnant. However, that finding ignores the potential of ‘catch-up’ growth after the earliest development stages. The second is that climate anomalies will change agricultural productivity, in turn negatively impacting family incomes and food availability. This argument is complicated by individual and household-level adaptation and non-environmental drivers of agricultural productivity including prices and market access. The final proposed mechanism is that climate change will reduce water quality and change the disease environment, increasing the prevalence of diarrheal and gastrointestinal illnesses that can inhibit growth in children at critical early stages.

Emily and Leah’s paper this semester focused less on the specific pathways than simply what impact climate change may have on Peruvian children’s health outcomes. This connection represents a notable gap in the literature to-date. This analysis was also somewhat unusual in its method. Rather than trying to investigate the relationship indirectly (many previous studies looked at climate impacts on agriculture and then made assumptions as to the impacts on child nutrition), this paper looks at the direct relationship between temperature and precipitation anomalies and height-for-age scores, without making assumptions as to the nature of that relationship.

Using data from the global Demographic and Health Survey, one of the most important datasets in public health research, regression models were developed to look at how year-to-year exposure – including prenatal exposure – to climate anomalies predicted the likelihood of stunting. Both a logistic regression (with the WHO standard cut-off for the stunting determination), and a linear regression (using height-for-age scores as the outcome variable) were developed, controlling for various socioeconomic characteristics at the household and child level, including maternal education and age, child age and sex, family wealth, indigeneity, and geography. The sample of children – almost 80,000 records – were then divided into five cohorts based on age to examine whether the effect of climate differed based on a child’s age.

Results are still being analyzed, but the initial findings are promising for a publishable paper. In line with previous studies, findings confirm that larger households with lower socioeconomic status or in indigenous communities are more likely to have stunted children. Interestingly, young boys were found to be more at risk of stunting than girls. This is a common finding as well, though no satisfying social or biological reason has been found to explain it.

Where the study gains intrigue is what it suggests about climate impact on stunting. While increasing rainfall was actually found to have a positive effect on children’s height, there is a clear relationship between increasing temperatures and increased rates of stunting. Interestingly, children don’t seem to be affected by the most recent year of climate exposure; that is, kids in the 4 to 5-year-old cohort were not significantly affected by temperature anomalies experienced in their 3rd to 4th years of life. It’s difficult to know the cause of this finding in the scope of this analysis; it’s possible that there are delays between temperature extremes, reduced food availability because of temperature, and poor nutritional outcomes because of reduced food availability or quality.

Figures 1 and 2. Monthly mean precipitation (1) and temperature (2) values for each region, represented by five month moving averages over the years 1981-2012. Regional monthly means were calculated using weighted averages over polygon size for departments located in each region. Vertical lines represent the first months of years with very strong El Niño events as defined by the Oceanic Niño Index index.

Figures 3 and 4. Overall monthly average for precipitation (1) and temperature (2) across Peru departments over the 1981-2012 year period.

Another particularly interesting finding is that the effect of climate experienced in utero on stunting rates, though significant in the first couple of years of life, dissipates after age three. The positive explanation for this is that children experience ‘catch-up’ growth over time. The more negative interpretation is that children most dramatically affected by fetal stress die early and are, thus, lost from the sample. The issue of selective mortality was beyond the scope of this analysis but represents an important issue to explore in the future.

The team is wrapping up its first draft of the analysis and paper currently. After this semester, they hope to continue working together to move the project forward towards publication. The most immediate goal is to expand the regression models to include interaction terms between the climate variables and some of the socioeconomic/demographic variables. This will allow the team to elucidate any direct relationships between these characteristics and climate to determine whether climate change will disproportionately affect some groups and whether the negative effect of certain characteristics, like poverty is exacerbated by climate change. After that point, it’s a matter of preparing the paper for submission in a publication, which will undoubtedly bring its own challenges and opportunities!

The full team on this project includes: Leah Campbell (Department of City and Regional Planning, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill); Khristopher Nicholas (Department of Nutrition and the Carolina Population Center, UNC-CH); Emily Gvino (Department of City and Regional Planning and Department of Health Behavior, UNC-CH); Gioia M. Skeltis (Department of Anthropology, UNC-CH); Wenbo Wang (Department of Statistics, UNC-CH)

References:

Marini, Alessandra, and Claudia Rokx. 2016. Standing Tall: Peru’s Success in Overcoming Its Stunting Crisis. Public Disclosure. World Bank, Washington, DC. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/28321.

Mejía Acosta A., and L. Haddad. 2014. The politics of success in the fight against malnutrition in Peru. Food Policy, 44:26-35.

Huicho, L., Huayanay-Espinoza, C. A., Herrera-Perez, E., Segura, E. R., Niño de Guzman, J., Rivera-Ch, M., and A. J. D. Barros. 2017. Factors behind the success story of under-five stunting in Peru: A district ecological multi-level analysis. BMC Pediatrics, 17(29):1-9.

Johnson, K., and M. E. Brown. 2014. Environmental risk factors and child nutritional status and survival in a context of climate variability and change. Applied Geography, 54:209-221.

Larrea, C., and W. Freire. 2002. Social inequality and child malnutrition in four Andean countries. Public Health, 11(5-6):356-364.

Lloyd, S. J., Kovats, R. S., and Z. Chalabi. 2011. Climate change, crop yields, and undernutrition: Development of a model to quantify the impact of climate scenarios on child undernutrition. Environmental Health Perspectives, 119(120):1817-1823.

Phalkey, R. K., Aranda-Jan, C., Marx, S., Hofle, B., and R. Sauerborn. 2015. Systematic review of current efforts to quantify impacts of climate change on undernutrition. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 112(33):4522-4529.

Prendergast, A., and J. Humphrey. 2014. The stunting syndrome in developing countries. Pediatrics and International Child Health, 34(4):250-265.

Shin, H. 2007. Child health in Peru: Importance of regional variation and community effects on children’s height and weight. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 48:418-433.

Tiwari, S., Jacoby, H. G., and E. Skoufias. 2017. Monsoon babies: Rainfall shocks and child nutrition in Nepal. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 65(2):167-188.

Woldehanna, T. 2010. Do pre-natal and post-natal economic shocks have a long-lasting effect on the height of 5-year-old children? Evidence from 20 sentinel sites of rural and urban Ethiopia. Working Paper 60. Young Lives: An International Study on Childhood Poverty. Department of International Development, University of Oxford: Oxford, UK. 49pp.

REPOST: What Exactly Is “Local Food”? Ten Answers for North Carolina and Beyond

August 31, 2018 / odrozd

We all need to eat. Each of us deserves access to affordable, healthy, and culturally appropriate nourishment. But food influences more than just individual health.The way in which food is grown (such as the use of pesticides, how animal waste is managed, and the type of crops grown) affect soil, air, and water quality, which in turn affect the health of the environment and people living nearby. Agricultural policy influences whether a farming community prospers, and whether farmworkers earn enough money to afford food and shelter for their families. Despite hearing about farmers’ markets and seeing promotions for local food in grocery stores, many people are still unsure about what it is or why it matters. Here are ten ideas to get you started.

1. Why do we call it a food “system”?

A food system is made up of all of the inputs—like seeds, fertilizer, land, machinery, trucks, and fuel—and work that contribute to growing, processing, packaging, transporting, selling, consuming, composting, and managing waste that is associated with food. (The American Planners Association’s definition is more or less the same.) Some conceptions of the food system also include the economic, social, and political influences on those processes. You can visualize the food system with this great graphic from Nourish.

2. What is a local food system?

A local or regional food system is, you guessed it, a food system that is contained within a defined geography – this could be anything from a region like “the Northeast portion of the United States” to state, county, or city boundaries – and it is up to the person saying “local” to define the region. Anything more specific, and even the USDA throws up its hands. “Local” does not have any legal or regulatory definition. Defining local and regional food systems is contentious because the phrase “local food” is used to shape what people want food systems to look like, and because it is a powerful marketing label. This is just the first in a series of debates about the definition of local food. Some people expect that foods that are marketed as “local” have other characteristics, such as being organic, grown at a small farm, sold through a farmers market, non-GMO, or certified as humanely treated livestock. None of these expectations are actually implied by the phrase “local food.”

Cattle grazing in Alamance County, North Carolina. Source: Sophie Kelmenson

3. Which branding claims matter?

Sometimes food manufacturers advertise products with characteristics that do not have any particular legal meaning, like “natural.” This practice is known as “greenwashing,” or making claims that make a product sound environmentally friendly but do not actually mean anything. Greenwashing can increase prices and change purchasing patterns, and it is a huge challenge for local food. It’s hard not only to know what all the different “local food” labels mean, and even harder to confirm that food products are actually compliant with those labels that have a specific meaning. Food companies know that, and many want to keep it that way. Luckily, there are online resources that tell you which claims are real, which are not, and what they actually mean.

4. Is local food actually better?

It depends on what you mean by “better”. There is no doubt that eating more vegetables is healthier. When it comes to health and environmental benefits of organic or local, you’ll have to do your own research! Agricultural production practices and the definition of local food vary from place to place, so the environmental and health effects of local food also vary from place to place. The research literature about the impacts of local food is still emerging, but early reports indicate benefits from increasing local business activity, increased cultural and community connectivity, and improved environmental stewardship.¹

5. Our food system has been controversial for generations. Why the focus on local food now?

The United States industrial food system consolidated immensely in the past fifty years, concentrating land ownership and sales into the hands of a few. Our current food system functions like a factory because it maximizes returns instead of quality. Recent spotlights on all kinds of problems within our food system, from food safety concerns about e. coli, to outrage about pink sludge in our chicken nuggets, to competing claims about nutrition, to campaigns against large farm industries distorting our political process, to abusive workplace environments for farm laborers, have all made people question where food comes from. One of the best ways to know whether your food is safe, healthy, and otherwise unproblematic, is to buy it directly from a farmer who you know and trust.

Mountainside farm in Black Mountain, North Carolina. Credit: Sophie Kelmenson

6. Are farmers markets the only way to support local food systems?

Farmers’ markets are rather spectacular places – you can meet farmers who grew the food that you will eat! The food you buy might taste better, too, because growers can harvest farmers market produce later, allowing it to mature more and gain flavor. You can also learn about new foods and enjoy the company of others in your community. However, markets are not open during all of the times people want to shop (farmers have to farm, too!). You might have noticed that there are more white and wealthy customers at farmers markets than at the typical grocery store, and farmers markets do not offer all of the products we need to cook at home. Some of us don’t have time or the know-how to cook at home. Farmers markets are great, but there are lots of reasons to make sure that there are other ways to buy and consume local foods.

7. What are my other options?

Fortunately, grocery stores, institutions like our home university, UNC, and K-12 schools have all started to purchase local food. Some state and local governments mandate that a certain percentage of food procurement must be from local sources. These institutions provide critical support to local food systems, as they provide large-scale demand, price stabilization, and access to wider markets. You can also join a Community Supported Agriculture program to purchase local food without visiting a market, or purchase food from a local food hub or cooperative.

8. Can local food improve food access and justice?

We have a long way to go in order to make safe and healthy food affordable and accessible to everyone. There are many challenges to changing the built environment so that people may purchase food nearby, shifting food policy so that vegetables are more affordable than Twinkies, altering migrant farmworker policy to prevent health problems, or requiring animal waste be managed in a way that doesn’t put people at risk of exposure. Some local food initiatives address these challenges, but food access and justice are not necessarily central to the concept of local food.

9. What about food systems policy?

The Federal Farm Bill is the ultimate source for learning about American food policy. Additionally, local, state, and federal government policies support an array of programs that increase access to local food. For example, now low-income individuals may use SNAP/EBT benefits at farmers markets. The federal government also provides support for infrastructure for warehousing, packing, processing, and distribution, all of which are also necessary to sell more local food in more places.

10. What does local food look like in North Carolina?

The state has a long farming history, plenty of farmers markets, and an innovative local food program for public schools. The state ranks eighth in agricultural production, primarily through livestock and poultry. Food produced and sold locally represents a small but growing portion of agricultural sales. A number of celebrity chefs who promote local food call North Carolina home, such as Aaron Vandemark of Panciuto and Andrea Reusing of Lantern. The New York Times recently wrote about the “food sisterhood of North Carolina,” describing the passion and creativity of women developing an innovative local food economy.

Small-scale farming in Alamance County, North Carolina. Source: Sophie Kelmenson

Local, regional, and national food production systems are complicated and interconnected, which makes interventions challenging. Solutions, like the systems themselves, will vary in size, goals, and format. Understanding community needs and opportunities is a great place to start, as well as collaborating with existing efforts to support food systems. Organizations such as the Center for Environmental Farming Systems already communicate with community partners to research and support local food in North Carolina. Impactful planning initiatives could include: protecting farmland and fisheries; increasing access to infrastructure for processing, storage, and distribution; and creating lending opportunities to upgrade technology and production size.

To me, good food is more than delicious. Good food is produced in ways that enable ecologically, financially, and socially positive outcomes for producers (all of the people who handle the food along the way to my plate) and consumers. As consumers, we should be aware of the food we eat. As planners, we must think critically about how to how to support good food systems. Go forth, eat good food! Please.

¹Dunning, Rebecca. Research-Based Support and Extension Outreach for Local Food Systems. Center for Environmental Farming Systems, August 2013.

About the Author: Sophie Kelmenson is a master’s student in the Department of City and Regional Planning. Her studies focus on economic development and food systems.

Pass the Turkey: Why Cricket Farming is a Better Choice

November 28, 2017 / odrozd

This Thanksgiving, North Carolina (NC) continued its yearly tradition of feeding the country. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, NC remains the nation’s second largest producer of turkey in addition to being a top producer of pork and chicken. In other words, the state is responsible for producing some of the most unhealthy, land intensive, and environmentally polluting proteins in the country. Hog farming, in particular, has been linked to negative effects like asthma, cancer, air and water pollution, and declining property values for those living near hog farms, as covered extensively by researchers, doctors, journalists, and independent organizations.

While advocates of pork, chicken, and turkey farming will often cite NC’s $84 billion agricultural industry, protein production is not paying off like it used to. The News & Observer reported that there been a steady drop in the number of farms—with 100,000 fewer farms since the 1960s —and in the percentage of farms making a profit (only 43% are recording economic gains) .

Wastewater in Vanguard Farms Lagoon from hog farming, Beaufort County, NC. Photo Credit: Flickr

When faced with these realities, the state may long for a way to maintain its agricultural identity, while supporting economically, socially, and environmentally healthy protein production practices. I don’t usually advocate for “magic bullet” solutions, but in this case, it’s hard to argue with one unparalleled option: insect farming.

While some people may be uncomfortable by the thought of insect farming for humans, times are changing. Consumers are getting over their initial aversion to eating “bugs” just like we got over the disgust of eating delicacies like lobster (“the roach of the sea”) or sushi (which used to be raw fish with fermented rice). After all, insects are packed with essential nutrients and all the other goodies that make for a healthier source of protein.

How can we eat lobsters but not crickets? Photo Credit: Ed Bierman

Consumers have rapidly increased the demand for insects sold in products like protein bars, baked chips, and all-purpose cricket flours. “There simply aren’t enough farms to supply the insects that people want,” said Kevin Bachhuber, founder of Big Cricket Farms in Ohio—the first American cricket farm for human consumption. Since its establishment in 2014, multiple farms have popped up nationwide, including BitWater Farms in Mills River, NC. Bachhuber describes the success of the farm by constantly turning away orders because of high demands: “The crickets are sold four weeks before they’re finished being raised … we’ve had to be selective at times about who ends up with our crickets. I’ve raised my prices maybe six times so far.”

Aspire, another cricket farm, found similar success this March when they began testing the demand for whole, dry-roasted crickets. Mohammed Ashour, CEO of Aspire, shared that they were so successful that Aspire crickets are now offered on the menus of high-end restaurants.

High protein cricket powder. Photo Credit: Aketta

While we typically associate an increase in the demand for livestock production with land use inefficiencies and environmental degradation, insect farming is almost unbelievably low-impact. In the academic journal Global Food Security, Dr. Peter Alexander and colleagues found that insects “are the most efficient animal production system considered” with a 34% decrease in the land needed if insects like mealworm replace 50% of existing animal commodities. In addition to needing less physical space, the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization indicates that insects for farming emit fewer greenhouse gases and can be raised on organic side-streams, and require significantly less feed than conventional livestock. If NC embraced insect farming, it could relieve much of the pressure farmers are facing to find affordable, arable land.

Unfortunately, the state recently passed on an opportunity to cash in on the potential economic and environmental gains of insect farming when the North Carolina Farm Act of 2017 (SB 15) was signed this summer. Lawmakers could have incentivized farmers to research and advance insect farming in a way that promotes food security, healthier protein options, and smart land use decisions.

As Dr. Alexander described, “we are not trying to mandate or even suggest some policy that you eat insects every day [but] our work indicates the potential benefits that are there [for land uses and environmental outcomes].”

Insect farming is the next frontier in agriculture. Bachhuber believes we are close to developing “edible insects [like crickets, grasshoppers, and mealworms] into a full-fledged market.” The General Assembly can lead NC in cricket farming by revising rural development extensions in the next iteration of the Farm Act, slated for 2019, by designating crickets as a specialty crop. The land is ready; the market is ready; and the people want it.

As we enjoy this holiday season, I invite you to introduce family and friends to delicious, protein-rich snacks and enjoy their look of delighted disbelief as they exclaim, “there are crickets in this?”

About the Author: Karla Jimenez-Magdaleno is a second-year master’s student in health behavior and land use and environmental planning. She loves to think about the intersections among public health, economic development, and land management. In her spare time, Karla works as a health communication analyst at RTI International and produces episodes for “The Measure of Everyday Life.”

Reclaiming the Historic Market Square

October 20, 2017 / odrozd

The restaurant industry is big, particularly in the growing cities of the Triangle region. Unfortunately, restaurant rents in a city like Raleigh are relatively high compared to a decade ago and continue to rise at a fast pace [1]. This creates a disparity in the types of food entrepreneurs that have the ability to enter the market. Typically, only those who have more prominence at the national level are the ones who have the greater financial means to enter the restaurant market in urban areas. Luckily, another option is emerging. City street markets provide a more affordable opportunity and eliminate or reduce this barrier to entry. As a result, food entrepreneur start-ups are able to sell fresh, unique, and affordable food items.

On the consumer side, these markets add diversity to the palate of restaurants that people will now be exposed to. They also provide a more economically feasible option for brunching and dining in downtown areas. People have the option to engage with these spaces in a way that they are no longer used to. Contemporary city street markets offer a plethora of food items and build community at the same time. This is an environment similar to that which the historic market square offered, which is why the city street market trend has the potential to re-establish the refreshing public space once provided by historic market squares.

Street food markets are becoming a prominent occurrence all over the United States. One can already find them in Los Angeles, Portland, and Denver, and soon they will be here in the Triangle as well [2]. Two locations are scheduled to open in Raleigh and one in Chapel Hill, both coming in the near future. Consequently, it is natural to explore how street food markets in general, and the ones entering our backyard in particular, have the potential, to evoke the market squares that existed in medieval Europe and historic New England towns in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Proposed Morgan Street Food and Hall Market, located on 411 West Morgan St., Raleigh, NC. Source: WRAL

On the Vendor Side:

Street Markets allow vendors at various stages of their entrepreneurial careers to enter the food market. These street food market locations will remove several significant barriers to entry of the food industry, some of which are acquiring large-scale kitchen appliances and high rental costs. The Morgan Street Food Hall, which is one of the markets opening in Raleigh, seeks to help food entrepreneurs overcome these barriers. It will provide shared kitchen spaces at a more affordable rate and lease vendor spaces for shorter terms, so that entrepreneurs have more flexibility when it comes to these larger expenditures [1]. These financial incentives are already attracting many vendors to the market space and will ultimately allow the downtown space to meet a greater amount of needs in one place. Similar to a historic market square, contemporary street food markets have the potential to be magnet for vendors and shoppers to come together and enjoy unique food options at a reasonable cost.

On the Consumer Side:

In historic towns, one of the key features of market squares was the great variety of choices that people had access to when they arrived at the market, as well as the lively rustling about to get through all of them. This was a dynamic environment to engage in. Individuals could purchase their meat, grains, and vegetables (much of which was locally sourced) all in one place. Most people needed these necessary items to be close to them and centrally located given that their only option was to walk to the market. Hence, accessibility and centrality were other key elements of the historic market square [4].

In contemporary markets, many of the same elements to hold. People want access to affordable and more centrally located local food, which yields a healthier lifestyle and lower transportation costs. Many people living in cities today hold proximity in high regard, particularly as it relates to interesting and interactive spaces, to food, and to work [5]. Contemporary street food markets can become one more feature that people value and want to be close to. They have the potential to offer people a reduced need to travel outside of the city for groceries or to have a meaningful culinary experience. People living and working in the Raleigh and Chapel Hill will have this kind of space available to them, a space that is very similar to historic market squares, in terms of accessibility and choice availability. For example, the Blue Dogwood Public Market coming to Chapel Hill, will offer a butcher shop, wine and beer, coffee, a bakery, and a community-centric atmosphere.

DeKald Market Hall in downtown Brooklyn which opened in June 2017. Source: Eater

A Community Comes Together

Historic market squares were a place for people to interact, converse, or catch up on the latest occurrences of the town. Now, people stay up to date through social media, interact via messaging platforms, and interact less and less. Contemporary street food markets are creating spaces for people to come together as a community, both intentionally and through chance encounters. This is why they have the potential to reclaim a small, but public, portion of the city, which once belonged to the historic public market square.

Sources:

Feature Image: Eataly Boston Market boasts a great variety of produce and other food items. Source: Boston Living on The Cheap

[1] Weigl, Andrea, “Food entrepreneurs have more options with 3 food halls, markets brewing in Triangle.” The News and Observer, (6 October 2016), http://www.newsobserver.com/living/food-drink/mouthful-blog/article106481052.html

[2] Filloon, Whitney, “13 Food Halls That Prove This Trend’s Not Dead Yet.” Eater, (30 August 2017), https://www.eater.com/2017/8/30/16181016/food-hall-boom-2017

[3] Grabar, Henry, “Artisanal Tacos on Paper Plates.” Slate, (7 July 2017) http://www.slate.com/articles/business/metropolis/2017/07/why_america_fell_for_fancy_food_halls.html

[4] Tangires, Helen, “Public Markets and the City: A Historical Perspective.” Project For Public Spaces, (30 October 2005)
https://www.pps.org/blog/6thmktstangires/

[5] Myers, Dowell and Gearin, Elizabeth, “Current preferences and future demand for denser residential environments.” Housing Policy Debate, (31 March 2010)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10511482.2001.9521422

Author: Kathia Toledo is a candidate for the master’s in City and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. There, she is pursuing the Land Use and Environmental Planning Specialization. Kathia is particularly interested in the dynamic between varying urban landscapes, sustainability, and planning. She graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill with a Bachelors of Arts in Geography and Environmental Studies and a minor in Urban Planning. Her hobbies include creative endeavors like urban sketching and photography, biking on the American Tobacco Trail, and exploring new cities and towns.

Learning from Leaders: Food Systems and Community Voices in the Carolinas

February 20, 2017 / odrozd

Brownbag with Gini Knight and Jared Cates from Community Food Strategies

As professionals working at the intersection of community development, land use, transportation, and economic development, planners are uniquely situated to help their communities address food systems issues. In fact, the American Planning Association recognizes food systems work as an opportunity for leadership in the field and the North Carolina chapter recently announced “food” as its theme for 2017.

Sharing lessons from experience at a DCRP Brown Bag. Photo Credit: Alison Salomon

On February 13, 2017, DCRP students had the chance to learn about an innovative, community-driven approach to food systems planning that is taking root in North Carolina: food policy councils. As part of this semester’s Brown Bag Series, Plan for All hosted Gini Knight and Jared Cates from Community Food Strategies (CFS) for a presentation titled “Elevating the Community Voice: An Update on Food Councils in the Carolinas.”

Knight and Cates discussed how food councils are effecting change in local food systems and they shed light on the work that their group, Community Food Strategies (CFS), is doing to support these efforts. CFS is a multi-organizational partnership with representatives from the Center for Environmental Farming Systems (where Knight works), the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (where Cates works), the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project, and the Care Share Health Alliance.

Bounty of a farmer’s market

CFS aims to model the best practices it preaches by emphasizing diversity and equity, implementing interactive and flexible governance, and forming relationships with individuals. The speakers suggested that all of these approaches contribute to successful, long-lived organizations. In the case of food councils – which bring people together across sectors and are usually led by volunteers – these approaches can be instrumental in ensuring groups’ survival. In addition to these best practices, CFS recommends that food councils use baseline assessments to inform their focus, share leadership responsibilities, and create and leverage networks.

Food councils in North Carolina. Credit: Community Food Strategies

Cates and Knight explained that food councils’ power lies in their ability to effectively advocate and organize. Food councils bring people together to assess the local food system, connect stakeholders, align efforts, educate leaders and the community, and recommend policy and program changes. The alliances that emerge from food councils can have synergistic results by reducing duplications, enabling targeted collective action, and securing larger grants.

Even though food councils have a lot going for them, they face significant challenges. These include a lack of diversity, difficulty in creating clear messaging and communicating with the wider community, and trouble measuring their impacts. CFS addresses some of these concerns by providing food councils with valuable resources. At present, CFS focuses on building and convening the food policy council network, publishing toolkits (including a baseline assessment toolkit and a “phases of council development” toolkit), and providing strategic and action planning consulting services.

Throughout their presentation, Cates and Knight shared success stories and drew on specific planning-related actions that food councils have taken. During this past election season, several food councils hosted candidates’ forums, bringing voice to food and agriculture issues. The Upper Pee Dee Farm and Food Council successfully lobbied to change a zoning ordinance to allow for the shared use of agriculture and solar on farmland. Similarly, the Char-Meck Food Council successfully petitioned the Charlotte City Council to pass an ordinance allowing mobile farmer’s markets in the city.

Food system relationships. Credit: Wikimedia Commons user Hunt041

Food councils present a great opportunity to be a part of community-driven, systems-level change. If you would like to get involved with our local food council, the Orange County Food Council, consider attending the community forum today, Monday, February 20, at the Cedar Grove Community Center from 5-7pm.

For more information on Community Food Strategies, please visit www.communityfoodstrategies.com or https://www.facebook.com/communityfoodstrategies/.

For more information on the Orange County Food Council, visit orangecountyfoodcouncil.wordpress.com or https://www.facebook.com/orangecountyfoodcouncil/.

About the author: Alison Salomon is a first year student pursuing a dual Master’s degree through the Department of City & Regional Planning and the Gillings School of Global Public Health. She studies the intersection of land use and health behavior and is passionate about food systems, placemaking, and active transportation. She takes pride in her buttermilk biscuits, shoe tying skills, and ability to turn anything into a game.

Black Diamond: a UNC alumni-curated Third Space in downtown Greensboro

October 28, 2016 / odrozd

Cities are centers of activity and development with landscapes that reflect the ever-evolving pace of our lifestyles. The evolution of human activity is marked by the built environment we impose on the natural landscape. As the pace of societal change increased—whether from the horse to the car, the telegraph to the smartphone, the general store to the shopping malls—our built environments were molded to accommodate our latest lifestyle preferences. At some point along the way, we began to lose our relationship with open spaces and, consequently, our connection with one another.

Urban isolation. Credit: MVMXVM

As a group of recently graduated UNC-Chapel Hill students, we decided to move to Greensboro and join UNCG graduate David Myers to bring to life our dream of a more connected community.

David Myers (left) and Thais Weiss (right) talk at Black Diamond. Photo: Gray Johnston

Black Diamond: a Public Backyard aims to restore and rekindle these connections that our bustling lifestyles have neglected. Black Diamond is an emerging third space, a place where folks can engage, learn, and re-connect through outdoor activities in a casual atmosphere. We’re located between two Greensboro neighborhoods, along the edge of downtown and directly adjacent to the future Downtown Greenway.

photo-of-downtown-greensboro_google-maps

Black Diamond (located at the gray marker) is blocks from downtown Greensboro. Source: Google Maps

DeAngelo Bowden is a Greensboro native, and attends Appalachian State University. He is completing his capstone project at Black Diamond. Photo: Gray Johnston

We are creating a place that encourages people to slow down and reconnect in ways that are meaningful to them. Whether it be through gardening, music, art, yoga or potluck dinners—our public backyard provides people the resources they need to reconnect with one another and their environment. On a larger scale, we see our public backyard as part of a growing movement that is recapturing and redefining the value of open spaces as third spaces.

Third spaces are public places on neutral ground in a community where people can gather and interact. In contrast, the first and second spaces are home and work. Third spaces host the regular, voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gathers of individuals.[1] While these spaces have typically been defined as coffee shops, bars or sidewalks, the growing third space movement is being translated to open urban spaces.

Although open space is limited in many cities, what these third urban spaces lack in acreage, they make up for in terms of social value. Since many first and second spaces operate within our fast paced lifestyles, they subsequently encourage the development of our built environments, and often at the expense of open space. The value in redefined third spaces is that they operate outside of fast paced lifestyles and encourage the preservation of open spaces.

As a third space, Black Diamond values the preservation of open space. Photo: Gray Johnston

We moved to Greensboro because we see in these almost two acres of land the opportunity to reimagine what urban living is. Greensboro is affordable, culturally diverse, centrally located in North Carolina, relatively walkable and bikeable, and has preserved much of its greenery. Like-minded people and projects are popping up all around the city, such as Greensboro Project Space and Forge Greensboro! The people, their projects and the 5 Universities in the city amount to a fertile environment for collaborations.

Since arriving in May we have begun collaborating with a Guilford College student to build garden beds, an Appalachian State University student who is a Greensboro native for his capstone project, a UNCG researcher to install beehives, and both The Arc of Greensboro and The Arc of High Point for a community-based art project on our fence. We are also in search of donations to build a stage and a shaded area. Ultimately, we are using this space to creatively and critically engage our community.

To learn more about third spaces and our public backyard please visit our website or contact us via social media.

[1] http://www.pps.org/reference/roldenburg/

About the authors:

Gray Johnston was born and raised in Greensboro. As a recent graduate from UNC Chapel Hill with a BA in Environmental Policy, the idea of coming back home to work on a project related to the environment and community planted a seed in his head. After studying sustainable city design in Spain and Germany, Gray was inspired to pursue all of his passions and desires to live a sustainable life. He now works as an editor for Climate Stories NC, a multimedia storytelling project about North Carolinians whose lives have been affected by changes in the climate.

Thais Weiss was born and raised in Brazil and immigrated to the United States with her family in 2005. She is a recent UNC-Chapel Hill graduate with a double major in Global Studies and Geography. Thais has developed a strong interest in sustainable development and communities. In 2015, she traveled to Spain and Germany to study renewable energy and sustainable city design. Aside from being a member of Black Diamond, Thais is Administrative Assistant for the Global Engagement at UNC-Greensboro.

Molly Fisher is a recent graduate from UNC Chapel Hill where she studied geology and history. After studying sustainable cities abroad in Spain and Germany, Molly has become interested in the development of ecologically-minded communities. In addition to her work with Black Diamond, Molly is a Process Improvement & Quality Specialist for Classic Graphics, a manufacturing company in Charlotte.