Language and discourse are important tools that when carefully chosen, describe the magnitude and scope of a topic. Throughout the academic literature and public policy, the term “food desert” is used to describe areas such as neighborhoods, zip codes, or census tracts, where there is a lack of accessible healthy food like fresh produce. Unsurprisingly, low-income and racial/ethnic minority groups are more likely to live in a food desert and face barriers towards accessing healthy foods. Some scholars have offered other terms like “food swamps” to describe the density of unhealthy food available within the food desert or “food apartheid,” to acknowledge the high concentration of unhealthy food options in low-income and minority communities across the United States. Ron Finley, the founder of the Ron Finley Project, calls these areas “food prisons.” I had not heard this term until I began working with Ron during my MPH Practicum experience, and as I’ve walked around the Crenshaw and West Adams neighborhoods, I am beginning to understand the barriers that prevent residents from accessing fresh produce and other nutritional foods.
Walking the streets of Ron’s neighborhood, it’s easy to spot the mix of industrial and residential housing, along with the mix of low- and high-income groups. I have seen pockets of streets with individuals experiencing homelessness while just across the street, there are dispensaries and cute cafes with expensive salads and sandwiches on their menus. Walking down W Jefferson Blvd., I saw only gas stations, a 99 Cents Only store and bars. Using Google Maps to find the nearest grocery store, I saw that there is a Ralphs located on Obama Blvd, only 0.8 miles away, but walking the streets myself, I saw hazards that may reduce accessibility. As a student in public health, I noticed a sign on a house saying that the site had potential environmental hazards on site, lots of noise from the busy streets and metro, and large trucks with different industrial materials. Although all of this information can be mapped using ArcGIS or Google Maps, I saw firsthand how proximity does not equal accessibility.
Aside from the importance of understanding how the Crenshaw neighborhood is a food desert, working with Ron has taught me about deeper meanings and importance for gardening and cultivating home-grown food. I admire the work Ron does and feel privileged to have the opportunity to participate, because it is clear that gardening is about love. I interpret this as loving your body with good, nutritious food, loving the earth and loving all parts of the process that created the plant. The idea of using gardening to address larger, systemic problems such as food insecurity, establishes a meaningful way to interrupt the cycle of hunger. There are clear racial/ethnic and socio-economic disparities associated with food insecurity, which is a risk factor for many chronic diseases like cardiovascular disease, Type II Diabetes and obesity. Ron challenges me to think beyond the scope of food insecurity, but to think largely about the neighborhood of Crenshaw, and how other problems, such as gentrification, directly impact the availability and affordability of surrounding food. Like many other problems, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated inequities in access and resources to healthcare and basic needs. Disparities in race and income levels continue to widen despite successful efforts to reduce the impact the pandemic has had on daily life. Employing a framework of thinking like Ron’s, I believe we can further uncover the relationships between different social phenomena and conduct academic research that accurately describes the lived experiences of disadvantaged groups.
