This is Food Apartheid

Please Jill (4.00 / 2)

check your email, looking for the one with the subscription title.

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by: count @ Mon Apr 26, 2010 at 00:56:44 AM UTC

Thanks! nt (4.00 / 3)

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

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by: Jill Richardson @ Mon Apr 26, 2010 at 04:31:49 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

very very powerful (4.00 / 2)

and I like that you used the word apartheid in the post title.I just sent this off to my daughter who goes to college
at Swarthmore Very close to PAs owns South Central. Chester PA. But here's a bright spot. http://www.chestercoop.com/ And the FOUNDER of the Coop? Tina Johnson is running for State Rep My daughter works at the Chester Coop and is working on
Tina's campaign
Activist seeks to make history, spearhead change - The Phoenix http://bit.ly/amuU2t

I'd like to see more like this short film.Connecting the dots...

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by: LeeN @ Mon Apr 26, 2010 at 10:36:13 AM UTC

Very cool (4.00 / 1)

I just love your daughter and I haven't even met her.

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

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by: Jill Richardson @ Mon Apr 26, 2010 at 13:56:30 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

This is American Capitalism (0.00 / 0)

This is NOTHING like apartheid, which was a specific government program directed towards the systematic race-based oppression of people, involving extreme violence and elimination of individual rights. So let's get our terms right.

The lack of healthy food portrayed in this video is based on AMERICAN-STYLE CAPITALISM! It is a horrible and dire situation (as Monnai says, when "an apple is $3 and chips are 50 cents"). But has everything to do with the agricultural/industrial complex of big Ag companies and factory farms, and little to do with outright racism.

Every American (of every ethnicity) who does not oppose our current food production and distribution system is at least passively involved in the creation of the calorie-ghetto that Monnai lives in.

Her sweet and modest idea (making liquor stores carry fresh produce) is both lovely and absurd. Liquor stores make money selling cheap beer, not cheap fruit. Telling such store owners that they need to forego profits to make room for healthy food is a non-starter.

I don't really know what would help in this situation, but I'm thinking a farmers' market bringing cheap and healthy food into the 'hood would be a start. I know that the weekly Wednesday food market in San Francisco's Civic Center/Tenderloin neighborhood is a huge hit with people of limited means because it sells staples cheaply (root veggies, fruits, etc.). I'm not talking organic arugula for $7.99 a pound.

God bless this child and shine upon her! She needs all the help she can get and this video is a great start!

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by: JPStreeter @ Mon Apr 26, 2010 at 18:44:29 PM UTC

I noticed there were no comments after your response (4.00 / 1)

and I admit that I responded yesterday to your post. And I deleted my post. WHY? because I disagreed but I didn't want a blog flame out tit for tat. Apartheid not apartheid. Right wrong...Whatever.

I come back here not only because of Jill and Jay, because of the utter respect for our diversity. I can't think of another place where vegans and vegetarians have respectful dialogue with folks that not only eat meat, but butcher them.

my 2 cents

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by: LeeN @ Tue Apr 27, 2010 at 11:17:58 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

My response (0.00 / 0)

was the same as yours, although I have a sneaky admiration for the rhetorical device that says a condition isn't a condition if it is produced by capitalism.

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by: count @ Tue Apr 27, 2010 at 15:25:29 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I don't think JPStreeter was saying that this wasn't a condition (4.00 / 1)

if it was produced by capitalism. I think what he/she was saying that it wasn't anything like apartheid. On that I agree with JP.

I'm sure that there are a wide variety of reasons why convenience stores and liquor stores don't sell fresh produce. Possible regulatory conflicts, extra infrastructure for the store, etc.

I do think that in areas where fresh produce isn't available close in, there exists a tremendous business oportunity as there is a market that's not being tapped. The problem is getting some entrepreneur interested in that particular business.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Tue Apr 27, 2010 at 17:02:13 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Thanks for the discussion (4.00 / 1)

Sorry folks, while I definitely feel strongly about this topic, I just assumed people would all make their own points in their own way. Didn't mean to stifle the conversation.

Thanks for your understanding, Joanne! You grasped my point exactly.

-Jonathan

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by: JPStreeter @ Wed Apr 28, 2010 at 02:20:34 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

You're welcome nt (4.00 / 1)

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Wed Apr 28, 2010 at 04:05:03 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

conversation goes on.. (0.00 / 0)

I think there are lots of ways to tackle this problem. We just need to decide to DO so. I wish some of our elected officials came here and saw some of these ideas.

And my thinking has changed about soda taxes. But I don't think enough people understand how refined sugars contribute to obesity and diabetes.

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by: LeeN @ Wed Apr 28, 2010 at 12:05:32 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

the conditions that cause food wastelands... (4.00 / 1)

The first problem with produce is that it goes bad-- so it needs to be carefully stored. The corner store does not need to carefully store Night Train and Thunderbird. The corner store is running on the slimmest of profit margins

The second problem is that people who live in poor neighborhoods have an idea of "status" foods- which means meat, even if fatty and oversalted.

The third problem is that a lot of poor folk have no idea how to prepare fresh produce. I had a discussion with a woman at work who had NO idea how much fresh green beans cost. She only knew how to cook canned beans.

I suggest the local churches get involved. Farmer's market in the parking lot, healthy cooking demonstations and Gospel-cize could push a lot of people in the right direction

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by: la motocycliste @ Wed Apr 28, 2010 at 05:49:49 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Yours is the right approach (4.00 / 1)

not forcing the liquor store to cary fresh produce, which would have to happen through regualtion.

Why is it that so many people think it's the government's job to fix things through regulation any more? Seems to me that people are more into being taken care of by big daddy now than when I was a kid. Perhaps it's just that I'm more sensitive to that now.

I much prefer an approach in which someone sees an oportunity, and says, look, there's this neighborhood where the people would like to buy lots of fresh produce, and there's this person who has a farm growing fresh produce, or even there's this person who wants to get into the produce business. Get those two hooked up, and you've instituted a solution to the problem. Instead we get someone saying "There ought to be a law..." or at least a regulation.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Wed Apr 28, 2010 at 13:48:56 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

but they playing ground isn't even.. (0.00 / 0)

had a fascinating conversation with a small farmer driving 2 hours to sell his organic meats in front of the coop where I shop. Big box meat is too cheap where he is.He said he can't sell to people who only understand buying meat at Walmart prices. And something I hadn't thought of till he mentioned it The land where he is is too expensive to make any $$$ selling organic chickens for instance. Even if he could find a place to slaughter them.

actually the playing ground isn't even any where in America right now...

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by: LeeN @ Wed Apr 28, 2010 at 16:16:53 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

small typo...the playing ground (0.00 / 0)

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by: LeeN @ Wed Apr 28, 2010 at 16:17:40 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Of course the playing field isn't level, it never is, for either side (0.00 / 0)

Part of what marketing is all about is shifting the playing field to favor you. In some aspects the big players have the advantage, in others we do.

The trick is to find the field of play that's shifted in favor of the grower and don't try to compete with the big  processors, grocery stores, etc., at least not on their specific field.

Small growers/producers can offer consumers things that Walmart can't. That's the market we need to operate in.

Poultry is one thing that I don't expect to make money on, at least not much. The margins are so thin in poultry, that there's not much point if you're very small. Joel Salatin and other larger farms are able to make money on poultry because they do a lot of it. I offer poultry to my customers as live bird sales as more or less a loss leader. It's a courtesy I offer them, and as long as I'm buying feed for the layers and I'm raising meat birds for my family's own use I don't have a problem with breaking even on feed. But I don't want to get big enough in the meat bird end of things to be able to make any money, or at least not enough to make a difference.

So, that's a market I don't compete in. On the other hand, I can and do make money on free range eggs. Aside from nursery stock that's the most profitable thing I can do out here, although the produce is pretty profitable too. Meat goats, calves and lambs are profitable as well, as long as I do them right. They way I'll be doing them I can undercut the store's per pound price and still make a decent ammount of money on each animal, and in some cases, I sell animals who's meat isn't even available in the stores.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Wed Apr 28, 2010 at 17:17:50 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Microloans? (0.00 / 0)

Here's a way the government (or a nonprofit) can get involved:

Loan an enterprising person the money to buy a produce truck. I remember a horse drawn wagon going through my neighborhood when I was a child. The produce truck works like a roach coach or an ice cream truck. The produce truck driver works their ass off, getting up a 0 Dark Hundred every AM, but gets fruit and veg to areas that can't support a produce store and hopefully makes a profit.  

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by: la motocycliste @ Wed Apr 28, 2010 at 20:01:02 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

That's exactly one of the things that can make possible (0.00 / 0)

delivery of fresh produce to neighborhoods that lack stores that sell such items.

In the private sector individuals providing small ammounts of investment capiatl are called Angels.

My brother was assisted in the startup of his slab shop, Classico Marmo, by capital loaned by family as well as an angel.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Wed Apr 28, 2010 at 20:13:33 PM UTC

[ Parent ]