Archive of
Positive Commentaries
January 2008
Archived Positive Commentaries
Wednesday, January 9th 2008
While many Americans are enjoying the benefits of local and organic food, the poor, however, are experiencing hunger, obesity, and diabetes from their available food choices. Mark Winne, in an excerpt from his new book Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty writes “While [the poor] believed that organic food was preferable to food they described as ‘processed,’ ‘full of chemicals,’ or ‘toxic,’ they said that buying organic food wasn't even an option, because it was simply not available to them. One young woman made a point of saying that she didn't trust the environment where she lived or the food she ingested. ‘Everything gives you cancer these days,’ she said.” There are, according to Winne, “two different types of efforts being made are two general directions that have shown promise in closing this food gap: private, largely non-profit projects and public policy.” The Holcomb Farm Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Farm has made an explicit commitment to distribute about 40 percent of its local and organic produce to the city's low-income community. That program and others are working to ensure that CSAs are “not solely the province of a white, bright elite.” The author also notes that “other models like the People's Grocery in Oakland are using mobile markets to bring high quality, healthy food into communities that are underserved by supermarkets.” Thanks to public policy advocacy, federal and state funding has been obtained “to provide special farmers' market vouchers to low-income women, children, and elders (Farmers Market Nutrition Program).” Some farmers’ markets are starting to “install swipe card machines to enable food stamp recipients to use their electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards to buy local food.” And in what Winne believes to be the biggest breakthrough yet, “the national Women, Infant, and Children Program (WIC) will be implementing a new fruit and vegetable program that is potentially worth hundreds of million dollars to lower income consumers and local farmers.” Considering the whole of humanity is a next step in human evolution. While some understand and embrace it, the world as a whole is still awaiting the complete embrace of the master’s teaching concerning unselfish service for one's fellows: “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of my brethren, you did it to me.”