In a country with often poor mass transit and persistent pockets of poverty, getting to grocery stores that sell fresh food can be daunting. READ:
JACKSONVILLE, United States—Sitting outside her modest home in Jacksonville, Florida, on a street lined with nondescript buildings in faded shades of blue, a weary Brenda Jenkins expresses a simple wish: to be able to buy fresh fruit and produce in her own neighborhood.
An employee stacks cans of food at a grocery store in the Moncrief Park neighborhood of Jacksonville, Florida, on Oct. 14, 2022. A reality of everyday life for the majority of the urban population is an unattainable desire for the estimated 39 million Americans who live in a ‘food desert’, a nickname given to areas with high poverty rates where no stores selling fruits and vegetables are readily available. AFPThe phrase “food desert” is misleading.
Their shelves bulge with candy, chips, soda and cookies. But the only fresh products are likely to be a few wan-looking apples or bruised bananas near the cash register. With US midterm elections just weeks away — and the prospect of major change in the Congress — Jenkins complained that she has seen no candidates in her neighborhood, and received no campaign leaflets.If the authorities really cared, she said, “something would have been done” to address the food desert problem.The once-prosperous neighborhood has progressively fallen on hard times over the decades, making it less and less profitable for the big supermarket chains.
Limited food options and poor eating habits are “contributing to all of these health issues that’s causing us to die earlier, to be sicker, to be fatter,” she said.Her urban farm, created by the Clara White Mission with the help of public funds, provides free produce to the volunteers who help with the garden, and a low-price option to others in the neighborhood, who can pay with the federal food stamps that so many rely on.