Expanding
access to fresh and local food is smart for people and the planet.
By
If anyone’s ever looking for me on a Sunday morning, they’d better head to the FreshFarm DuPont Circle Farmers’ Market.
I can’t resist the tables piled high with bright green lettuces,
plump purple eggplants, and juicy peaches. There’s fresh goat cheese, a wide
variety of local meats, and cold popsicles that make D.C.’s hotter days
easier to bear.
The food isn’t even my favorite part of the market in this
upscale, lively neighborhood. It’s the fact that its vendors take food stamps and that there’s a matching-dollar program for some customers.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program eases hunger and poor nutrition by providing
assistance to qualifying, low-income individuals. With nearly 50 million participants each year, SNAP is considered by the
USDA to be one of the most effective anti-poverty government programs.
Those $5 pints of blueberries are out of reach for so many
people. But programs like SNAP put these fruits on a lot of low-income tables.
It helps the market shed the old stereotype of being simply a haven for women
wearing Lululemon pants and toting Tory Burch handbags.
And it’s not just happening here in the nation’s capital. The
government recently reported that Americans spent $18.8 million in SNAP benefits at farmers’ markets
last year, six times the amount in 2008. This increase is in large part due to grants the
Obama administration issued.
Unfortunately, this constitutes only a small portion of total
SNAP dollars spent each year. There are many remaining barriers choking off
access to fresh and local produce, meats, and dairy products. But a healthy
local-food economy is good for our society.
Poverty, hunger, and obesity are often inextricably linked. When people rely on
corner stores and gas stations for their sustenance, they consume more salty snacks
and sugary drinks and fewer fruits and vegetables than people with access to
fully stocked grocery stores or markets.
Markets go a step further because what they sell tends to be
organically grown, which decreases the chance it was introduced to pesticides.
For meat-eaters, the animals on local farms have usually been humanely raised
rather than crammed into huge factory farms. One of the best things about these
markets is that you’re often interacting with farmers — so you can find out
about your food directly from the source.
Besides, buying your green beans at a farmers’ market stimulates the economy three times more than getting them from a big retailer.
Markets also help you tread more lightly by reducing the
distance your food travels from farm to fork. That broccoli you buy in a
grocery store has been transported an average of1,500 miles to
make it to your dinner table. The trucks hauling that produce burn a lot of
diesel fuel, stoking climate change.
Farmers’ markets are better for people, our communities, and our
world. Although they’re becoming more accessible for all, I feel privileged to
be able to shop at one every Sunday. Fresh and local food shouldn’t be an
exclusive treat for the few. It’s a right for all.
Christine
Dickason, an OtherWords intern at the Institute for
Policy Studies, is a graduate of the University of Mississippi. Distributed via OtherWords.org