Food access is something we don’t often think about in America or at least I didn’t until I came to college. My hometown is a comfortable suburb outside of Philadelphia that I loved growing up in. I lived in a large neighborhood with all my friends where we could walk into town and cause some ruckus. If we walked even two minutes further that town we could go to our local grocery store-Wegmans. If you have never been to a Wegmans-GO! It’s heaven on earth. There are rows upon rows of food. Not just any food, though. Good. Quality. Food. The produce there is to die for. The greens are a dark,lush color, the strawberries are juicy, and there always seems to be a plethora of exotic fruits for me to try. They even have a large organic section if you’re feelin’ a little spendy and want to feel good about yourself. Life was good. There’s no better way to describe it.
Which leads me to my next point- ignorance is bliss. Little did I know, an hour away from me people were suffering in their dietary needs because of food access. What I had a plethora of, they lacked. I didn’t even realize or acknowledge this problem until this year because of some of the reading I had been doing. In Daniel R. Block’s article “Food Sovereignty, Urban Food Access and Food Activism: contemplating the connections through examples in Chicago” I read a quote that perplexed me. It read, “The focus of food access as an issue goes beyond the particular connections to health(although these are important) to be a way that issues of power, control, and inequality are written into the American landscape.” I sat there thinking, “How the heck does looking at food lead to power and inequalities?”
The issues that circulate around food are very complex and it always seems like the issues need more unpacking and more unpacking. My understanding of what Block meant with this quote was that food is a great correlation or subject matter that explains power, control and inequality problems. For example, people who suffer from food access issues are those who have been push under the rug by the political system we have in the US. These community members could cover an array of occupations- but the one I am most conscious of is farm workers.
About ten minutes away from my hometown is Kennet Square-the largest producer of mushrooms in the world. There’s nothing special about the land that makes it magical for growing mushrooms, the farms just pump loads and loads of fertilizer into these plots and greenhouses. Another thing that there is a plethora of is migrant workers. Migrant workers are the community members that I most interact with that are suffering from food access problems. They often live in large, old houses with twenty other men or women, sleeping on the floors, and sending almost all of their wages back to their families in Mexico. When they return to Mexico, they will be well-off, but for the time being they being oppressed in Pennsylvania. Some workers bring their families with them. They have little access to food because they don’t have cars and there are no local markets, but they look and handle food everyday. I find the paradox is sick.
It made me raise some questions about how to fit the needs and most of all the DESIRES of this community. I would love to see if there are programs that lead to the rise of supporting migrant workers or their families. There has been talk of a mobile food produce bus roaming the streets but is that what they want? I think that more research and community action has to take place before we try to care for these community members that do bring in local economy for us. I gave my own community background at the beginning to show the staunch difference in people that reside in my area.
Works Cited
Block, Daniel R., Noel Chavez, Erika Allen and Dinah Ramirez. “Food Sovereignty, Urban Food Access and Food Activism: Contemplating Connections through Examples from Chicago.” Agricultural Human Values. 2012.
I read Mycophilia by Eugenia Bone a little while back. I remember her mentioning Kennet Sq and the mushroom growing facilities. However, there was no mention of the labor and migrant workers involved. I was trying to picture the area in my head, its facilities, the town of Kennet Sq, and the homes of the migrant community. I’m wondering about the overlap, interaction, and spatial integration of these things. Bone mentions the mushroom festival, which sounds like a big jubilee, so I’m also wondering about the participation and in/exclusionary forces at play.
Sounds like a very interesting place.
It seems that in order for migrant workers to have food sovereignty, they must be more involved in the community. Although the migrant workers might try and be a part of the community, it is important fro the community to reciprocate this action by involving the migrant workers. Once the “migrant worker” becomes a part of the community, he no longer is a “migrant” and can have a say in how their local resources are situated to better off themsleves.
I really like the way you juxtaposed your early experience to what you know now and how it changes your experience in relation to food. I agree a traveling food bus may not be the best way to reach migrant people. My questions would be, what kind of research do you think would be best to solve this paradox? research of migrant family’s cultures, more research of food systems, researching the systems of oppression on a gov’t scale? Hope you and Sam are staying warm, pop into the Buzz if you need a free warm pick-me-up!
The point that you brought up about evaluating what disadvantaged communities such as migrant farm workers in Pennsylvania want in terms of food is a great one. To be able to realize that not everyone has the same privilege as yourself is a big first step in being able to examine the situation. The next step, as you suggested, would be community action and research to support those who are providing us with our food, with good food for themselves. I would like to add that another good step would be for more transparent labels to be put on foods that are sold for instance in a Wegmans. This way, when you go to such as store and enjoy the plethora of goodness there, consumers like you will be able to think beyond the yummy veggies and get involved with solutions to the unequal accessibility of food for migrant workers in their city.