Deepak Palakshappa became a pediatrician to give poor kids access to good medical care. Still, back in his residency days, the now-associate professor at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem was shocked to discover that a patient caring for two young grandchildren was food insecure. “Our clinic had set up one of those food drive boxes, and near the end of a visit, she asked if she could have any of the cans because she didn’t have food for the holidays,” he recalls.

Thirteen years later, Palakshappa’s clinic team now asks two simple questions of every patient to ascertain whether they’ll run out of food in a given month. But there are some critical questions they don’t ask: Do you drink your tap water? Is it potable and ample? Can you cook food with it, and use it to mix infant formula and cereal? Such questions could uncover some of the millions of Americans who are water insecure — a circumstance directly connected to food insecurity.

There’s no health care screener for water insecurity. The issue is not even on most public health professionals’ radar, although recent water disasters in Flint, Michigan, and Jackson, Mississippi, are starting to change that. Clinicians who are aware of water insecurity “are thinking, ‘If I screen for this, what am I going to do about it?’” says Palakshappa, noting the dearth of resources available to mitigate it.

Researchers know water insecurity isn’t confined to one region or population. But “we don’t know how big of a problem it is,” says Sera Young, an associate professor of anthropology and health at Northwestern University. “And it’s going to keep biting us in the ass because we’re not measuring these things correctly.” Public health researchers talk about food and nutrition, while water researchers are siloed in infrastructure circles, and it’s rare for the two worlds to overlap. Says Young, “We need to build a bridge between those two disciplines.”

The Link Between Food Insecurity and Water Insecurity

Most estimates put US water insecurity at 2.2 million residents. Asher Rosinger, director of the Water, Health, and Nutrition Laboratory at Pennsylvania State University, says this is probably a “huge” undercount, and the actual number might be closer to 60 million. There are no official estimates of combined food and water insecurity, which makes it tough to understand the scope of the problem, let alone to propose solutions.

“We’re measuring water by how many cubic meters there are and dividing it across the land,” says Northwestern’s Young. “Or we’re measuring infrastructure, which is like, ‘Where do you get your drinking water from? Is it from a tap? Is it from a well? Is it from a borehole?’ But you can imagine 99 scenarios where you have a tap, but you can’t pay for water to flow through it, or you don’t trust the water that comes out of it, or the infrastructure upstream of the tap has gone to shit. There are lots of reasons why measuring physical availability or infrastructure only gives you a pinhole peek of what the real problem is.”

The only way to truly understand water insecurity, Young says, is to consider people’s lived experiences as clinicians have learned to do with food access.

Accurate data is essential to closing the water gap because food insecurity increases the probability of water insecurity. In a study published last July in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Young, Rosinger, and a third coauthor tracked 13 years’ worth of tap water avoidance among more than 31,000 US residents. They found that people who didn’t drink their tap water had 21% greater odds of also being food insecure than those who did. “Efforts to mitigate food insecurity should simultaneously address water insecurity issues, including tap water availability and quality,” the researchers concluded.

Addressing Water Poverty

As with hunger, there are myriad reasons a person might be water insecure — some financial, some structural, and others having to do with quality and access. Still others are short-term predicaments brought on by disaster or a failure of local government.

You might think access to ample potable water is a basic human right. Legally, in the US, it isn’t (although California has taken a stab at making it so). Still, many Americans spend more than 12% of their income on water and sewer service. Others have lead pipes that contaminate tap water (Newark), or have bacteria seeping into wells (Iowa), or have sewage backing up into pipes during storms (Milwaukee), or nitrates running off farm fields (Las Vegas). A storm may knock out the electricity that pumps water (Puerto Rico), or knock out the pump itself (Jackson). Residents of the Navajo Nation lack basic water infrastructure. Then there are regions where aquifers are running dry, such as in California’s Central Valley.

Water poverty has a lot to do with health beyond the primary need to drink a couple of liters a day. Perhaps most consequentially, research shows that children exposed to lead can suffer developmental delays and brain damage. Rosinger also found that people who avoid tap water are more likely to drink sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs, in public health parlance). This alternative increases their risk for obesity, diabetes, and other diet-related diseases, with the implications most long-lasting for children.

Prioritizing Water Access for Public Health

SSBs are one of the few issues that public health researchers track that combines both food and water insecurity. Christina Hecht, a senior policy adviser at the University of California’s Nutrition Policy Institute, helped found the National Drinking Water Alliance in 2015, with a mission to improve access to potable water and educate people on the importance of drinking water instead of sugary drinks. “We discussed whether we needed to prioritize making sure that tap water was safe, but in 2015, we really didn’t think that that was a big issue,” she says. “Then Flint happened.”

Flint is just one in a long line of high-poverty communities now recognized for catastrophically unsafe water infrastructure. The city has a 29% food insecurity rate among its majority-Black population. In rural McDowell County, West Virginia, which will receive federal assistance to pilot wastewater infrastructure improvements, almost 32% of its (majority white) residents live below the federal poverty line. Century-old pipes, in some cases made of wood, bring in water so foul that residents capture creek water and store it in tanks. The most requested item at a local food bank? Bottled water.

The consequences ripple out from here. Someone who is water insecure can’t prepare food. Says Rosinger, “If your tap is dry, your water has been shut off, or you’re just avoiding it because you think it’s dangerous, you’re more likely to go out to eat. And research shows you consume a greater number of calories and have a lack of dietary diversity. So, it’s nutrition insecurity, too.”

Examining Tap Water Avoidance

Spending money on bottled water, which Rosinger says is “orders of magnitude more expensive than tap water,” might eat up $100 of a monthly food budget. For context, the maximum monthly SNAP benefits are $835 for a family of four. A water-insecure mother might pay for bottled water to mix infant formula or cereal; women inclined to breastfeed might skimp on their own hydration.

A colleague of Palakshappa’s, Dr. Kimberly Montez, recently met with a food-insecure mother from Latin America whose baby was failing to gain weight. She didn’t trust the tap water enough to drink it, so she was under-hydrated, which made breastfeeding difficult. Instead, she turned to formula, but that presented problems, too, because she thought she had to buy expensive bottled water to make it, says Montez.

If researchers can understand why people avoid their taps, they might better address fears and educate about the need for water over soda.

Young says questions about water trust and SSBs are a great start. “But don’t forget about cooking food. People are afraid of boiling pasta, so we should be asking, Are you drinking your water? Are you cooking with your water? Are you bathing with your water? And are you pissed about your water situation?” There’s some legislative interest in requiring the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which collects data on things like the prevalence of diabetes and fruit and vegetable consumption, to add questions about water insecurity. “If we want humans to be healthy, we need to realize that’s a product of a lot of things, and water is generally not on that list,” she says.

Water Is a Lifeline for Hunger and Hydration

As to the question of how clinicians can assist people identified as water insecure, there are a few initiatives in the works. SNAP recipients can already use benefits to purchase bottled water, although it comes out of their broader food allotment. Nourish California, an anti-hunger nonprofit, ran a pilot this year to see what happens when water-insecure households get extra SNAP bucks to cover half their monthly water expenditures. The results are still being analyzed. “We know we got to fix the welds, and we got to fix the pipes, but in the meantime, let’s not have people going hungry,” says Jared Call, a senior advocate at the organization.

The Environmental Protection Agency offers grants to help disadvantaged communities fund drinking water projects, test for lead, and conduct remediation in schools. Some states, like New York, offer assistance in paying overdue water bills.

Meanwhile, Young and her colleagues devised the Water Insecurity Experiences (WISE) Scales, which prompts researchers to ask questions about water availability, access, and reliability for domestic use. It’s similar to the Food Insecurity Experience Scale, which asks about access to nutritious food. Young says WISE provides common language to the food and water insecurity camps since they rely on common measures and indicators.

“Evidence is growing — and plus it just makes sense — that water security underpins food security, so when you ‘fix’ water, a major driver of food insecurity is handled,” Young says. “By giving people the language to talk across the aisle, the beautiful thing is, this can be a win-win.”

Tell us in the comments:

• What do you think can be done to address food and water insecurity issues?
• Do you think water access should be a right for all?
• Do you drink your tap water?

Featured Image: iStock.com/PhilAugustavo

Read Next:

• Food Insecurity Is A Problem for Almost 16 Million Americans — But See What Individuals and Organizations Are Doing and What You Can Do to Take Action

The post Why America’s Food Security Crisis Is a Water Security Crisis, Too appeared first on Food Revolution Network.

The list would almost certainly include persistent droughts in many heavily populated parts of the globe, depleted soils, global hunger, nutritional deficiencies, overuse of pesticides, and climate chaos caused by the carbon footprint of burning fossil fuels.

The bad news is you probably don’t have actual magical powers that allow you to create such a food. (If you do, please apply for a job at Food Revolution Network!)

The good news is, that crop already exists. It’s called fonio (pronounced “fone-yo”), and it’s the oldest known cultivated grain in Africa.

While many Indigenous West Africans revere the grain and incorporate it not only into their diets but also into their healing and spiritual practices, its cultivation was discouraged by decades of agricultural and economic policy that sought to “modernize” the region and grow monocropped grains for food and export.

But fonio is making a comeback, growing in popularity around the world. And for good reason. It’s highly nutritious, exceptionally delicious, and environmentally resilient, making it an important crop for arid regions. Those include its home, West Africa, but also many other places around the world prone to prolonged heat and drought: southern Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, much of the US (including California, Texas, the Midwest, Sunbelt, and Southeast), Southeast Asia, and Australia, among others.

In this article, we’ll explore all things fonio. We’ll look at where and how it grows, its nutritional profile and health benefits, its environmental impacts, and why you might want to add fonio to your diet even if you don’t live in West Africa.

We’ll also cover its versatile culinary uses, and share some fonio-filled recipes.

What Is Fonio?

Fonio, aka Digitaria exilis (Latin for “slender fingers”), has been cultivated in parts of Africa for about 7,000 years. In the Dogon language of Mali, one of the names for the plant means “seed of the universe.” In a narrative strikingly similar to the Big Bang, Dogon mythology describes the Creator bringing the universe into existence by exploding a single fonio grain.

Fonio is a member of the millet family and is related to other grains important in African agriculture, including pearl millet and sorghum. Technically, fonio is a very tiny pseudocereal, like quinoa and buckwheat — which basically means it’s a seed that’s eaten like a grain.

You may have also heard of fonio by one of its other names. These include acha, fundi, findi, iburu, Asian millet, fonio millet, pearl millet, and hungry rice. (That last name is something of a smear, implying that fonio is a lesser food that’s eaten only when there’s not enough rice.)

Fonio is native to West Africa with roughly 70% of the world’s fonio grown in Guinea. Additional production occurs in Nigeria, Mali, Senegal, and several neighboring countries.

Fonio has played a critical role in food security in these countries, especially in rural areas. For reasons that we’ll soon discover, fonio is a reliable staple crop even when other food sources are scarce.

The plant is prized for its resilience, able not just to grow, but to positively thrive in poor soil conditions. As a significant bonus, fonio is also the speed champion of grains. It’s the world’s fastest maturing cereal, going from seed to harvest in as little as 60 days. And it’s drought tolerant. In fact, the less rain the plant receives, the faster it matures.

Types of Fonio

There are two main types of fonio:

• white fonio, called acha (the more common of the two, and quicker cooking)
• black fonio, called iburu (less common, and higher in fiber)

Both types of fonio have a similar taste that’s been described as rich and nutty — similar to couscous (but unlike couscous, fonio is a whole grain, and it’s gluten-free!).

Fonio Nutrition

On a nutrient-by-nutrient basis, fonio appears to be one of the most nutritious of all African cereals, as well as one of the tastiest. A cup of cooked fonio (which requires a quarter cup of dry grain) provides about 170 calories, largely from carbohydrates, and a small amount of protein.

It’s also a rich source of gut-healthy fiber, providing as much as five times as much fiber as a serving of white rice. (I don’t know about you, but I sometimes opt for white rice over brown rice when I’m in a hurry since it cooks much more quickly. Well… fonio cooks even faster yet! So it is a winner by many measures of comparison.)

What about the essential amino acids that make up protein? The acha variety of fonio is particularly rich in sulfur-containing amino acids, like methionine, which is an amino acid that is typically low in legumes. However, similar to whole grains, acha is low in lysine (where legumes excel!). While we love fonio, we don’t recommend that you only eat fonio all day. Variety, including beans and other legumes, is important to ensure you’re receiving a variety of nutrients, including plenty of all the different essential amino acids.

Fonio is also a solid source of several minerals, including calcium, iron, zinc, magnesium, and copper. Since fonio is gluten-free, it can substitute for gluten-containing grains such as wheat, barley, and rye for people with Celiac disease and gluten sensitivity.

Fonio Health Benefits

Just as fonio has been systematically neglected and marginalized by industrialized agriculture, it’s also largely ignored by nutrition researchers. While its powerful nutrient profile is well-documented by modern science, the same is not true of its potential for supporting human health.

To give you a sense of the gap, when I did a search for “fonio nutrition” in the database of the US National Institutes of Health National Library of Medicine, I got 17 hits (only one of which even looked at the relationship between fonio and human health). By comparison, “corn nutrition” generated over 12,000 articles, and “sorghum nutrition” almost 1,200.

So in order to make useful statements about how fonio might help you prevent and heal from disease, we have to consider both its nutritional properties and Indigenous healing practices.

In West Africa, fonio is considered to have medicinal properties for several health conditions. In Senegal, fonio has been traditionally used to alleviate conditions such as meteorism (or bloating and abdominal distension caused by an accumulation of gas in the digestive system), constipation, and as a diuretic. Also, the Senegalese use fonio to treat blood clots, diarrhea, loss of appetite, dysentery, stomachache, chicken pox, and asthma.

In Burkina Faso, fonio is known for its slimming properties. Roasted, it’s used for wound healing. And fonio dough is given for relief of symptoms in people with type 2 diabetes.

Based on its nutritional profile and similarity to other pseudocereals, it’s probable that fonio may reduce the risk of developing both type 2 diabetes and some cancers. And with a low glycemic index (in the low 40s, to be imprecise) and favorable amounts of both resistant and nonresistant starch, fonio may help improve blood glucose management in diabetic and prediabetic patients.

Challenges Facing Fonio

We’ve seen that, in many respects, fonio is a near-perfect crop to address hunger on a planet that’s growing increasingly hot and dry. But now it’s time to address the one drawback to fonio: It takes a huge amount of hard human labor to produce.

Labor

In West Africa, where fonio is still a staple food for millions of people, all stages of its growth cycle are very labor-intensive.

Men harvest the grain by uprooting the plant or cutting off the grain head with a homemade knife or sickle. Threshing the grain — separating the edible from inedible parts of the plant — is just as labor-intensive. It’s done by either beating or trampling over the dry straw.

In West African countries, women perform the lion’s share of the work. Women typically do the weeding, collecting seed heads, dehusking the grain, cleaning, drying, and processing as well as selling the fonio. On average, a woman must pound fonio for an hour to dehusk just two pounds of the grain.

Although this unfairly puts a large burden on women to process the fonio and get it ready for market, from a climate perspective, the hard work does pay off. Its impact in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as soil and water contamination, is minimal to nonexistent. There’s also no need for fuel to run giant harvesters and other agricultural machines, or to power running water for irrigation.

And in a region with chronically high rates of unemployment, some would argue that providing more jobs for people (as opposed to having the work done by machines produced overseas) makes good economic sense, too. Plus, there’s the fact that farmers don’t have to spend money on fertilizers or pesticides since fonio thrives in poor soil and has few natural enemies.

But in terms of growing enough fonio to feed the world, the fact that the crop hasn’t, at least so far, been able to benefit from economies of scale has been a very real stumbling block.

In the 1990s, a Senegalese mechanical engineer named Sanoussi Diakite invented a fonio husking machine that could process eleven pounds of grain in just eight minutes. However, there are very few machines in use, even today, because the $3,000 price tag renders them too expensive for the vast majority of West African farmers.

Low Demand and Rural Depopulation

Capitalizing on fonio’s status as a highly nutritious and easy-to-grow whole grain is a serious challenge facing West African farmers. In addition to the difficulties of production and postharvest processing, there are two other stumbling blocks: low market demand and rural depopulation.

Because demand from the wealthier nations is low (at least before this article was published!), farmers fear not receiving a return on their investments of money and effort. It’s more secure to grow maize, which has a predictable market, or some of the higher-margin cash crops like coffee, bananas, cashews, or cacao, which can be exported to wealthier countries.

Another obstacle is a lack of younger farmers willing to do the work of fonio farming. Many move away from rural areas to seek employment in the cities, sparking a depopulation crisis that continues to spiral as more and more people view farm life as an economic dead end.

Garnering Interest in Fonio

Some people are trying to encourage increased fonio production by creating demand for it in the US and Europe. Making fonio more fashionable, somewhat akin to what’s happened to quinoa, can mean higher profits and more stable income for farmers.

For example, Senegalese chef Pierre Thiam has been instrumental in bringing fonio to US markets. He cofounded Yolélé Foods in order to, quoting from their website, “create economic opportunity for smallholder farming communities; to support their biodiverse, regenerative, and climate-resilient farming systems.”

Yolélé Foods is also building processing facilities and collaborating with governments, intergovernmental agencies, and NGOs to train and equip smallholders for increased productivity through conservation farming.

If you’re feeling adventurous and want to try fonio for yourself, check out some of Yolélé’s fonio products online. If they’re out of stock (as seems to happen from time to time), Aduna makes an organic variety, linked here. The cost tends to be a bit higher than rice or quinoa but is lower than wild rice.

How to Cook Fonio

If you do decide to try fonio (and create more demand for it), you’re in luck. Not only is it super delicious (at least in my opinion), but it cooks super fast (just a few minutes!). This speedy quality also makes it a great option when you want to eat a whole grain but don’t have a long time to wait for one to cook fully.

One cup of fonio cooks in two cups of water and yields four cups of grain!

You can use fonio in any recipe that calls for other types of grains. Examples include grain bowls, porridge, side dishes (like couscous or pilaf), stuffed vegetable recipes, and so on.

Fonio flour has been used to make biscuits, bread, and dumplings. Some researchers have experimented with making sourdough bread using fonio. It’s also possible to make delicious cakes, cookies, and other snack foods and desserts from fonio. And you can use whole meal fonio flour to create gluten-free biscuits and other baked goods.

Fonio Recipes

This ancient West African grain deserves to be making some serious culinary waves because it offers a delightful canvas for kitchen creativity. From savory to slightly sweet, get to know this delightful ancient grain that can add wonderful texture and substantial nutritional value to your meals.

1. Savory Turmeric Fonio Porridge

Savory Turmeric Fonio Porridge feels like a warm and comforting hug for your belly. Full of antioxidant- and anti-inflammatory-rich ingredients, it’s a wonderful breakfast to begin your day on a nourishing note. What’s more, thanks to fonio’s nuttiness, the cashews (or your favorite nut or seed of choice) really bring out its flavor, rounding out the taste profile of this hearty breakfast porridge.

2. Fonio, Fennel, and Fruit Salad

Since fonio is a mild grain, you can use it the same way you would quinoa, brown rice, or millet. In this salad, it’s truly a hit! Fonio, Fennel, and Fruit Salad is bursting with juicy and aromatic citrus fruit and berries, lively fennel, and creamy Macadamia Nut Ricotta. The cherry, or should we say the grain on top, is the subtly sweet fonio that ties it all together. If you are new to working with this grain, we highly recommend you give it a try in this refreshing and vibrant salad!

3. Moroccan-Inspired Fonio Pilaf

Fonio is highly versatile. There are so many ways to enjoy its taste, texture, and nutrients — and this Moroccan-inspired Fonio Pilaf will not disappoint! With savory vegetables, cooling mint, nutty pistachios, and healing spices, this is a highly nourishing all-in-one meal that is simple to prepare and a delight to enjoy as a tasty side dish or a delectable main!

The Bottom Line on Fonio

Fonio is a nutritious and versatile whole grain that has a low environmental impact. It also tastes delicious, cooks quickly, and provides many nutrients that are crucial to human health. Plus, it’s gluten-free and so is suitable for those with Celiac disease or gluten sensitivity.

Unfortunately, farmers face many challenges growing fonio because demand is unpredictable, and it’s labor-intensive to harvest and thresh. While some technology is now available to lessen that burden, until demand grows, few farmers will be able to afford to use these machines to increase production.

Increasing awareness of and demand for fonio in industrialized countries can be a win-win. Not only does the crop have the potential to improve the nutritional status of those populations, but increased demand may translate into funding to make harvesting and processing more efficient. If done in an environmentally low-impact way, this could pave the way for greater economic opportunities for farmers in West Africa.

If being a part of that solution sounds good to you, check out the recipes included above and consider making fonio a part of your life.

Tell us in the comments:

• Had you heard of fonio before reading this? If so, where did you first come across it?

• What is the most interesting thing about fonio that you discovered in this article?

• Which fonio recipe will you try?

Featured Image: iStock.com/Karisssa

Read Next:

• Teff: The Tiny but Mighty Grain Worth Knowing About

The post What Is Fonio? Get to Know This Ancient Supergrain from Africa appeared first on Food Revolution Network.

Pride: reasonable self-esteem; confidence and satisfaction in oneself; self-respect

Pride is an annual celebration of not just LGBTQ+ identities but diversity, resilience, and visibility. It’s often punctuated by a monthlong series of events in major cities, including parades, street fairs, and parties. But for the LGBTQ+ community, pride hasn’t always been an easy ask.

Behind all the colorful Pride celebrations is a cry for human rights, not just gay rights. And the freedom to be able to simply exist and meet basic human needs — food, water, air, and shelter — just like everyone else.

Here at Food Revolution Network, that first need is at the core of our mission: healthy, ethical, and sustainable food for all. By shining a spotlight on food disparity in the LGBTQ+ community, we hope to amplify the voices of people who have been marginalized and foster a more inclusive and equitable society for everyone.

In the US especially (although not exclusively), legislation targeting the LGBTQ+ community has recently accelerated, further threatening to halt progress and once again to criminalize many aspects of being an LGBTQ-identifying individual.

At a time when so many wish to question the very existence of the LGBTQ+ community, it’s more important than ever to remember our common struggles as human beings. We all want our basic human needs met. We all want to be treated with humanity, decency, and respect. And we all want the ability to have pride in ourselves and the communities we are a part of and represent.

In this article, we’ll take a look at disparities in food security within the LGBTQ+ community, what’s being done about it, and how you can help support greater food access during Pride Month and beyond.

The State of Food Insecurity Among the LGBTQ+ Community

Although hunger and poverty are not unique to the LGBTQ+ community, these experiences are often disproportionately found among LGBTQ-identifying individuals. Differences in income, employment, and other financial disparities may all contribute to increased occurrences of food insecurity — and so, too, may sexual orientation and gender identity.

But increasing disparities and inequality are also significantly higher in certain US states, and in countries around the world, where there is little to no legal acceptance of or antidiscrimination protections for, LGBTQ+ people. In fact, in some places, same-sex relations and non-binary gender expression are still criminalized.

Data analyzed by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law shows that LGBTQ+ adults consistently report not having enough money for food at much higher rates than non-LGBTQ+ adults. They also participate in the USDA’s SNAP program (formerly food stamps) at higher rates than non-LGBTQ+ adults. LGBTQ+ people of color, women, and adults with children are particularly vulnerable to food insecurity and SNAP reliance.

Among those surveyed in a 2016 report, the percentage of LGBTQ+ people reporting food insecurity was 27% vs 17% for non-LGBTQ+ people. However, that number may be even higher since it doesn’t count individuals experiencing homelessness (which is significantly higher in non-binary and transgender youth and adults).

Really, we’re only just beginning to understand the extent of food insecurity among LGBTQ+ individuals — at least in the US. It wasn’t until 2021 that the US Census Bureau began including gender identity and sexuality as household demographic data points.

But in Canada, results from the 2015–2018 Canadian Community Health Survey also showed a large economic disparity between non-LGBTQ and LGBTQ+ folks. While household food insecurity was around 8.5% among heterosexual people, it was a little over 13% for gay and lesbian individuals. And nearly one-quarter of bisexual individuals were food insecure in the previous 12 months.

The Organizations and Farms Helping to Address LGBTQ+ Food Insecurity

Although many individuals experiencing poverty and food insecurity can and do use food banks, food pantries, and other charitable services, it’s often a different story for the LGBTQ+ community. A 2022 analysis of food pantries in 12 US states found that over 63% were run by faith-based organizations or churches. But many LGBTQ+ people feel uncomfortable in these spaces for fear of (or experience with) discrimination or harassment, and so have to look for alternatives — often prolonging their experience with hunger.

That’s not to say that just because a food pantry has a religious affiliation, they aren’t willing to serve LGBTQ+ people. On the contrary, there are many faith-based food pantries that are open to all. But because there is uncertainty there, some hunger relief resources are starting to note which food banks, pantries, or soup kitchens will serve the LGBTQ+ community. For example, the City of New York has a list of food pantries and soup kitchens that are friendly to the LGBTQ+ community — separated by borough — with many of them being churches and synagogues.

However, as a result of this hurdle to food access, there are a number of secular nonprofits, farms, and other organizations that have also become a lifeline in the struggle for LGBTQ+ food security. The following are a few select organizations actively working to provide access to healthy food no matter someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

Rock Steady Farm

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Rock Steady Farm (@rocksteadyfarm)

Rock Steady is a queer-run farming collective working for equitable food access and education. They train LGBTQ+ individuals in sustainable farming techniques to encourage food sovereignty. And they run a sliding-scale CSA program that provides fresh produce for people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, and people living with serious illnesses like HIV/AIDS. “Solidarity Shares” in the CSA are provided at no cost to low-income individuals and families through community partnerships. And a farmers market along with prepared meals are available for the trans community in New York through Food Issues Group (FIG).

The Okra Project

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Okra Project (@theokraproject)

Okra is an important vegetable in Black cooking traditions and the namesake of The Okra Project, a mutual aid collective that focuses on the Black trans community. The Okra Project supports food security, safe housing and transportation, and mental health services across the United States for Black trans folks. Their Rides and Meals Fund gives Uber credits to trans men and women for transportation use or meals through Uber Eats.

Gay For Good

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Gay For Good (@gayforgood)

With 20 chapters all around the US, Gay For Good allows LGBTQ+ individuals to come together on a local and national scale working on service projects that benefit their community and the community at large. Many of their chapters focus on food justice initiatives, including community garden creation, food delivery for those living with HIV/AIDS, local food drives, and volunteering in community kitchens and food banks to feed low-income individuals and families.

Veggie Mijas

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Veggie Mijas (@veggiemijas)

What started as an Instagram page for college students looking to share recipes has expanded into a collective with 11 chapters across the country. Veggie Mijas is an exclusively plant-based organization for people with marginalized identities, including women of color, trans folks of color, and gender nonconforming individuals. The organization believes in the power and protection of plants and the decolonization of the food system. Chapters host potlucks, food gardening instruction, culinary classes, and sustainability workshops. And they work to support plant-based, LGBTQ+, and people of color-run businesses in their respective communities.

Centerlink

Centerlink is an international nonprofit and the parent organization for member-based LGBT centers across the US and Canada. These centers are a lifeline, with programs and services that seek to support youth and adults in the LGBTQ+ community. In addition to providing essential food assistance, LGBT centers may also help with issues around housing, health care, or job training — addressing some of the root causes of food insecurity.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of LGBT centers opened up “pride pantries” to address mounting food insecurity for their respective local communities. Some pantries partnered with local food banks (like the Coastal Bend PRIDE Center of Corpus Christi, TX) or hosted the pantries themselves (like The Center Orlando), making food available to anyone needing assistance.

The Los Angeles LGBT Center is one of the largest LGBT centers in the world and has a senior-specific pride pantry that provides both dry goods and fresh produce for seniors on a fixed or low income. They also offer a culinary arts training program for both youth and seniors that not only teaches job skills and provides job placement, but assists in the preparation of nutritious meals for center recipients.

To find an LGBT center near you, visit the LGBT Community Center Directory.

What You Can Do to Help Fight LGBTQ+ Food Insecurity

Because the LGBTQ+ population is so diverse, there are often multilayered challenges making it difficult for people to access the resources they need.

But, by supporting initiatives that aim to address food insecurity, we can work towards creating a society where every person, regardless of their sexual orientation, gender expression, or any other aspect of personal identity, has access to safe, nutritious food.

To help eradicate hunger in the LGBTQ+ community, consider some of these options:

1. Donate money

If you have the financial means to contribute money, consider donating to one of the organizations we’ve mentioned in this article, your local LGBT center, or another farm, faith-based organization, nonprofit, or mutual aid collective that is inclusive of the LGBTQ+ community.

2. Donate food and supplies

Check with your local food bank or LGBT center-hosted pride pantry to see if they accept food donations and other household supplies. If you own a restaurant, cafe, grocery store, or farm stand, some organizations may also rescue food that would have gone to waste and redistribute it instead. San Diego’s North County LGBTQ Resource Center’s Foodies & Goodies program is one such resource.

3. Volunteer your time

If you feel moved to help out but are unable to do so financially, volunteering is another great way to contribute. Check with an individual farm, organization, or center to find out their specific needs and policies around volunteering.

4. Share this SNAP resource

One in four LGBT individuals between the ages of 18 and 44 participate in SNAP. And in 2022, the USDA expanded SNAP program access to prevent discrimination not just based on sex, but sexual orientation and gender identity. If you or someone you care about uses SNAP benefits, make sure to read or share our article on how to use SNAP benefits to buy fruit and vegetable seeds and grow your own food.

5. Be an ally

Although it may not directly contribute to fighting food insecurity, one of the simplest ways you can show up for the LGBTQ+ community is by being an ally. Educate yourself on issues like this one, be supportive, and have positive discussions with friends and family members about LGBTQ+ people. You may also consider getting involved with LGBTQ+ groups or contacting your local elected officials about championing and protecting LGBTQ+ rights.

Take Pride in Supporting Food Access for All

This June marks 53 years of Pride celebrations in the United States. As some storefronts hang rainbow flags to show support and festive Pride celebrations are held, it is crucial to acknowledge the struggle for freedom and equality still faced by the LGBTQ+ population. Pride is and has always been more than a celebration; it is a collective call to action, an opportunity to confront the complex intersections of identity and inequality that persist in our society.

Disparities in food security persist within the LGBTQ+ community, often exacerbated by discrimination, violence, homelessness, and legal barriers to equality. But despite these challenges, there is hope in the ​​struggle for freedom and equality. Many organizations, farms, and nonprofits are actively working to address LGBTQ+ food insecurity and create more equitable access to nutritious food.

By standing in solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community in the fight against food insecurity, we can help achieve healthy, ethical, and sustainable food for all, not just during Pride Month, but every month, and every day.

Tell us in the comments:

• Were you aware of the food insecurity issues faced by the LGBTQ+ community?

• What other organizations are working to address LGBTQ+ food access?

• How else can you show up for marginalized communities?

Featured Image: iStock.com/Pacha M Vector and Olga Strelnikova (with modifications)

Read Next:

• Food Insecurity Is A Problem for Almost 16 Million Americans — But See What individuals and Organizations Are Doing and What You Can Do to Take Action
• Food Inequality: How Poor Nutrition Affects Health, Wealth, & Opportunity (And What We Can Do About It!)

The post From Hunger to Hope: Addressing Food Insecurity in the LGBTQ+ Community appeared first on Food Revolution Network.

Since food is a necessity, the line item for groceries is not an optional expense. But households in the lowest income quintile end up spending over 30% of their income on food, compared to the highest income quintile which only spends about 8%.

As a result, people living at or near the poverty line often have to rely on food banks or food pantries. While these programs are a lifeline, they don’t all have the ability to offer fresh, healthy food. That’s where SNAP comes in.

SNAP, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, allows recipients to spend government benefits on a variety of foods, including fresh produce. However, aside from food, one of the little-known benefits of SNAP is the ability to buy seeds and plants with an EBT card (Electronic Benefits Transfer) to grow your own food.

Unfortunately, very few SNAP recipients are aware of this ruling, and there are significant obstacles to getting retailers to participate and accept EBT for those purchases.

But with an increase in food shortages and supply disruptions, the ability to grow your own food is a worthwhile one to pursue, no matter what your income.

In this article, I’ll share a brief overview of how to take advantage of SNAP benefits to buy seeds and plants, and how to navigate the challenges that might arise. I’ll also mention some additional resources for gardening on the cheap.

What Is SNAP?

SNAP is a US-based federal program that assists low-income individuals and families with purchasing food. SNAP benefits used to be referred to as “food stamps” (officially, the Food Stamp Program) until they were renamed as part of the 2008 Farm Bill to emphasize their intended function of providing an improvement in nutrition. Another reason they were renamed was that the program no longer uses stamps. Instead, participants are issued reloadable EBT debit cards to purchase food.

The program still has a long way to go on the nutrition front. Some of the eligible food items on SNAP include chips, candy, snack crackers, ice cream, and soft drinks. And given the stress of living in poverty, it’s completely understandable that people are drawn to inexpensive pleasures that don’t require a lot of preparation and that kids will reliably consume without complaint.

But the intention of improving nutritional value is still present, with new initiatives and experiments bubbling up to achieve that aim. For example, at the moment, the USDA is experimenting with “Double Up Bucks” (a program available on a limited basis in 25 states in which the value of SNAP dollars doubles when used to purchase fruits and vegetables) and other programs to support health among low-income recipients.

Who Is Eligible for SNAP Benefits?

A household must meet certain requirements to be eligible for SNAP and receive benefits. These include income, assets, job or student status (for example, striking workers are not eligible), and household size. Benefits vary from full to partial.

SNAP is generally for people who are disabled and/or are living at, below, or up to double the federal poverty line. Each state has a slightly different application form and process to determine eligibility. In North Carolina, for example, a family of four can receive some SNAP assistance if their combined income is less than 200% of the poverty level; in this case $4,626 per month.

If you or someone you know may be eligible, you have to contact your local state office to apply. Here’s a link to find the one where you live: SNAP State Directory of Resources.

Why Garden Seeds and Plants are SNAP-Eligible

Since SNAP is meant to combat hunger, most of the items that are SNAP-eligible are what you’d expect: fruits and vegetables; meat, poultry, and fish; dairy products; bread and cereal grains; snack foods; and nonalcoholic beverages.

But here’s the thing: seeds and plants that can grow to produce food are also eligible under SNAP. This includes packets of garden seeds for fruits, vegetables, and other plant foods. Herb and spice plants are eligible, as well as edible roots (i.e., asparagus), bushes (like strawberry and other berry bushes), and bulbs (such as garlic, onions, and shallots). Excluded plants are those grown for decorative or ornamental purposes, or which are known to be toxic to humans (so daffodils, hemlock, and — the name is kind of a giveaway — deadly nightshade are all off the list).

It’s not a recent change, either. Seeds and plants became available to purchase with food stamps (now EBT) with the passing of the Agriculture and Consumer Protection Act of 1973. Here’s the verbiage from the amended Food Stamps Act:

“The term ‘food’ means any food or food product for home consumption except alcoholic beverages and tobacco and shall also include seeds and plants for use in gardens to produce food for the personal consumption of the eligible household.”

The amendment served at least three purposes: to supplement a household’s food budget, encourage healthier eating, and promote increased self-sufficiency.

The Benefits of Growing Your Own Food

In terms of budgeting, growing your own food is an investment that can save considerable amounts of money in the long run. Done frugally and strategically, every dollar spent on seeds and fertilizer can return up to $25 in fresh produce. And given that fresh fruits and vegetables are often the most expensive items in the grocery store, per calorie, growing them from scratch can make it more affordable for everyone to access a diversity of fresh fruits and vegetables.

Not only that, but millions of lower-income people live in “food deserts,” where access to fresh healthy food is either extremely inconvenient or nonexistent. Supermarket chains balk at locating in these areas. And smaller corner stores lack the infrastructure to source, store, and display fresh produce.

Tending a personal garden plot — or as Los Angeles “Gangsta Gardener” Ron Finley did, turning a sidewalk strip into a lush edible forest — can be a DIY way to bring healthy food into such neighborhoods.

Gardening can also deliver another economic boost: People who grow fruits and veggies tend to eat more fruits and veggies, and may therefore be healthier overall. Michael Pollan famously said, “Pay the grocer, or pay the doctor.” I’d like to add a third, even thriftier choice: Be the farmer.

Challenges Around Starting a SNAP Garden

Unfortunately, starting a SNAP garden isn’t exactly a snap. There are several obstacles you may face in using EBT to buy plants, seeds, and other gardening supplies.

Lack of Awareness About SNAP Benefits

The first problem is a lack of awareness: Most people don’t realize that seeds and plants are SNAP-eligible. Recipients don’t know, so they don’t add the seeds and plants to their carts. Retailers don’t know, so they don’t have systems to accept and process EBT payments.

The result of this lack of information is that the benefit is underutilized — to what extent we don’t know. The USDA Food and Nutrition Service doesn’t track SNAP-related spending on seeds and plant-bearing starts. The only clue in the data is a category called “miscellaneous” spending, which represents about 0.3% of total SNAP spending.

Lack of Knowledge About Gardening Itself

Another obstacle to using SNAP for gardening is that many people don’t even consider growing their own food as an option. If they’ve never gardened or farmed, they may have no idea how to start.

Like any skill, gardening requires instruction, practice, and patience to master. In the extensive SNAP-Ed online resource archive, there are no documents or videos on how to start a garden. There are several “eating from the garden” lessons, but they all focus on using existing gardens to teach kids how to eat healthfully. While this is definitely a worthwhile topic, it’s not the same as providing direction on starting and maintaining a garden.

One more issue: while seeds and plants are eligible under SNAP, most of the other things you need to create a garden — soil, containers, tools — are not. So people have to pay out of pocket for these necessities even before tasting their first sweet pea or spring radish.

Lack of Retailer Participation

The biggest obstacle has to do with which establishments allow shoppers to use EBT for seeds and plants. Retailers who accept EBT tend to be grocery stores and supermarkets, which often don’t sell garden-related items.

And the gardening and farm supply stores that do carry seeds and plants may not be allowed to accept EBT payments. By law, EBT-eligible stores must either carry a certain (pretty large) quantity of staple foods, some of which must be perishable; or the staple foods must generate at least 50% of their sales. Garden centers, where you’d commonly find seeds and plants, clearly don’t fit either criterion.

Whether or not you’re a SNAP participant, if you’d like to be part of the solution, you can help raise awareness by sharing this article with others who may use SNAP, requesting that food retailers sell seeds and accept EBT, or putting up posters from SNAP Gardens in community spaces and food retailers that let you.

Where Can You Buy Seeds and Plants with EBT?

While not all garden centers can accept SNAP, any establishment that does allow EBT payments may carry seeds and plants. So if your local supermarket, natural foods store, co-op, or big-box store sells them, you can purchase them using your SNAP benefits — theoretically.

Why theoretically? Because often, the store’s staff will not know that it’s possible, and may not have training on the procedures to allow customers to buy seeds and plants with EBT. To save time and effort, you can call ahead and talk to a manager, or even call the corporate headquarters (if applicable) and ask them to please verify that you can purchase those food-producing plants or seeds on the eligible food items list.

You can also check this interactive US map that lists retail locations that accept EBT. In addition to the establishments on that list, you may also be able to use SNAP benefits at small markets and farmers markets. You can check by clicking on the market’s listing in the USDA’s farmers market directory and looking under “Accepted Food and Nutrition Assistance Programs.”

As an added incentive to shop for garden stock at farmers markets, many of them participate in the Double Up Food Bucks program that allows you to get more produce for less if you have an EBT card.

You can also use EBT for seeds at some online retailers. Amazon, for example, allows EBT purchases for many types of seeds. You can shop via this link, or simply go to Amazon.com and enter “vegetable seeds EBT” in the search bar.

Other grocery stores, big-box stores, and markets that have online ordering may also be a possibility but not a guarantee.

Low-Cost Gardening Tips

Once you’ve acquired seeds and plants with EBT, you’re not out of the woods (or, better, into the garden) yet. You’ll still need gardening maintenance supplies (which are not covered by SNAP), time to garden, and container space or land on which to create a bed.

And while you can find many fancy and expensive items for hobbyist gardeners, you don’t have to spend up to the gills to get what you need. Thrift stores and dollar stores frequently carry low-cost gardening supplies and tools. Some garden centers also give away plastic containers, paint buckets, and other containers that you can repurpose for growing crops. (Make sure the buckets weren’t ever filled with toxic ingredients that you don’t want touching your soil.)

You can also get creative and repurpose many household goods into containers for plants. Some examples include gallon milk and water jugs, five-gallon buckets, and food containers.

If you don’t have land that’s suitable for a garden bed, consider starting a windowsill or kitchen herb garden, or a balcony container garden. You may also be able to get a free or inexpensive plot at a local community garden.

While bags of soil and soil amendments are not eligible for SNAP purchases, you may be able to make your own compost, given a bit of outdoor space and enough food scraps. If you don’t generate a lot on your own, you might be able to convince your neighbors to share their plant-based kitchen waste with you in exchange for a couple of tomatoes and heads of lettuce down the road. And some communities offer free compost to home gardeners.

For some fruits and vegetables, you may not even need to buy seeds at all. There are several types of produce that are pretty easy to regrow from food scraps and seeds.

If you need guidance on gardening, contact your state extension office and ask about their Seed to Supper (or similarly named) program in your state. Here’s one example from Oregon, another from Montana, and a third from Pennsylvania, which are all led by Master Gardeners.

And here are a couple of additional resources that you might find useful when learning to grow your own food: an article on locating and using a planting calendar, and a beginner’s guide to starting a food garden.

A Note About the Perceived Stigma of Relying on Government Assistance

Over 41.5 million people rely on SNAP for food assistance in the US. However, there’s often a stigma associated with receiving government assistance or “charity.”

And there’s not necessarily much correlation between economic status and work status — many employed people receive low hourly wages and meager benefits, or can only find part-time work. Walmart and McDonald’s, for example, employ tens of thousands of workers, many of them full-time employees, who still require the assistance of SNAP benefits.

Unfortunately, it’s more common than most people realize. Fully 60% of all US residents will experience at least one year below the poverty line, and three-quarters will live in either poverty or near poverty.

If you or anyone you love ever finds yourself amongst the majority of Americans in this regard, keep in mind that SNAP and other similar programs were created to make life a bit easier, and more livable, for the people who can use some support. As the song goes, “We all need somebody to lean on;” and sometimes, that “somebody” might be a program like SNAP.

But whether or not you or someone you know relies on SNAP to buy food (and now hopefully seeds and plants), there’s no shame in receiving some help to improve your quality of life or the health of your family.

Growing Food and Opportunity with SNAP

SNAP is a valuable lifeline for millions of people in the US, but many don’t know about or utilize one aspect: buying seeds and plants with EBT to grow your own food. Gardening can help save money and provide access to healthier food for low-income individuals.

But there are also challenges in taking advantage of this benefit due to a lack of knowledge or promotion about it. And many retailers either are not set up to accept EBT for seeds and plants or don’t know that they can. By utilizing the resources in this article, you can find places that will allow you to buy seeds and plants with EBT (if you use it), or spread the word about it in your community. And you can get started growing your own fresh and healthy food for a very low cost.

Tell us in the comments:

• Have you ever used SNAP to purchase seeds and plants for gardening?
• If so, what was your experience navigating the rules and regulations of the system?
• What are some of the easiest and least expensive items to grow in your part of the world?

Featured Image: iStock.com/JackF

Read Next:

• Food Insecurity Is A Problem for Almost 16 Million Americans — But See What individuals and Organizations Are Doing and What You Can Do to Take Action
• Starting a Food Garden: How Growing Your Own Vegetables Can Ease Food Supply Anxiety & Support Health

The post Can You Use EBT to Buy Seeds? A Guide to Using SNAP Benefits to Grow Your Own Food appeared first on Food Revolution Network.

I could have written the above paragraph any time in the past two decades, and it would have been true. What’s different now is the cause. Until recently, global hunger was primarily a symptom of a shortage of justice, ethics, and will. The world produced enough food for every person, but did not set up or fund systems to distribute that food to the most vulnerable populations globally.

That’s still true, but now there’s a new problem on top of it: an actual shortage of food, caused by a perfect storm of climate change, war, and supply chain wobbles triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. So even if humanity developed the will to share food equitably, at this point, there may literally not be enough of the foods we want to go around.

The World Food Programme estimates that over 349 million people are experiencing or on the verge of facing acute hunger or food insecurity. Billions more face times of not having enough, or any, food to eat.

If you don’t happen to be a billionaire, the CEO of a multinational corporation, or the head of a government or influential global nonprofit, you might be wondering if there’s anything you can do beyond just reading this article and getting informed. As you’ll see it turns out that even with all the problems we face, there is something meaningful that each of us can do to help put a dent in the global food crisis.

In this article, we’ll examine the causes of the current food crisis, and some possible solutions.

An Unprecedented Food Crisis

What makes the current hunger crisis so different from the steady state of global food instability is that for the first time in a long time, there’s a shortage of both agricultural outputs (that is, food) as well as inputs that the dominant food production systems depend on (principally water and fertilizer).

The biggest shocks are due to the war in Ukraine, which exacerbated existing problems, many of which got worse from COVID-19 disruptions to fragile supply chains. But the whole thing rests on an increasingly shaky foundation, as we reckon with the rising specter of climate crisis and groundwater depletion — in a world in which most of our agricultural land and water are going to livestock production.

What’s Causing the Current Global Food Crisis?

Before we talk about fundamental solutions, let’s look more closely at the causes of world hunger and the conditions that have led to the current food crisis. As we’ve seen, they include disruptions in the supply chain due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war, and climate change. All of these have reduced the supply of food. And as they teach in Economics 101, when supply falls, prices rise.

For someone who’s financially well off, or even living comfortably, a price increase for a food product doesn’t necessarily represent a disaster. But for people who are living in poverty and typically spend up to 40% of their income on food (compared to the US average of 10%), those increases mean having to buy less and choose cheaper (and often less nutritious) food. For some, starvation is a tragic but real possibility.

Food prices rose by a record 31% in 2021 alone, and they’re projected to continue rising for the foreseeable future.

Climate Change and Hunger

Climate change is reducing the supply of arable land and, in many places, water. As more places turn into deserts due to insufficient rain, the pressure increases for intensified agricultural methods that will squeeze every calorie from the land that’s still able to be farmed. But this, in turn, leads to short-term thinking that can lead to loss of topsoil and rapid exploitation of whatever groundwater still remains.

Globally, we rely on just a few crops for many of our calories. In fact, three crops — wheat, corn, and rice — directly provide more than 40% of our calories. Among the negative impacts of climate change, both corn and wheat yields are projected to decrease significantly due to heat stress and increasing greenhouse gas emissions. And the more the planet warms, the greater those crop losses will become.

Not all parts of the planet are drying out. Wet areas are getting wetter, and more intense and frequent major storms and flooding are creating large populations of climate refugees. Forced off their lands, many of these people now face poverty and malnutrition.

COVID-19 and World Hunger

The COVID-19 pandemic and the worldwide response to it led to a spike in the global malnutrition rate.

First, it disrupted the food supply chain, forcing farmers and food distribution hubs to dump food because of facility closures. Employees falling ill, or quitting in the face of unpleasant and sometimes unsafe working conditions, led to additional disruptions in the transportation of food and agricultural inputs and equipment.

And the number of hungry people increased because of business closures leading to loss of income. Around the world, food banks and pantries reported not being able to get enough food to feed more hungry mouths.

Ukraine Food Crisis

The Russia-Ukraine War has dramatically accelerated the current food crisis. The combatants, Ukraine and Russia, have traditionally been major producers and exporters of some of the world’s most central calorie crops, including about 30% of all the wheat exported globally.

Since the conflict began, Ukrainian farmers have had difficulty growing food as many have joined the military or fled their land. And the nation has had trouble exporting agricultural products. Due to attacks on agricultural infrastructure and Russian blockades of the main export routes in the Black Sea, food has been stranded at ports for months.

In addition, sanctions against Russia have impacted Russia’s ability to export its own grain to the world.

And as of this writing, a tenuous deal between Russia and Ukraine — mediated by Turkey and the UN — has allowed the flow of grain out of the region but it is volatile. Russian inspections of cargo have slowed, leading to delays that contribute to the hunger crisis. And Russia is still restricting the majority of shipments from Ukraine, blocking more than half of Ukraine’s seaports.

Russia is also a major exporter of fertilizer, which is vital to farmers’ yields in the modern industrialized food system. Many staple crops like wheat and corn are heavily reliant on fertilizers, at least as currently grown in giant monocropped plots with little fertility remaining in the native soil.

With sanctions against Russia cutting off the flow of fertilizer, crop yields are down around the world.

Less yield equals less food and higher prices, following the classic supply and demand curve.

These impacts disproportionately affect the people that are already the most vulnerable to starvation, especially those in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Latin America. The UN warns that up to 49 million people in 49 countries could be facing total famine.

A Key Problem With Our Food System

Historically, the UN and the agricultural industry have tried to address world hunger by increasing food production.

In pursuit of this goal, the world’s dominant powers have favored strategies such as monocropping, heavy pesticide and fertilizer application, scaling and mechanization, and bioengineering (GMOs). And for a few decades, yields did increase. But the gains turned out to be unsustainable.

Staple crops like wheat, corn, rice, and soybeans are often grown in a monoculture system. There are many problems with this approach, including low diversity leading to the potential for devastating plagues and crop losses, depletion of soil fertility due to single-crop farming, and increased resistance to the biocides used to deter or kill everything but the staple crop.

And despite decades of promises, bioengineered crops haven’t solved these problems. Rather, they’ve made it worse in some respects, as each new crop now requires a custom application of biocides.

So even if we fixed all the political and economic obstacles to distributing food fairly across the world, there may simply not be enough food to go around unless we fundamentally change how we grow our calories — and what we do with them.

And that brings us to the crux of the matter.

Cycling Calories Through Livestock

Here’s the central problem: much of our staple crops aren’t grown to feed people. Instead, they’re cycled through livestock, as animal feed. This is significant because it’s an incredibly wasteful conversion. It takes 8–12 pounds of corn to produce one pound of feedlot beef, for example.

Globally, livestock production uses around 80% of the world’s agricultural land, but only provides 18% of the calories consumed by humans. Over half the grain, 80% of the soy, and 50% of the corn grown is fed to livestock, not humans. This industrialized agriculture, which turns abundant staples into expensive and relatively scarce meat, eggs, and dairy, also fuels climate chaos, as the meat and dairy industries are among the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions.

Factory farms raising livestock use 20 times the land, and hundreds of times the water, compared to farms that grow crops directly for human consumption. In addition, factory farms pollute our waterways and air. And around the world, cash- and calorie-strapped countries are destroying rainforests to make room for cattle grazing.

Going Plant-Based for Hunger

So, after all this bad news, how can we do our part to reduce the impact of these crises and contribute to a world where everyone has safe and healthy food to eat? There’s one positive action step that each of us can choose: eating more plants and fewer animal products.

Doing so isn’t just good for your waistline and your personal health. It can also bend the arc of our food system towards greater justice and sustainability for all.

If we free up some of these staple crops for people instead of livestock, we can take a bite out of hunger and climate change. Of course, there is no guarantee that the staple foods we save from livestock farming would reach the world’s hungry people — because many still can’t afford to buy them. But when we stop wasting food by cycling it through livestock, we increase the food supply for people, which in turn will bring down prices. In essence, eating lower on the food chain makes food more affordable, as well as more abundant, for everyone.

By shifting away from growing crops for animal feed (as well as fuel for cars), and instead growing crops for direct human consumption, we could increase available global food calories by as much as 70%.

This means that even as we lose some arable land to droughts and floods, we could still easily feed a world of 10 billion people or more.

When we swap out meat for a diversity of grains and veggies, and especially if we buy locally grown produce, we create the space and incentives to transform the food system away from its dependence on fertilizers and pesticides, long supply chains, and global trade in a few staple crops. Plant-based farming and diets are more sustainable and key to feeding the future, and may be one of the possible solutions to world hunger.

The tipping point isn’t unreachable. According to the World Resources Institute, if people who eat the most meat reduce their consumption of ruminant meat (mainly cattle, sheep, and goats) by 40% in favor of plant-based proteins, that shift would, by itself, slash greenhouse gas emissions and free up enough land to feed every single human we expect to have on the planet by 2050.

You Can Do Your Part for Hunger Relief

The world is facing a food crisis due to a variety of factors, including war, pandemic, and climate chaos. And the way we’re growing and using our food is making these problems worse. But it turns out, there’s a lot that we can do about it.

In addition to any activism or philanthropy you might participate in, including donating to food banks and pantries, you can also vote with your dollars (and your mouth) by choosing plant-based foods.

In her stirring 1986 song “Common Thread,” activist/musician Pat Humphries laid out the choice before us:

We can feed our grain to cattle and the rich man will be fed
Or we’ll feed our grain to people so that millions will have bread.

In the final chorus of the song, she paints a picture of the world made possible should we collectively choose the second option:

We will rise like the ocean we will rise like the sun,
We will rise all together we will rise
We will build a global family strengthened by our common threads
We will rise all together we will rise.

And I’ll echo that chorus with words that my dad and colleague, John Robbins, has used in the culmination of each of his books:

May all be fed
May all be healed
May all be loved

Tell us in the comments:

• Were you aware of how serious the global food crisis is?
• Have you noticed food inflation in your grocery bills? What foods have increased their prices the most?
• What’s one thing you do to lower the carbon or calorie footprint of your diet?

Featured Image: iStock.com/Cemile Bingol

Read Next:

• Food Inequality: How Poor Nutrition Affects Health, Wealth, & Opportunity (And What We Can Do About It!)
• What You Eat Can Impact Climate Change! See 9 Foods That Harm the Planet and 11 Foods That Can Help Save It

The post What’s Causing the Global Food Crisis? (And How Plant-Based Diets Can Help!) appeared first on Food Revolution Network.

If you answered “McDonald’s,” you win the imaginary grand prize.

The point of this tidbit isn’t that McDonald’s is a wonderful organization that’s going above and beyond to provide healthy food, or that particularly cares about our planet (though potatoes, tomatoes, lettuce, and apples do all have their part to play). No, the reason I bring up McDonald’s as the world’s largest purchaser of several types of produce is to highlight how utterly massive this one restaurant chain is. And by contrast, many other restaurants that try to offer much healthier and more sustainable options are struggling to stay afloat.

In this article, we’ll look at the noble efforts that some restaurants are undertaking to contribute to a healthier and more sustainable world. If you want the option of dining out without compromising your values or your health, this is what you need to know about sustainable and socially responsible restaurants.

Challenges Facing the Restaurant Industry

First, we’ll discuss some of the challenges the restaurant industry faces, and then we’ll talk about the innovations and breakthroughs that are heartening and inspiring.

Owning and running a restaurant has always been challenging. The hours are long; the competition is fierce, and, in most market segments, the profit margins are narrow. For every five new restaurants that open, four of them will have gone out of business within 5 years.

And now, restaurants are having to deal with shaky supply chains and staff shortages while needing to treat all their customers well because, in the age of social media, one bad review can spell disaster.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Restaurants

The COVID-19 pandemic has left even longtime success stories vulnerable to failure. One year into the pandemic, somewhere between 70,000 and 90,000 restaurants or bars had closed, either permanently or temporarily.

This was partly due to plummeting demand, as people didn’t want to congregate indoors, especially when the death rate was high and hospitals were overflowing. But labor shortages also contributed to the demise of many restaurants. For many restaurant workers, having to enforce mask-wearing, an increased risk of disease, and hostile customers were the last straws, on top of a regular diet of arduous work, low pay, and difficult and sometimes abusive working conditions. To make things even more challenging, resignations in industries that restaurants depend on — such as agriculture, logistics, and sanitation — also took their toll.

Restaurants and Inflation

For many restaurants, inflation has made a difficult situation worse, as they’ve needed to increase pay to attract employees. And the cost of many ingredients has gone up, leading to increased menu prices or diminished portion sizes.

Restaurant workers are also suffering from inflation’s effects on necessities in their daily lives. The costs for fuel, childcare, groceries, and housing have all skyrocketed since the beginning of the pandemic. And to add to the problem, customers are also tipping less. According to a 2022 survey published by CreditCards.com, only about half of Gen Zers always tip following a sit-down meal. (In defense of this generation, those who do tip are more generous than previous generations, perhaps because many of them have had food service jobs and therefore have empathy for their servers.)

Why Restaurant Tipping Is Problematic

Tipping has long been a hot-button issue in the restaurant industry. Federal law in the US allows restaurants to pay their tipped workers an absurdly low minimum cash wage of $2.13 per hour, under the assumption that tips will make up the difference between that number and the legal total minimum wage of $7.25 (some state laws provide greater wage protection for tipped workers). When they don’t, the employer is legally required to make up the difference. But in practice, some restaurants shirk this responsibility.

Beyond the simple economics, tipping is problematic in other ways. It creates a scenario where servers are pressured to put up with often rude and abusive treatment by customers in order to get paid for their labor.

The commercial restaurant industry hasn’t exactly been at the forefront of racial healing either. Latino, Black, and Asian servers typically get tipped less than white ones. In upscale establishments, people of color are often relegated to back-of-house positions (line cooks and dishwashers, for example) that do not receive tips, while the white servers tend to be much better paid. And in some restaurants, servers provide inferior service to patrons of color under the assumption that their tips will be meager compared to those of white patrons.

Sexual Harassment in Restaurants

There are many jobs in our society where female workers find themselves at a disadvantage, but this is particularly egregious in the restaurant industry. Many female servers experience repeated sexual harassment on the job. The need to earn tips puts women at the mercy of customers, some of whom exploit this vulnerability in ways that are insulting and demeaning.

The advocacy group One Fair Wage introduced a report in April 2022 finding that roughly three-quarters of female servers said they experience or witness “sexual behaviors from customers that make them uncomfortable.”

Well, this has been a pretty depressing discussion so far. But there’s also some very good news. Despite all the challenges they face, some restaurants and restaurant workers are responding creatively and resourcefully and trying to be part of the solution. Their stories can give us hope, and their efforts deserve our support.

Restaurants as Environmentally & Socially Responsible Institutions

We’ve already seen huge changes and energetic innovation by restaurants reinventing themselves during the pandemic. From the advent of touchless ordering to the creation of “ghost kitchens” that prepare only take-out food, many restaurateurs seized crisis as a moment of opportunity.

Now more than ever, restaurants have the chance and incentive to think outside the box and make business decisions that will set them apart. These changes can lead to fierce customer loyalty, which can help them weather both the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and whatever other challenges are just down the road.

Restaurants Giving Back to the Community

Restaurants exist in communities. Even global chains hire community members to serve food to other community members.

Restaurants Feeding the Hungry and Homeless

One visible way to be a productive element in a community is to feed people in need who may lack the resources to pay for restaurant food. This might be by donating excess produce and other food to nearby food banks and food pantries, or mutual aid organizations, or by feeding the homeless directly.

Oakland Bloom, a nonprofit operating in Oakland, California, has pioneered programs in which chefs from refugee and immigrant backgrounds work in underutilized kitchens to provide food for mutual aid societies that serve their communities.

Rosa’s Fresh Pizza in Philadelphia started a “pay it forward” program where patrons could put a dollar in a jar to buy a slice of pizza for someone experiencing homelessness.

Acorn Community Cafe in Eugene, Oregon got its start after a couple of furloughed restaurant workers began serving free lunches in their community during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, they’re running a full service vegan cafe that is still offering free lunches to anyone who asks for the The Blue Plate Special. They’ve also partnered with Mission 86 Hunger, a local hunger relief organization, to further provide high quality, plant-based food to community members experiencing food insecurity through their Free Market Project and Community Partner Project.

In New York City, Rethink Food NYC turns restaurant food waste into ready-to-eat meals that it distributes via community partners such as soup kitchens. The founder, former chef Matt Jozwiak, noted that there are practical and financial disincentives for restaurants to donate their unsold food rather than simply toss it. Turning an unused head of cauliflower into a meal ingredient takes labor, whereas chucking it into the garbage bin doesn’t. And many restaurants fear being sued if someone gets sick from eating a meal “salvaged” from their kitchen (an unfounded concern, says Jozwiak, given that Good Samaritan laws protect restaurants from liability). But Rethink Food NYC is helping to remove these barriers.

Restaurants Hiring People from Historically Marginalized Communities

Being an immigrant or refugee, lacking an education, having an intellectual or physical disability, or having been incarcerated are all conditions that keep people out of many job markets. Restaurants can provide meaningful work to people in these situations. Emma’s Torch in Brooklyn, NY, hires refugees after providing them a 12-week culinary internship complete with English lessons.

The owners of Bitty & Beau’s Coffee Shop in Wilmington, North Carolina, have two children with Down syndrome. They opened the coffee shop in 2016 to provide employment opportunities to those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Second Shot Coffee in London, England, hires people experiencing homelessness. EDWINS Restaurant in Cleveland hires the formerly incarcerated. And Homegirl Cafe in Los Angeles provides skills training and employment to former gang members looking to rehabilitate themselves.

Restaurants Hosting Community Events

Many social commentators have bemoaned the loss of community spaces in modern society. Restaurants, with their often-spacious dining areas and ability to provide food and drink, can step in and fill this gap. By hosting community events and fundraisers, they can bring people together in ways that they might not connect otherwise.

Not only is this being a good neighbor, but, according to restaurant industry marketing experts, it’s also a great strategy for increasing customer frequency and loyalty.

Vimala’s Curryblossom Café in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, is one such restaurant that frequently hosts fundraisers, donates food to various events including gatherings of human rights advocates, and hosts a Global Neighborhood Day the Sunday after Thanksgiving to celebrate all the cultures coexisting in Chapel Hill.

Sustainable Restaurants

Restaurants can tweak or completely reinvent their processes in a variety of ways to become more environmentally sustainable. One easy change is to include more plant-based options on their menu. The industrialized meat and dairy industries are environmental nightmares on several fronts, including emission of greenhouse gases contributing to climate chaos, fertilizer runoff into streams and lakes causing algal blooms and marine life die-off, and their contribution to severe water shortages.

The good news for restaurants is that offering plant-based options is likely to make them more successful financially, as consumer demand for these foods is growing quickly. There are now plant-based options available at many fast-food restaurants, including some outlets of franchises like Burger King, White Castle, Taco Bell, Carl’s Jr., and even McDonald’s.

Some restaurants have taken this a step further and announced their commitment to going completely plant-based. Three of the most expensive and highly decorated restaurants in the world — Atelier Crenn in San Francisco, Gauthier Soho in London, and Eleven Madison Park in New York City — have removed all animal products from their menus. And there are signs that these trendsetters will inspire many more restaurants to make a bolder commitment to human and planetary health.

Farm to Table Restaurants & Using Local Produce

Many innovative restaurants are now buying ingredients from local farms. This serves several noble goals. First, food that has to be transported fewer miles comes with a smaller carbon footprint. Second, restaurants can support local growers, which supports the local economy and community. And third, small local farms tend to operate in more regenerative ways, using organic or integrated pest management techniques that can heal the soil rather than further degrade it.

At Chez Panisse in Berkley, California, chef and activist Alice Waters pioneered the “farm to table” approach, favoring local, organic, and sustainably harvested produce in her dishes.

In Albuquerque, New Mexico, Farm & Table changes its menus seasonally to reflect what’s growing in its environs and is transitioning its property into a permaculture farm.

Restaurants Reducing Plastic Waste

As a rule, restaurants are notoriously wasteful. If you’ve ever ordered takeout, you may have been appalled by the mounds of single-use plastic and other non-compostable material that contained and accompanied your meal — plastic containers, plastic straws and cutlery, styrofoam clamshells, foil wrappers, and so on.

Some restaurants are acting to change that, even going so far as to encourage customers to bring their own reusable containers, and cutting down on single-use plastic by replacing it with more compostable or recyclable material.

The fast-casual chain Dig has created a program whereby its frequent take-out customers are issued a reusable melamine bowl with a fitting plastic lid. For $3 a month, customers can just bring back their dirties when they return to the restaurant for their next meal.

Some restaurants, such as casual chain Just Salad, actually reward patrons who bring their own containers with discounts and other special deals.

Zero Waste Restaurants

The mountain of plastic waste is the most visible of the restaurant industry’s wasteful practices. Another that’s less obvious is the tremendous waste of food. Some of the food is wasted on customers’ plates in the form of meals not fully consumed. But a surprising share of all food purchased by restaurants never leaves the kitchen and just gets thrown out unsold.

Rhodora, a restaurant and wine bar in Brooklyn, New York, doesn’t own a trash can. Everything that comes in goes out, either in patrons’ stomachs, in a recycling bin, or as compost.

Frea, in Berlin, Germany, houses a composting machine that can turn uneaten food into compost in 24 hours. They’ve even gone so far as to purchase lampshades made of mycelium (fungus) fibers rather than synthetic materials.

Chicago’s Monteverde restaurant composts in a closed loop, thanks to composting partner City Farm, which picks up their food waste, turns it into rich soil, and grows produce that it sells back to the restaurant.

And some restaurants are avoiding food waste in the first place. The Gadarene Swine in Los Angeles upcycles things like carrot tops for garnishes, tomato drippings for salad dressing, and veggie trimmings into dirty rice dishes.

Restaurants Powered by Renewable Energy

One meaningful way restaurants can contribute to climate healing is by reducing their use of fossil fuels for energy. The Original Oyster House, located in rural Mobile, Alabama, erected a 55-foot wind turbine to offset their energy costs and provide fossil-fuel-free lighting for their seating area and children’s playground.

The “Get Lit Stay Lit” initiative in New Orleans seeks to turn each of the city’s roughly 3,000 restaurants into a small solar power and battery array. This will reduce their use of electricity from the grid, as well as create local resilience in a region often left without power by unpredictable storms.

Not every restaurant can install a wind turbine or solar panels, of course. But there are ways to pay for cleaner energy that’s produced offsite. Denver’s Root Down restaurant has decided to pay a premium ($1.90 per kilowatt hour) for sustainable wind-derived energy, as opposed to $1.00 per kilowatt hour for conventional energy produced by the local power grid.

Restaurants That Take Care of Their Employees

Restaurants can also provide safe and fair working conditions for their employees. We’ve seen that the industry has a troubling track record when it comes to workers’ physical and psychological safety, particularly women and people of color. Clearly, the restaurant industry must do more to protect all of its workers in both the front and the back of their establishments.

Fortunately, many eateries are now dropping the toxic “customer is always right” credo in order to prioritize protecting the wait staff from abuse from the public. Many restaurants are also now training and empowering their managers on how to spot and redirect harassment, and elevating more women and people of color to management and other higher-status positions.

Chef Erin Wade of the Homeroom restaurant in Oakland, California, has created a robust system to shut down inappropriate customer behavior before it escalates to harassment or other forms of abuse. Her system, called Not on the Menu, involves training the staff to report and proactively intervene using a color-coded continuum of behaviors.

Restaurants Compensating Employees Fairly

The decline in business during the early days of the pandemic led to lower tips, making it even harder for restaurant workers to make a living. But it turns out that well-paid and happy workers actually provide greater returns to restaurant owners. When Bell’s bistro in Los Alamos, California, raised the average worker’s wages to $27/hour and started adding perks like health care and paid time off, they found their profits increasing rather than being shaved. In fact, at a time when other establishments were shuttering, Bell’s doubled its revenue in 2021.

Restaurants can also replace the problematic system of tipping with guaranteed wages. Many restaurants, such as Bell’s, simply add a 20% service charge to each bill.

Another outcome of the shift in power from employer to employees has been a resurgence of collective bargaining. More and more restaurant workers are finding their voices, organizing, and demanding changes to protect all employees from exploitation.

Serving Healthier Food at Restaurants

Restaurants have traditionally been places where taste trumps nutrition. In a fiercely competitive environment, those establishments with the most hyper-palatable food typically win. And the recipe they’ve followed to produce that food has typically added copious quantities of sugar, fat (in the form of animal products and bottled oils), and salt to their dishes.

Many chefs fear that if they changed their menus to offer less meat and more vegetables, customer satisfaction would decrease. But a fascinating 2017 study engaged in “menu engineering” at three restaurants, decreasing meat portions and doubling vegetable portions for a random selection of patrons who were unaware of the manipulation of their plates. The researchers found no difference in satisfaction between the control group and the “more veggies and less meat” group, suggesting that restaurants can indeed provide healthier meals without risking customer dissatisfaction.

Restaurants Increasing Food Security & Longevity with Healthy Food Options

And now, increasingly, restaurants are leading the charge to provide healthier options — meals that taste great while also supporting the health of their patrons. (One would think that a good strategy for repeat business would be to keep your customers alive.)

Organizations like Blue Zones have started certifying restaurants that offer healthy dishes in three adjacent beach towns south of Los Angeles.

It’s exciting to see more restaurants offering healthier menus — specifically plant-based options and foods associated with longevity — especially in low-income areas and so-called “food deserts” where healthy food can be hard to come by.

One innovative example is Everytable, a California-based company that sells healthy fare via take-out storefronts located in food deserts and underserved communities, as well as the affluent communities where you might expect to find a high-end salad restaurant. Their twist is variable pricing: the same meal that might cost $8 in a leafy suburb is priced at $5 in a low-income neighborhood.

Organic Restaurants

Restaurants can also support the growing movement toward organic food and away from bioengineered (BE, also known as GMO) food. Given that roughly half the US population has doubts about the long-term safety of BE food, restaurants who embrace non-BE standards can expect public support, and may even gain a competitive advantage for their brand.

Since organic foods are typically more expensive than their “conventional” counterparts, few margin-conscious restaurants have embraced an organic standard for their fare. Exceptions can be found in upscale restaurants located in cities like Portland, Austin, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and New York, among others.

But even if a restaurant can’t make the economic case for switching to an all-organic menu, it can still start to source some organic ingredients and offer some fully organic ingredients or menu items. Fast-casual restaurant chain Sharky’s Woodfired Mexican Grill uses organic beans, rice, greens, and other produce in many of its dishes, thus giving patrons a choice and the ability to vote with their wallets for the quality of food they desire.

What You Can Do

As communal gathering places, restaurants are uniquely positioned to be forces for good for people and communities. Many restaurants are already at the forefront of change, implementing practices that contribute to healthy, ethical, and sustainable food for all.

Many more are likely to follow, especially if customers, employees, and the community demand it. You can help restaurants to become more socially conscious in several ways.

First, vote with your dollars. Patronize those restaurants that are taking steps that align with your values. Second, ask for what you want. Talk to local restaurant owners and managers about your concerns. Ask about plant-based options (they may even decide to offer a plant-based menu). Let them know you would pay for healthier and more sustainable menu options. If you have the means, tip generously, or offer to pay for a meal for an unhoused person (the “pay it forward” program at Rosa’s Pizza in Philadelphia started when a patron asked if they could buy a slice for someone who couldn’t afford it).

Finally, you can get involved in a deeper way by educating yourself and supporting organizations that support restaurant employees like Unite Here!, One Fair Wage, or ROCUnited.

Of course, if you want to save money and be sure about every ingredient that goes into your food, you can prepare and enjoy food at home. For many reasons, you might prefer not to frequent restaurants at all. But if you do, it’s good to know that increasingly there are establishments that offer healthier and more sustainable options than places like McDonald’s.

Tell us in the comments:

• Have you ever worked in food service? What was it like?

• Have you seen more nutritious menu offerings at restaurants in recent years?

• What restaurants in your area are doing good in the world? Give them a shout-out here.

Featured Image: iStock.com/Petmal

Read Next:

• Healthy Dining at Restaurants: A Guide to Eating Well When Dining Out
• How to Use Food Scraps to Reduce Kitchen Waste

The post Can Restaurants Be Sources of Good for People & the Planet? appeared first on Food Revolution Network.

That cornfield was a cornfield last year, and the year before, and it will be a cornfield next year, and into the foreseeable future. It’s a monoculture because corn holds a monopoly on that field — no other crops allowed. Because monocultures typically exist at large scale, and can accommodate both conventional and organic farming, the vast majority of the agricultural yield in industrialized countries comes from monocultures.

The question is, why? It’s obvious that nature doesn’t monocrop. You’ll never see an area untouched by humans that is completely dominated by a single species of plant. Nature abhors not just a vacuum, but sameness. Biodiversity is the signature of a natural system.

To understand the reasons behind the global shift to monocultures, and why the agricultural sector has embraced it so wholeheartedly, we have to look at the Green Revolution of the 1960s, and the hopes of the scientists, policy makers, and farmers who were struggling with the twin scourges of poverty and starvation.

How Did Monocropping Come About?

Monocropping was a cornerstone of a series of initiatives intended to address hunger throughout the world by increasing agricultural production. The plan was to develop a wide array of effective pesticides and herbicides, create and teach farmers to use new synthetic fertilizers, breed new and improved “high-yield varieties” (HYVs) of calorically dense crops, and mechanize farm equipment.

The thing that was going to make all of these innovations work was a shift in how agricultural land was used. Traditionally, subsistence farmers and smallholders planted a variety of crops, from grains to pulses to nuts to vegetables to fruits to herbs. But the new technologies and systems of mass production were only going to work, the thinking went, at a large scale.

The big machines were expensive and were designed to handle a specific crop. You don’t harvest wheat with the same equipment you use to harvest soybeans. Each crop required a custom application of biocides and fertilizers, as well. In order to get the most out of these technological advances, farming had to change from the workshop model to the factory model.

To replace biodiverse gardens and farms with industrial-sized agriculture, vast swaths of arable land were converted into single-crop use. That way, the farmers could use their new equipment and synthetic chemicals on new HYVs that were bred to tolerate the toxins and make the most of the fertilizers.

As a result, farms around the world increased in size, on average doubling the number of acres under cultivation, in order to produce more food with less labor. With a single farmer able to produce more food, the number of farmers and farm laborers decreased, as human inputs were replaced by machines and by chemicals, often delivered from the air. Over time, more and more farms relied solely on these high-yielding crops, in the form of monocropping, to increase yields and profits.

This logic led to vigorous efforts to bioengineer HYVs to produce heartier, faster-growing, and more resilient crops that define monoculture, rather than relying on trial and error or “natural” breeding.

Now, let’s look at some of the monoculture advantages and disadvantages for farmers.

Economic Advantages of Monocropping for Farmers

At first, farmers thought they were on to a good thing. They could now produce more food, and opted to cultivate the one crop that had the greatest profit potential for their soil and climate.

Another monocropping benefit to farmers was the perceived simplicity that saved them time and money, at least in the short-term. Focusing solely on a single crop meant the costs for seeds, equipment, fertilizer, and so on, remained relatively consistent over time, and farmers didn’t have to keep looking for new suppliers.

GMOs and Monocropping

As bioengineered (BE) crops (formerly known as GMOs), such as Roundup Ready corn, soybeans, and sugar beets hit the market, the pairing process got even simpler. The farmer had a standing order of glyphosate (one of the active ingredients in Bayer’s — formerly Monsanto’s — weed killer Roundup) that accompanied every purchase of BE seeds.

Harvesting also got much simpler, as a single machine designed specifically for corn, wheat, or beets could do the work of hundreds of human laborers.

The Emergence of Factory Farms

And last, but certainly not least among the perceived benefits of monocultures, monocrops became inextricably interlinked with a massive expansion in factory farming (or what the industry calls Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs). Today, much of the world’s corn and soy are fed to livestock, not to humans. And CAFO-raised cows, pigs, and chickens represent an almost limitless market for these crops.

The overall result of monocropping, for the first couple of decades, appeared to be mostly positive — at least in terms of the goals of bringing the world more and cheaper calories and increasing the economic security of the farmers who provided it. But all those perceived savings came with hidden costs that added up over time.

Monocultures (and the Green Revolution in general) were promoted to increase the global food supply. While that’s happened, there have been several attendant negative consequences. (I’d say “unforeseen consequences” but I’m not sure that’s true. It didn’t take psychic powers to imagine the effects of a dietary pattern made up largely from factory farmed animal products and processed corn, soy, wheat, and palm oil replacing traditional diets.)

Economic Disadvantages of Monocropping for Farmers

The fundamental issue with monocropping is the “all the eggs in one basket” problem. Crop failure is an inevitable part of farming. For myriad reasons that farmers can’t control (most of them falling under the categories of weather, pests, and disease), not all plants thrive and produce a bountiful and profitable harvest every single year.

In a biodiverse ecosystem, a threat to one crop may not be a threat to others. An infestation of stem borers can destroy summer squash but may leave eggplant untouched. An unexpected hail may crush corn and not bother beets.

But when fields contain just one crop, from genetically identical stock, every single plant is equally vulnerable to threat. A pest population can jump easily from one plant to another, especially when there are no other species of plants in between and when crops are planted close together for efficiency.

Monocropping Through History

To see the devastating results when a monocrop comes under threat, check out the history of the Irish potato famine of the 1840s, in which a single genetic variant of potatoes was wiped out by a water mold. The Irish people’s dependence on that variant for the majority of their calories meant that over a million people starved to death (an eighth of the entire Irish population), and millions more left the country as refugees.

The history books offer at least one more example of the dangers of relying on monocrops. The world’s most popular banana up until the 1950s was a variant known as Gros Michel. You can’t find a single one anymore, as the world’s supply was knocked out by a fungus that caused Panama disease, which led to banana wilt.

In response, banana producers turned to a less tasty variety, the Cavendish, which is the fruit we know today. Unfortunately, the banana industry didn’t learn its lesson, as the Cavendish comprises 99% of the world’s banana production, and is now under attack from a new variant of Panama disease called TR4. Dan Koeppel, author of Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World, predicted in an NPR interview that the Cavendish could become extinct in the next 10–30 years.

A Trap for Farmers

Monoculture farming can become a trap for the farmers, who often have no choice but to keep purchasing the same seeds and biocides from their agribusiness vendors. Since the seed and agrochemical market was consolidated through mergers and acquisitions into just four main global players, these firms can exert monopolistic power over the farmers who depend on them for seeds and chemical inputs.

The result is increased costs and eroded profit margins for farmers. For example, the price of corn seed rose from under $27 per planted acre of seed to over $90 from 1990 to 2019, far outstripping the rate of inflation. And because monocrop corn farmers have invested so heavily in machinery and infrastructure for growing and harvesting corn, they can’t easily exercise free choice and move to another crop or growing model.

The consolidation of seed and supply companies into just a few global companies isn’t the end of the “bigger is better” story. Farms themselves are growing larger, by buying up competitors’ land or squeezing family farmers out of business. Bigger farms that buy at large scale are rewarded with favorable pricing, which makes it much harder for smaller farms to compete fairly in the marketplace.

Many farmers are forced to buy Bayer seeds and pesticides even if they don’t want to. When neighboring farms spray so much of the weed killer dicamba that the air turns hazy, those toxic clouds can waft for two to three miles, killing any soybean plants that aren’t bioengineered with dicamba-resistant genes — which is to say, any soybeans not made by Bayer.

Government Subsidies and Monocultures

Not coincidentally, crops produced in a monoculture system are often the same ones that are subsidized by the government (at taxpayer expense, of course). Subsidization is generally delivered in the form of insurance for farmers, guaranteeing that they can sell their crop above a certain price, no matter how low the actual market value for that crop falls. The primary subsidized crops in the US are corn, soy, wheat, and rice.

One out of every five dollars earned by US farmers comes directly from government payouts. These subsidies now buffer farmers not just from the threat of a bad harvest or market crash, but from any marketplace fluctuation. Without subsidies, it would be economic insanity to grow just one or two crops. If the price of corn dropped sufficiently, a farm that relied entirely or mostly on corn for its income could get completely wiped out in a single season.

Finally, subsidies tend to favor large farms, as government payouts often disproportionately go to the biggest producers.

Monoculture’s Impacts on the Food Supply & Food Insecurity

At a large scale, monocropping means that poor countries must compete with wealthy ones, in the open market, for a slice of the same global food supply. While traditionally a poor country might be able to grow its own food more cheaply, since wages were also lower, now the entire world bids for commodity crops, which places lower-income nations at a disadvantage.

Because the Green Revolution, in general, and monocropping, in particular, prioritizes efficiency over resilience, there’s very little slack in the system when anything goes wrong. And in agriculture, things often do go wrong. Shocks and uncertainties are part of the web of life, which is why nature builds redundancy and diversity into its design.

When humans decimate that diversity through monocropping, any event that leads to a diminished harvest has ripple effects, such as increasing food prices and bringing about greater food insecurity.

The COVID-19 Pandemic and Monocropping

We’ve seen this play out during the COVID-19 pandemic. The World Bank, a long-time supporter of industrialized agriculture at scale, has admitted that even before the pandemic, monocropped agriculture was collapsing. Here’s a remarkable sentence from an article on the World Bank’s website: “Even before COVID-19 reduced incomes and disrupted supply chains, chronic and acute hunger were on the rise due to various factors, including conflict, socio-economic conditions, natural hazards, climate change and pests.”

As the pandemic unfolded, the article continues, these already scarce resources became even more expensive, with the Agricultural Commodity Price Index increasing 25% from January 2021 to January 2022. Again, the global economically poor were getting priced out of access to food grown on their own lands, which replaced the diverse and healthful horticulture and subsistence practices that had fed their families for generations.

For example, monocropping has displaced regional staples, such as millet, sorghum, and cassava, all culturally and nutritionally important sources of calories throughout much of Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and South America. These foods have been part of traditional healthy diets for hundreds of years, and their displacement threatens global crop diversity.

Monoculture’s Impacts on Human Health

Human health also suffers when factory-farmed animal products and processed grains and oils replace traditional whole foods in our diets. Monocultures of corn and palm oil can produce more calories — but far less nutrition — per acre than many other crops. In a world of cheap calories from fractionated foods, malnutrition now refers as much to micronutrient deficiencies as to starvation.

A 2021 research paper on the effects of monocropping on the health of the economically poor highlights the scope of the problem in its first sentence: “Approximately 2 billion people globally are affected by micronutrient deficiencies; much of which is attributed to consuming a monotonous diet of nutrient-deficient staple crops.”

Researchers have also documented a relationship between the decrease in dietary diversity and a reduction in the diversity of the human microbiome, with accompanying health challenges. And once a particular strain of beneficial microbes goes extinct in a population, there’s a risk that it will never return.

Monocropping also makes it harder for farmworkers to lead lives of dignity, freedom, and security. As pests become resistant to pesticides, and weeds gain resistance to herbicides, agricultural chemical manufacturers have engaged in an arms race, increasing both the quantity and toxicity of chemical applications. While there’s some debate about how much exposure to these agents harms consumers, there’s no doubt that farmworker exposure to biocides is extremely hazardous.

Monoculture’s Impact on Children

Children of mothers who work in pesticide-contaminated fields experience more neurological issues, cognitive impairment, and autism. Girls who grow up exposed to pesticides are at greater risk of infertility and breast cancer.

And throughout the world, children involved in monocropped agriculture, such as on oil palm plantations, are being exploited. Globally, millions of children and adults are essentially enslaved by their agricultural employers.

Environmental Impacts of Monocropping

Humans aren’t the only species being harmed by monocropping. The practice is making the planet more susceptible to the ravages of climate change by eroding the land’s ability to retain soil and water.

A 2020 study published in the prestigious journal Nature reported that land used for agriculture or tree farms, which comprises 40% of all the non-ice-covered land on the planet, “… is less able to withstand fires, pests, and extreme weather events.” And since monocropping farmers lack the agility to shift their planting strategies in the face of climate change, they’re extremely vulnerable to these effects.

Pest and Weed Resistance

As we’ve seen, monocropping and pesticide use go hand in hand. But insects and weeds are rapidly developing resistance to the most widely used pesticides, which creates a vicious cycle — when bioengineered, pesticide-resistant crops fail, agribusiness has doubled down on the strategy by unleashing an “arms war” of increased and more diverse pesticide deployment.

This creates two additional problems. First, since the costs of losing the battle to a pest or pathogen can mean economic disaster for growers and consumers, there’s little appetite to risk alternative approaches to pest management that don’t involve all-out chemical warfare. Second, climate change means that new pests can now thrive in areas where they until recently had never been seen.

Effect on Pollinators

I’m sorry to say this, but it gets worse. According to a 2019 report by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), monocropping, and the pesticide use that accompanies it, now threatens not just plant diversity, but pollinator diversity as well. According to the FAO, over one million species of plants and animals are endangered, including many insect pollinators without whose hard work we would be in real trouble. Of the 20 fastest growing crops in the world, 16 require pollination from insects or other animals. And the danger is not evenly distributed — the most affected countries are the emerging and developing nations in Africa, Asia, and South America.

Disrupts Water Supply

Monocropping also compromises our precious water supply. Fertilizers add nitrates, nitrites, and phosphates to our drinking water, as well as to other bodies of water. Nutrients leach out of our food supply and into water — which not only don’t benefit the ecology of rivers, lakes, and ponds but can harm them by creating the conditions for algal blooms that starve aquatic creatures of oxygen.

And impoverished monocropped soil is less able to absorb rainwater, leading to more flooding and more dependency on irrigation.

Decreased Soil Biodiversity

Fertilizers, pesticides, and factory farm waste also harm the ability of soil to sustain life. Monocrops keep adding the same things and depleting the same things, leading to less biodiverse, resilient, and mineral-rich soil (and more dependence on external inputs such as chemical fertilizers).

Monocropping reduces organic matter in soil and can cause significant erosion. This decreases the diversity and abundance of bacterial communities in soil, which in turn undermines plant health and ultimately the health of the humans who eat the plants.

Sustainable Alternatives to Monocultures

As scary and sad as all this is, there’s some good news that’s also part of the story — we know how to grow food in ways that heal rather than harm the earth and ourselves.

Regenerative Agriculture

What’s known as regenerative agriculture, and millennia-old, indigenous growing ways, prioritize practices that mimic natural ecological processes and promote biodiversity. Shifting to regenerative agricultural processes is also one of the most powerful levers at our disposal to combat human-caused global climate chaos.

Regenerative farming focuses on the health of the soil as a top priority. Unlike monocropping, which sacrifices long-term soil health for the short-term production of marketable crops (did none of these scientists or policy makers encounter the story of “the Goose Who Laid the Golden Egg” as a child?), responsible land stewards treat the soil as their primary asset, which produces wealth in the form of food year after year.

Regenerative practices have been shown to enhance soil health, increase soil-based carbon stores (which is good for the climate as well as the plants growing in that soil), improve the physical structure of the soil so that it can hold more carbon, water, and oxygen, and boost soil biodiversity.

Intercrops, Cover Crops, and Polyculture

Other examples of sustainable growing include intercropping — planting more than one crop in a field — and polycultures, which means planting multiple crops together that all help each other grow better.

A well-known example of such a polyculture is the “3 Sisters” of South and Central America: corn, beans, and squash. Planted together, all three do much better than any one on its own. The squash puts out big leaves that outcompete weeds, but only after the corn and beans have grown taller than the squash leaves. The corn provides a frame upon which the beans can climb. And the beans, like all legumes, fix nitrogen in the soil for the other two sisters. The result is healthier plants and higher yields without the need for so many (or any) chemical fertilizers and herbicides.

Another technique, planting cover crops on part of the land to serve as “green manure” for other crops, adds nutrients and reduces the need to import fertility from outside the farm.

Integrated Pest Management

A sophisticated method of dealing with insects that eat crops, integrated pest management (IMP) also mimics nature, which doesn’t try to eliminate species entirely but keeps them in check through predation. Rather than killing life and reducing biodiversity, IMP takes the opposite approach, nurturing the presence of organisms that prey on the critters that prey on the crops.

Agroforestry

Nature, of course, doesn’t grow food in rows, but produces its bounty in meadows, orchards, glens, jungles, and forests. All these ecosystems are characterized by robust biodiversity that’s expressed in vertical layers, with roots, ground cover, shrubs, bushes, short trees, and tall trees all sharing the sun, soil, and rain to their collective benefit. Agroforestry is an approach to growing crops that mimics the design and function of a grove, with crops and trees interplanted.

While there is always more to learn, and there are many new breakthroughs to be had, this isn’t entirely new science. Indigenous farmers have been refining these techniques for millennia, to protect their crops from extreme weather events, maximize the resources that can be harvested from a single location (legumes and lettuce and lumber, oh my!), increase soil fertility, and store carbon.

Indigenous farmers also save and treasure many varieties of each crop, which increases the odds that any disease that attacks a particular strain won’t be able to destroy the entire crop. And the genetic variability also provides nutritional and usage variability, so the community can get far more from its arable land than a single crop would provide. This approach truly provides the farmers with land for life, rather than cash crops for a few seasons.

What Can You Do as a Consumer?

Given the urgency of our collective generational challenge — to produce food sustainably and ethically so that all may be fed — what can each of us do to participate in the shift from industrial monocropping to regenerative agriculture?

At a personal level, we can start by directing our hard-earned money towards foods that align with our values.

1. Eliminate Factory Farmed Meat and Dairy

A strategy with a particularly big impact is to steer clear of industrially produced animal products such as meat and dairy. That’s because much of the monocropped and bioengineered corn and soy grown around the world goes to feed livestock.

2. Cut Down on Processed Foods

You can also say no to monocropping by reducing your purchases of processed foods, especially those made with palm oil, non-organic corn, and soy by-products. This isn’t as simple as looking for “corn” or “soy” on a food label: corn by-products can hide behind words like maltodextrin, sorbitol, and fructose (here’s a primer on avoiding these substances in packaged foods), while soy can be found in mono- and diglycerides and monosodium glutamate, among many other sources.

3. Buy Sustainable and Ethically Sourced Food

If that’s what not to buy, what shopping strategies encourage more environmentally friendly and regenerative methods of growing food? As much as possible, buy a diversity of locally grown, non-BE, fair trade, and organic produce. The good news is, most of the world’s farms are still small and family-run, and typically don’t grow crops in monocultures. Smaller-scale farms are more likely to practice composting and other sustainable methods that reduce soil erosion and in some cases, even sequester carbon into the ground.

4. Shop Local and Small

To really increase your odds of supporting an environmentally responsible farm, frequent your local farmers market, support a nearby farm stand, or join a CSA (community supported agriculture) collective. It’s a great way to connect with small-scale folks who are more likely to practice crop rotation, companion planting, and other sustainable techniques. You can ask them how they grow their food and learn about what they are doing, too. A lot of thoughtful farmers love to be seen for, and to brag about, the good things they do. And by spending money within your local economy, you help your community become more abundant.

5. Go Organic

Buying organic can be another way to steer clear of monocrops, as organic farming methods are typically not compatible with monocropping. While some large-scale organic operations may adopt aspects of monocropping for certain crops, this is more often the exception than the rule.

The majority of organic farms are practicing polyculture and crop rotation, prioritizing soil health, and using cover crops. And by definition, they also can’t use most conventional pesticides or bioengineering, so overall their farming practices tend to be better for people and the environment.

6. Grow Your Own Food

You can also lead by example by growing some of your own food. It’s a great way to reduce or eliminate your reliance on industrial agriculture in all its problematic forms. You’ll also buffer yourself from future disruptions in the world’s food supply such as we saw during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

If you have a lawn, you’re actually tending your own tiny monoculture of grass. You can show your neighbors (and yourself) what’s possible by turning that lawn into something more diverse and useful. You can grow food, or you might also plant a pollinator garden, grow food for birds, or sequester carbon by planting small trees. All of these options can improve the health of the soil and give a hand to your local wildlife.

Say No to Monocropping

Monocropping is an unsustainable farming system that has serious negative impacts on farmers, farmworkers, society, and the environment. What began as a proposed solution to world hunger turned into a race for ever-higher yields and short-term profits.

For humans and the environment to thrive, we need to shift to farming methods that are sustainable and even regenerative, putting more back into the soil than we extract.

And all of us can play an important part by not buying food produced using monocropping methods on large-scale industrial farms — instead supporting local, small-scale, and organically produced food.

Tell us in the comments:

• What’s one change you can make to support regenerative agriculture?
• Do you support farmers’ markets, CSAs, or local family farms?
• Do you grow any food?

Feature Image: iStock.com/FrostRoomHead

Read Next:

• Seed Saving: Every Seed Has a Story
• What Are GMOs or Bioengineered Foods? And Are They Safe?

The post Monocropping: A Disastrous Agricultural System appeared first on Food Revolution Network.

But unfortunately, that isn’t the world we live in right now.

Not everyone has access to a grocery store to buy what they need to support their health. Not everyone has the knowledge, time, or energy to prepare healthy food. And not everyone has the money to afford healthy food.

And just as poverty and income insecurity can lead to poor nutrition, the same dynamic exists in reverse. Poor nutrition undermines health, and then poor health can also contribute to poverty. Poor nutrition not only leads to chronic disease and emotional distress. It also robs people of opportunities to move out of poverty and improve the prospects of future generations.

In this article, I’ll look at how social factors influence access to nutrition, how poor nutrition can keep people stuck in a cycle of poverty and disease, and what we can do about it.

Access to Food for All

Let’s try a thought experiment: imagine that oxygen wasn’t freely available in the atmosphere. That someone had figured out a way to extract it from the air, put it in canisters, and sell it.

And in order to breathe and stay alive, we had to pay to refill our canisters before they ran out.

What are the first words that come to mind when you consider that dystopian sci-fi scenario?

Far-fetched? Outrageous? Unacceptable?

Well, that’s exactly how we should feel about our current food system.

The way I see it, access to whole, healthy foods should be a basic human right. In tribal societies, which represent more than 99% of human history, food was all around for the taking (with some effort). To get roots or berries, you had to walk, keep your eyes peeled, and dig or pick. To eat an animal, you had to hunt or trap.

I’m not romanticizing the lives of hunter-gatherers (or of gatherer-hunters, as more and more researchers are starting to call them, recognizing that many such tribes got far more of their calories from gathering than from hunting). Our ancestors often had to deal with food insecurity due to drought, pestilence, or even seasonal shortages. Life was often hard and dangerous, and life expectancies were far shorter, on average, than those in modern civilizations.

But the central feature I want to point out is that food access was universally shared. No chief or ruling class put the food “under lock and key.” Look around you; wherever you live, no other species has invented a system to deny access to free food. Squirrels don’t lock up oak trees and force other squirrels to pay for acorns. Hummingbirds squabble over flowers and feeders but don’t systematically deny entire classes of birds access to nectar. Sharks and whales swim through oceanic restaurants in which no bill is ever presented. Only humans have invented a social and economic system in which people may literally starve to death if they do not have access to enough money. 

The Cycle of Poverty & Food Inequality

In industrialized countries, poverty doesn’t always look like starvation. It can look like intermittent hunger. It can even look like excess. High rates of obesity occur when food access consists of calorically dense, nutritionally poor junk foods. As “gangsta gardener” Ron Finley put it in his TED talk, in his South Central Los Angeles neighborhood, the drive-thru, fast food restaurants kill more people than the drive-by shootings.

The problem is not that we don’t have enough food in the world to feed everyone well. As Francis Moore Lappé points out, “The real cause of hunger is the powerlessness of the poor to gain access to the resources they need to feed themselves.”

This is a huge problem. Lack of access to healthy food, economic disenfranchisement, insufficient nutritional education, and unequal distribution of tools for preparing healthy meals, have created a gaping divide in the world. Those with the ability to procure and prepare nutritious food are healthier, less stressed, and better prepared to take advantage of opportunities for advancement.

But those without that ability are too often embedded in a vicious cycle, in which low-income individuals do not get the nutrition they need to fuel their own efforts to improve their lives. Thus poverty and inequality are perpetuated.

The gap isn’t random, either. Often poverty and food inequality are directly linked to race, gender, disability, and other demographic factors. Inequality of access to healthy food both arises from and reinforces class divides, racial inequality, and intergenerational cycles of poverty.

One example: folks with less money tend to spend a higher percentage of their money on food, than those with more. And statistically, the lower your income, the more likely you are to depend on cheaper, less nutritious food.

The Government Subsidy Problem

This isn’t because unhealthy, processed food is naturally cheaper than healthy, whole foods. It’s because, in many wealthier countries like the US, tens of billions of dollars of taxpayer money subsidize the mass production of gargantuan amounts of crops like corn, soy, and wheat.

These highly subsidized crops have two primary uses in the modern diet: as animal feed in factory farms, which brings down the price of industrial meat, and as ingredients in highly processed and nutrient-poor junk foods. This brings down the price of food-like products that provide cheap and tasty calories but are nutritionally horrendous.

Food subsidies are the primary reason why, over the last four decades, the price of processed foods and industrial meat has gone down 20-30%, while the price of fruits and vegetables has increased 40%.

When we subsidize junk food, we essentially force the economically poor to eat foods that are nutritional disasters. This makes it much harder for people who are born into families that are struggling financially to ever rise above poverty, and virtually ensures that cycles of intergenerational poverty will persist. And when a vastly disproportionate share of those who struggle financially are people of color, we’ve created one of the conditions that, in effect, perpetuate racial health inequality.

It may seem obvious, but the less healthfully you eat, the less likely you are to be healthy — and the more likely you are to suffer from debilitating illness, be unable to work, and fall into medical care-induced bankruptcy. And it’s hard to quantify the mental and emotional stress that comes from not knowing how or if you’re going to be able to feed yourself and your loved ones today.

Food Insecurity

There’s an epidemic of food insecurity today, even in the richest countries on earth. For example, 40% of US households below the poverty line are food insecure. In 2012, that number was a little less than 11 million households. By 2019, it had jumped to almost 14 million. The pandemic and lockdowns then proceeded to make a very bad situation much worse.

Food insecurity is largely tied to low income, of course, but there are other factors that can contribute. Income volatility, housing discrimination, changes in employment, and rising food prices are all associated with not having a reliable supply of food.

In neighborhoods known as “food deserts,” a host of interlocking conditions exist that perpetuate poverty, inequality, and food insecurity. For example, in many low-income urban and rural areas, it’s nearly impossible to find healthy food within walking distance. When supermarkets and healthy grocery stores aren’t present, inhabitants must make do with convenience stores, liquor stores, and gas station fare, or spend time and money traveling on public transit to get to supermarkets in other neighborhoods. And if they don’t have cars to carry their groceries home, they’re limited in the number of items they can purchase at one time, necessitating more frequent trips.

In this way, if the poorest and most vulnerable members of our society want healthy food, they must sacrifice time and money they could otherwise spend building up opportunities through work, education, or child care.

SNAP and Other Nutrition Programs

You might be thinking, “Hey, food insecurity is terrible, but that’s why most developed countries, at least, have food aid programs like food stamps. Don’t they solve the problem?”

They help, for sure, but don’t solve the problem.

It’s true that food aid programs are an essential lifeline for hundreds of millions of people. And in the US, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) does exist to fill in the income gap when families and individuals can’t afford enough food. But the way it’s set up and administered severely dampens its effectiveness. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has determined that half of all SNAP recipients are still food insecure, despite receiving the aid.

How is this possible?

First, the amount of SNAP benefits are hardly enough to feed a person or family. Although “the largest permanent increase to benefits” was announced in the summer of 2021, the average SNAP benefit will still come to about $1.75 per person per meal — enough to purchase a box of highly processed mac and cheese, but not enough to add many veggies.

Second, many people who receive SNAP benefits work long hours, often at multiple jobs, often with difficult and long commutes between them. This means they do not have time to prepare healthy food from scratch. So they tend to do the rational thing: use the government benefit to purchase convenience foods.

Third, SNAP benefits are uniform throughout the US and don’t reflect local conditions. Since food is more expensive in big cities and other more costly areas, SNAP benefits don’t provide as much support, in net effect, to recipients living in those areas.

Also, people receiving SNAP may have limited access to markets and stores that accept SNAP. And those stores may not include healthy options. For example, SNAP recipients in Burlington County, North Carolina, have few options other than spending their credit at stores like Dollar General, Dave’s Mini Mart, along with Walgreens and Rite-Aid pharmacies. There they can get staples like white bread, peanut butter, and canned tuna, but will have a hard time finding fresh fruits and vegetables — and even inexpensive items like dried legumes.

Food Banks

Food banks can step in and fill the gap, but many of these don’t offer fresh produce either. Unlike a retail store with a robust inventory and distribution system, food banks can be very hit-or-miss when it comes to variety and quality. If you rely on a food bank, you’re pretty much at the mercy of whatever they have available and how many other people you have to share it with.

The Increasing Issue of Malnutrition

Food inequality leads to not only food insecurity, but also to disease, disability, and premature death. Indeed, when we look at the numbers, we see that a diet of poor quality food is more prevalent worldwide than starvation. Nearly two billion people worldwide are now overweight or obese, close to three times as many as are underfed and undernourished (690 million).

Unlike starvation, which tends to occur in societies that lack basic resources, the malnutrition that stems from eating mostly high-calorie, low-nutrient foods is endemic in the modern “Western” world. Junk foods and fast foods, calorie-dense with little nutritional value, make up the majority of calories consumed in these societies. Kids in the US, for example, today get two-thirds of their total calories from ultra-processed foods. The skyrocketing rates of obesity and food-related illnesses testify to the prevalence of this dietary pattern.

While such malnutrition is not necessarily tied directly to poverty — wealthy people can live on fast food and junk food diets as well — it invariably leads to poorer health outcomes for those without disposable income. The cruel irony is that the malnourished who are monetarily poor typically lack the resources to buffer the health effects of their diets.

The Health Gap

While the rich and monetarily poor can both suffer from unhealthy diets, people of color and people in historically marginalized groups tend to face additional burdens of chronic disease from poor nutrition. This is largely because social and environmental factors linked to poverty often make things worse.

Diet-related disease is more common among people of color. For example, cancer, type 2 diabetes, asthma, and heart disease are up to twice as prevalent in Black, Hispanic, and Native American populations as in white ones. A representative sample of US adults aged 55 or older found that food-insecure women were more likely than average to experience lung disease and diabetes. And simply being a member of a minority group increased the odds, statistically, of being food insecure and having diabetes.

The unfortunate truth is, the very people who can least afford to get sick are getting sick the most. 

Food Inequality’s Impact on Children

Tragically, those who bear the worst brunt of food inequality, food insecurity, and malnutrition are children. They have easy access to junk food in schools, both from hallway vending machines and cafeterias. Unhealthy school lunches can lead to not just health and weight problems but to learning difficulties as well. It’s hard to feed children well on $1.30 per meal, so schools rely on prepackaged meals made with the lowest quality and most subsidized ingredients (factory farmed cow’s milk, white flour, sugar, etc.)

If a consortium of evil scientists were convened to design a diet intended to undermine learning and child development, they might feel mighty satisfied with the current system.

Outside of school, kids are still vulnerable. Fast food, junk food, and processed food manufacturers have learned that they can increase sales and profits by marketing directly to children through toys, characters, bright colors, and so on. Eric Schlosser reported in his 2001 book Fast Food Nation that 96% of American schoolchildren could recognize Ronald McDonald, putting him second in the fictional character Olympics. Only Santa Claus had higher brand recognition.

And for some reason, Ronald McDonald is portrayed as thinner than old Kris Kringle, who at least gets some exercise as VP of logistics at his polar toy factory. (Although, to be fair, the reindeer do the heavy lifting.)

Juvenile Delinquency

Poor diets can also raise rates of juvenile delinquency. The good news there, of course, is that feeding kids can dramatically reduce antisocial behaior, like my dad, Food Revolution Network President, John Robbins, has pointed out:

“A series of studies in the 1980s removed chemical additives and reduced sugar in the diets of juvenile delinquents. Overall, 8,076 young people in 12 juvenile correctional facilities were involved. The result? Deviant behavior fell 47%.

In Virginia, 276 juvenile delinquents at a detention facility housing particularly hardened adolescents were put on the diet for two years. During that time, the incidence of theft dropped 77%, insubordination dropped 55%, and hyperactivity dropped 65%. In Los Angeles County probation detention halls, 1,382 youths were put on the diet. Again, the results were excellent. There was a 44% reduction in problem behavior and suicide attempts.  

These and other studies have found that when troubled youngsters are put on a healthy diet based on nutrient-dense foods like whole grains, vegetables, and fruits, and avoid sugar and artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives, the results are predictably outstanding.”

The Wealth Gap

A popular 1927 song proclaimed that “The Best Things in Life Are Free,” pointing to examples such as the moon, the stars, the flowers in spring, the robins that sing, and love.

The much more cynical Ogden Nash retorted, in his 1938 poem “The Terrible People”: “Certainly there are lots of things in life that money won’t buy, but it’s very funny — have you ever tried to buy them without money?”

After all, it’s hard to enjoy a nighttime stroll under the moon and stars, or a morning walk in a flower-covered meadow while birds serenade, when you’re worried about covering next month’s rent to avoid eviction, or giving your kids something more nutritious than Cheetos and Mountain Dew for dinner.

We’ve seen that the “wealth gap” contributes heavily to the “health gap” between the affluent and the impoverished. What’s particularly insidious is that this is a self-reinforcing, vicious cycle. Poor nutrition leads to health problems that further erode wealth and diminish the opportunities to rise out of poverty.

Race plays a big role here; African Americans are 260% more likely than whites to incur medical debt. Even after adjusting for the differences in health status, income, and insurance coverage, almost 60% of the gap is still attributable to race.

The Cycle of Poor Health & Poverty

The vicious cycle between poor health and poverty is an unwanted gift that keeps on giving. Medical debt degrades health and nutrition, both financially and in terms of stress. Those laboring under the burden of debt have higher blood pressure, worse self-reported health status, poorer mental health, and shorter life expectancy than those with less debt. And without access to healthier foods, chronic illnesses continue to progress, causing even more economic hardship.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the curses of food inequality and insecurity often get passed down from generation to generation. Just as children of the wealthy inherit stocks, bonds, real estate, and connections, so do children of the economically poor tend to inherit poverty, health problems, and other social harms from their parents and grandparents.

One of the core principles of the “American Dream” is upward mobility — the belief that if you work hard, follow the rules, and do the right thing, you can achieve wealth and rise above your original station. The reality of intergenerational poverty undermines that aspiration for far too many people. And unequal access to healthy food is a huge contributor to this problem.

It reminds me of a 1961 Herblock newspaper cartoon showing a wealthy businessman berating a poor woman huddled on a stoop in a slum neighborhood: “If you had any initiative, you’d go out and inherit a department store.”

What We Must Do About Food Inequality

I share all this not to depress you, but to inspire you to take action. There are things each of us can do to contribute to a just and sustainable solution.

We must continue to raise awareness about the impact of food on health, wealth, and opportunity — especially in low-income communities — and advocate for a sustainable food system that provides healthy and affordable food for all.

When our society is willing to face the shameful reality of chronic malnutrition, we can mobilize the political will to tackle the problem. Think of how we come together to aid those in a disaster zone. How donations pour in to those devastated by a hurricane, or catastrophic flooding. When we see people as part of “our community,” we naturally reach out to help, and seek to dismantle barriers to well-being. We need to make the consequences of our broken food system as visible as the effects of a natural disaster. And we need to remember to, as Bruce Springsteen sings, “take care of our own.”

Taxing Junk Food

One powerful and effective legislative solution is to change the tax code and subsidies programs to reflect the true societal costs of particular foods. For example, we could reduce government subsidies of commodities crops, such as corn, soy, and wheat. And we could support laws that discourage the selling, marketing, and consumption of harmful foods and beverages. High taxes on soda, for example, have proven to reduce demand in the cities where the law is in place.

Berkeley, California’s tax on sugar-sweetened beverages reduced soda consumption by 21% and increased water consumption by 63% in low-income neighborhoods, according to a 2021 study reported in the American Journal of Public Health. And the funds raised by the taxes can be used to further reduce the inequality of outcomes between rich and poor.

Bring Down the Price of Healthy Food

In addition to making soda and junk food more expensive and harder to access, we can be doing the opposite to healthy food: making it cheaper and more accessible. SNAP incentive programs can encourage the purchase of fresh fruits and vegetables by increasing the value of SNAP credits when applied toward these foods.

One wonderful example is the DoubleUp Bucks program promoted by Wholesome Wave. Participants in this program, which is now available in 25 US states (check here to see which ones), get their SNAP credits doubled when spent on fresh produce. Participants can buy a dollar’s worth of broccoli for 50 cents, making it a financially wise as well as health-supporting choice. Despite the upcoming rule changes to SNAP, which will increase the total SNAP budget, such incentive programs will likely continue.

Protect Kids from Junk Food Marketing

Another common sense step is to ban the marketing of junk food to children. Kids don’t have the experience needed to evaluate the claims in junk food ads, and these ads often fuel conflict between kids — who may be unfairly influenced by the ads — and their parents and other caregivers.

That cereal with a full tablespoon of sugar in each cup is not “grrreat.” That soda full of sugar, phosphoric acid, caffeine, colorings, and chemical flavorings is not “the real thing.” The fast food meal that features a movie superhero toy will not make anyone “happy” for long. Let’s pass laws to protect children from sugar-coated lies that lead to unhealthy habits and outcomes.

Support Nutrition Education

We can also support the expansion of nutrition education programs, such as those presented by Food Revolution Network, to local community leaders, activists, and advocates.

Another strategy is to focus on teaching nutrition to young children. Kids who learn to try new foods and how to prepare healthy dishes, are far more likely to eat healthier into adulthood. And children who attend schools that have gardening programs have a whole new outlook on food once they’ve tasted a cherry tomato they’ve grown themselves.

Build Community Gardens

Community gardens are a powerful tool to bring nutrition, nutrition education, and even employment to underserved communities. There are several ways to support such efforts, either locally or online, which you can find out about here.

Support Produce Prescriptions

Finally, anyone in the medical field can start advocating for produce prescription programs. A doctor can write a prescription, not just for a medication, but for fresh fruits and vegetables (which, rather than treating symptoms, often address root causes of disease). The prescription allows the patient to receive the produce either at a drastically reduced cost (like an insurance copay) or for free. One example is Wholesome Wave’s National Produce Prescription Consortium.

Organizations Working Towards Food Equality & Opportunity

A number of organizations are tackling the issues of food inequality and insecurity head-on. Here are a few you may want to check out, and possibly support.

1. Wholesome Wave

Wholesome Wave’s mission is to fight nutrition insecurity. Since 2007, they’ve been partnering with community-based organizations to provide enough food, and the right food, for our most vulnerable citizens — regardless of race, ethnicity, age, gender, or income. (Food Revolution Network is grateful to be a major supporter of Wholesome Wave.)

2. Chef Ann Foundation

The Chef Ann Foundation teaches and empowers schools and school districts to cook fresh, whole-food meals to students from scratch. Through professional development and implementation grants, the foundation works through the considerable barriers to organizational change and helps schools transform their lunch programs from relying on cheap, institutional junk food into produce-heavy affairs.

3. Food Research and Action Center

The Food Research and Action Center, or FRAC, engages in research, advocacy, and legislative solutions to food inequality and insecurity. They also offer resources on their website for local activists, including communication toolkits and in-depth reports.

4. Seeds of Native Health

Seeds of Native Health seeks to eradicate food impoverishment among US Native American populations and improve the health of Indigenous peoples. Noting that 81% of Native American adults are overweight or obese, and their rates of diabetes are double the national average, the organization supports grassroots practitioners, researchers, and advocates aiming to restore traditional, healthful diets within Indigenous communities.

5. Prosperity Now

Prosperity Now seeks to close the racial wealth divide. Noting that for a disproportionate number of Americans of color, financial ruin is just “one crisis away,” the organization promotes strategies, programs, and laws that enable low-income and minority communities to start building wealth that they can pass on to future generations.

6. Center for Healthy Food Access

The Center for Healthy Food Access works on many fronts to contribute to a healthy food future for all. From lobbying to strengthen SNAP and other food assistance programs to improving the food and water quality in schools to working with hospitals and other healthcare systems to deploy healthy diets in the fight against chronic disease in underserved populations, they seek to provide everyone with access to healthy food and access to information to make healthy decisions.

Healthy, Ethical, & Sustainable Food for All

Most of us want to live in lands of opportunity, where hard work is rewarded, and people from any background can rise up and improve their lives and their community. As we’ve seen, however, food inequality and poor nutrition can prevent individuals and communities from enjoying the health, wealth, and opportunity that should be the birthright of every human. As a society, we fail unless we can offer access to healthy whole foods to all our people.

Dr. Martin Luther King famously said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” The truth is, it doesn’t bend all by itself. With increased awareness and advocacy, we’re starting to see positive efforts and real progress on these issues. And there’s so much more for us to do.

At Food Revolution Network, our mission is “healthy, ethical, and sustainable food for all.” Perhaps if we stand up and speak out, we can contribute to building a healthier and a brighter future for all of us — regardless of our race, economic status, or other demographic factors.

Tell us in the comments:

• How does food inequality and food insecurity show up where you live?
• What organizations fighting food inequality inspire you?
• What steps can you take to help reduce food inequality in and around your community?

Feature image: iStock.com/MarsBars

Read Next:

• Increasing Health & Opportunity for All: An Interview with Terry Mason, MD
• America’s Two Deadly Viruses: How COVID-19 and Racism Converge – And What We Need to do About Health Inequality
• Food Insecurity Is A Problem for Almost 30 Million Americans — But See What individuals and Organizations Are Doing and What You Can Do to Take Action

The post Food Inequality: How Poor Nutrition Affects Health, Wealth, & Opportunity (And What We Can Do About It!) appeared first on Food Revolution Network.

Hyperbolic? Maybe a little. But consider the problems you’ll find in parts of many cities: unlivable wages; lack of access to healthy food, and the poor health outcomes that come from that; water and air pollution; and struggling families, communities, and economies. I’d argue — and there’s plenty of research to back it up — that community gardens can help address all of these.

And it’s not just in urban areas. Community gardens can work wonders in suburbs and rural areas as well.

In this article, we’ll look at what community gardens can accomplish, and offer some ways for you to get involved in this growing (pun intended!) movement.

Why Gardening?

Throughout history, humanity has instinctively turned to gardening when faced with insecurity and turmoil. So it’s not surprising that with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Americans turned to gardening in record numbers, leading many seed suppliers to run out of seeds.

Food shortages experienced during the early days of the pandemic prompted many people to pursue more self-determination over their food supply. Others became more concerned about food safety, or wanted to have more control over exposure to GMOs, agricultural chemicals, and unnecessary additives in their diet. Many simply wanted a new way to provide healthier food for their families.

Growing your own food also has additional environmental benefits, allowing you to eat locally and reduce your carbon footprint. In a tumultuous, ever-changing world, many of us have rediscovered the peaceful refuge, security, and purposeful activity a garden can provide.

Healthy Food Access for All

Let’s start with the most basic feature of a garden: it provides food. And fresh, nutritious food at that. This factor alone means that gardens can not just help alleviate hunger, but improve health in marginalized communities. Poverty status is a risk factor for poor health. And some low-income areas in the US have an average life expectancy that’s many years less than that of the national average, or even the higher-income communities nearby.

And living in a low-income community also often means there’s a greater need for and dependence on public transit, which leads to longer travel times to get healthy food. A four-mile commute to a grocery store can turn into a multi-hour endeavor on a local bus or subway, making corner stores like 7-Eleven a time and money-saver, despite their lack of healthy options.

All of this is compounded by additional food access issues that make healthy eating more difficult for lower-income individuals and families. For example, in the US, many unhealthy foods are made with subsidized ingredients. Government subsidies of “commodity” crops like corn, soy, and wheat bring down the price of things like white bread, high fructose corn syrup, and factory farmed meat while also creating a marketplace distortion that makes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and nuts and seeds comparatively more expensive.

But community gardens can help here, too, by bringing healthy food into the very communities that need it the most, reducing reliance on convenience stores and fast food. And as we’ll see, the benefits don’t end there.

What Is a Community Garden?

But before we dive into all of the things that make community gardens great, perhaps it would benefit us to define what exactly a community garden is.

The term “community garden” refers to land or a garden tended to by a group of people. It may be divided into individual or shared plots. Community gardens can either exist on private or public land, within a community, neighborhood, or on the grounds of an institution such as a church, school, city hall, or hospital.

Primarily used for growing edible plants for the surrounding community to enjoy, community gardens also engage members in the process of growing and harvesting crops. Produce in community gardens is generally grown for personal consumption, or even for sharing, but donation and/or sale of crops are also possible.

Churches, non-profit organizations, individual community members, neighborhood associations, clubs, cities or counties, or other community-level agencies often establish community gardens.

And while community gardens are often associated with urban gardening and the transformation of vacant and abandoned pieces of land, this isn’t always the case. For instance, rural and suburban community gardens exist, as well. And unique floating gardens and rooftop gardens are also creative takes on community gardens.

Currently, there are over 2,100 community gardens throughout the United States and Canada registered with the American Community Gardens Association. And that number is likely to continue climbing as their popularity increases.

How Did Community Gardens Start?

Although community gardens may seem like a relatively recent trend, the idea of shared garden plots has been around for centuries. Allotment gardens in the UK and Europe set aside land plots to prevent starvation among those who did not actually own land. Use of the land wasn’t exactly free, however. Gardeners paid landowners or local authorities to rent the plots. And access was often based on adherence to strict rules. For example, anyone who dug potatoes on Sundays in lieu of church attendance would forfeit access to the land.

In the United States, community gardens came about during wartime, as the US government encouraged Americans to plant “victory gardens.” During both World Wars, the domestic supply of fresh fruits and vegetables expanded greatly thanks to community gardens. These kinds of gardens also popped up during other economic downturns and nationwide crises. During the Great Depression, for example, community gardens and farms helped unemployed workers and their families put food on the table.

But modern community gardening doesn’t necessarily follow in the footsteps of its origins. Now, there are a greater variety of reasons for starting a garden. There are societal concerns like the environmental impact of the commercial food system and urban degradation, in addition to using community gardens to beautify and improve the local environment. Community gardens also serve to bring additional resilience, food, and a source of connection to their neighborhoods.

Types of Community Gardens

Community gardens come in many different shapes, sizes, and locations. Below are some of the most common types of community gardens you might find.

Neighborhood or Residential Gardens

Neighborhood or residential gardens are just like they sound — located in a housing community or apartment complex. Edible landscaping on your own private property can also fall under this category. You can share food grown in your private garden with neighbors, or use it as a display plot to encourage others to abandon their lawns and start their own gardens.

Residential gardens may also consist of a shared space within your neighborhood, where members of the community can volunteer or help with upkeep. In these settings, members may take the produce they grow, or they may donate or sell it within the community.

Oftentimes, repurposed vacant lots get a makeover into urban gardens, which has been the case at hundreds of locations in Detroit. In fact, many people now regard Detroit as the community garden capital of the United States. In the year 2000, there were an estimated 80 farms within Detroit’s city limits. And by 2017, there were more than 1,500, with the city’s urban farmers producing an estimated 400,000 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables for city residents each year.

Allotment Gardens

Allotment gardens come from a single piece of land divided into separate plots and leased out to people for use. These are more common in places like Europe and the United Kingdom, and have a longer history, dating back to the 1700s. As mentioned before, these types of community gardens are often owned by the local government or self-managed and owned by the allotment holders through an association. Allotment gardens allow local families to grow their own food, which can be especially helpful if they don’t have any green space of their own.

School Gardens

Studies show that when kids grow vegetables, they eat more vegetables. And if they can do so in a learning environment, all the better.

School gardens are typically raised-bed gardens created for the benefit of a school. Students can take part in the process of setting up the garden as well as the harvesting of what’s grown there. They also get to learn about nutrition and plant identification in the process. In some cases, produce grown in school gardens may become part of school meals, snacks, or other creative uses in a classroom setting to give kids further hands-on experience with the end result of growing their own healthy, whole foods.

Demonstration Gardens

Demonstration (or demo) gardens highlight a variety of plant types, sustainable practices, and how to grow edible plants. In this setting, participants get to test out different plant varieties as well as techniques for growing them. Demo gardens are often the result of a city or university project, or a gardening extension program. And they may have a theme, such as a garden for native plants, herbs or medicinals, or gardens designed for children.

Institutional Gardens

Institutional gardens are edible gardens located and maintained either on private or government-owned property. City parks gardens, church gardens, prison gardens, or hospital gardens are all examples of institutional gardens. The institutions where these types of community gardens are located have the chance to connect directly with the communities they serve. Plus, it directly benefits the inmates, residents, patients, or congregations already involved.

Churches find that community gardens can deepen connections between faith, nature, and food. Prisons find them helpful with reform and rehabilitation programs. And hospitals find that they help patients make the connection between food and medicine.

One example of the power of an institutional garden to uplift a community is the Baptist Health system in South Florida. This chain of hospitals established a Grow 2 Heal garden at four of their hospitals located in low-income communities. The first one was planted at Homestead Hospital in south Miami-Dade County. In this area, 30% of the population is dependent on food stamps despite, paradoxically, being located in the middle of an agricultural zone. But now, the 10-acre hospital garden feeds not only local residents, but provides ingredients to the hospital’s kitchen, lowering the price of creating healthy meals for patients and hospital staff.

How Community Gardens Build Equity

Community gardens can bring a variety of social, cultural, environmental, nutritional, and financial benefits to those involved.

Bring People Together

Community gardens encourage community investment in a common goal, thus bringing people together who might not otherwise interact so closely. One of the natural outcomes of this is getting to know your neighbors, learning to look out for each other, and enjoying the added benefits of building new friendships and partnerships within your community. Community garden involvement can also help create an “all are welcome” atmosphere, where people of all ages, genders, backgrounds, and walks of life can come together and work side-by-side with diverse peers. 

Plus, cleaning up vacant land and creating community gardens may even help reduce crime in the area. Research has shown that the simple acts of cutting overgrown grass and picking up trash in low-income neighborhoods can curb gun violence within metropolitan areas by up to 30%.

Improve Food Security

Community gardens also help address some of the problems with food deserts, areas where it’s hard or close to impossible to find healthy food. Many low-income communities are prone to food deserts, where there is also a prevalence of poor health outcomes.

The good news is that the creation of community gardens in these areas can lead to significant positive changes in people’s health and well-being. In places with food insecurity, community gardens can be a lifeline, helping to address hunger in many households. An increase in food security can occur when a community garden is within walking distance of residential areas, particularly in urban neighborhoods. Produce from a community garden can also help fill in gaps left when a food pantry or food bank can’t provide fresh produce.

Good for the Environment

Converting vacant lots into community gardens not only removes an eyesore, but can also help restore degraded soil that can become safeguarded for the production of food. Restoring soil quality and fertility also yields benefits such as increased carbon sequestration, reduced stormwater runoff, and improved water-holding capacity.

Green spaces like community gardens also have the added benefit of encouraging life to come back to an area. Pollinators, insects, birds, and other wild animals help contribute to a community garden’s growth, output, and stabilization of the environment.

There’s also a chance to improve air quality, decrease “food miles” and subsequent air pollution, and reduce neighborhood waste through composting.

Unfortunately, low-income areas tend to suffer disproportionately from environmental problems. In many situations, contaminants in urban soil come from industry, unauthorized dumping, construction, heavy traffic, and adjacent buildings that may have lead paint exposure. If you’re starting a community garden in an area that may have a history of exposure to pollutants, it’s wise to get the soil tested for lead and other possible contaminants (or build raised garden beds) to make sure it’s safe for growing food. Many local gardens work to restore soil, so it’s usable and free of contamination, using things like compost, organic matter, mulch, and mushrooms.

Offer Health Benefits

Community gardens are also great ways to improve community health. Eating more fresh produce is associated with better self-esteem, mood, and general health. People who enjoy fruits and vegetables often experience reduced stress and improved resilience.

And people who grow fruits and veggies themselves are more likely to eat fruits and vegetables. This is especially true of children, who are five times more likely to eat produce if they have a hand (or two) in growing them. Kids who grow up exposed to fresh produce and edible gardening have more familiarity with fresh, healthy whole foods. They know what different fruits and vegetables look like, taste like, and how to grow and prepare them — skills that will serve them for a lifetime.

Eating a diet that includes fresh fruit and vegetables has a positive impact on the gut microbiome, too. Feeding your gut well, and promoting a healthy balance of good bacteria, is key to supporting your overall health. Research shows that the composition of soil in which your food is grown can help increase the number of beneficial microbes in your gut.

Furthermore, physical activity is higher among people who garden. And according to some studies, gardeners tend to have fewer problems with excess weight compared to people who don’t garden — even among close relatives.

Growing Skills and Deepening Culture

Community gardens can also provide opportunities for skill-building, employment, and education. Many gardens utilize volunteers, but there’s also the potential for employment and internships for teens and adults alike — a fantastic opportunity for hands-on training and work experience.

Many communities are also using gardens to create opportunities for rehabilitation and skill-building for homeless individuals, veterans, and the disabled community. Community garden work has even been shown to reduce the likelihood of prisoners re-offending. For example, the Sandusky County Jail Garden reports that when inmates participate in the jail’s garden program, their odds of being rearrested drop by 55%.

Many gardens also host workshops and other classes on a variety of topics related to gardening and growing food, connecting with the land, sustainability, and cultural issues, which can provide further connection and personal growth. They can also play an important role in providing space to preserve and nurture the cultural identity of communities, fostering a sense of belonging and generating a sense of home among participants, while also helping them to adapt to a multicultural environment.

One example is the casitas, or small houses, in community gardens of the Lower East Side in New York City, which has helped the Puerto Rican community there connect with their heritage. Many tribal community gardens and farms — like the Indigenous Gardens Network — may also highlight the importance of educating members about ancestral foods and practices.

Generate Local Income

Community gardens can also bring in a little extra income for a community. Some gardens sell some of what they harvest at local farmers markets or through CSAs. And other community members can benefit financially by lowering the amount they have to spend at the grocery store or on food overall. What’s more, property owners may generate income by renting plots of land out for use as a garden.

Community Gardening Organizations to Support

If you’re interested in supporting community garden organizations that help make these gardens happen, here are a few to consider:

1. American Community Garden Association

The American Community Garden Association (ACGA) is a nonprofit grassroots organization that advocates for community gardening, whether it’s tiny pollinator pocket parks, school gardens, or urban farms. Founded in Chicago in 1979, it now has over 1,000 individual and 252 organizational members with involvement in 2,100 gardens. ACGA’s primary goal is to help community gardens spread across Canada and the United States and support greening. You can support their work by becoming a volunteer, joining their membership pool, or contributing a donation.

2. Cooperative Gardens Commission 

Cooperative Gardens Commission is a grassroots collective aimed at achieving food sovereignty, including land access, resource sharing, government policy, education, and community organizing. It was founded in March of 2020 in response to injustices highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic. You can offer your support through a one-time or monthly donation — or become a volunteer if you’re in the United States or Canada. 

3. Each Green Corner 

Each Green Corner is a 501(c)(3) organization founded by attorney Sandie Nierenberg. She saw a future where people share their spare resources to build strong, healthy, and sustainable communities — while healing the planet. The organization’s mission is to educate and assist community members in growing sustainable, permaculture-inspired, and culturally diverse food gardens, and then harvest excess produce for donation to local nonprofit food distribution partners. 

Each Green Corners aims to bridge the gap between home gardeners and food distribution nonprofits to increase availability of fresh, nutritious, and culturally-diverse produce for local communities. If you’re interested in their work, they offer plenty of volunteer opportunities near and far, or you can donate to their cause.

4. Soul Fire Farm

Soul Fire Farm is an Afro-Indigenous-centered community farm located in Petersburg, New York. It’s dedicated to creating a sovereign food system, ending food apartheid, and uprooting racism. Part of their approach is to train the next generation of activist-farmers while also strengthening the movements for food sovereignty and community self-determination. 

Soul Fire Farm’s programs reach over 10,000 people annually, including their Black and brown farmer training, food justice workshops, reparations and land return initiatives for northeast farmers, food delivery to insecure households, and policy education. To support Soul Fire Farm, consider taking one of their workshops (if you’re in the NY area), making a donation, or looking through their volunteer opportunities.

(Watch the video interview or read the transcript of my Food Revolution Conversation with Soul Fire Farm’s co-founder and co-director, Leah Penniman, here.) 

5. Homeless Garden Project 

The Homeless Garden Project is a nonprofit organization created in May of 1990, when the Citizens Committee for the Homeless, a Santa Cruz County nonprofit, opened the gates of an organic garden on Pelton Avenue. Its members work to provide job training, support services, and transitional and transformational skill-building work for the homeless population in Santa Cruz, California. Their current working farm is the Natural Bridges Farm, where they grow organic, seasonal vegetables that are then made available at their Farm Stand, through their CSA, and even at certain local restaurants. You can make a donation to the Homeless Garden Project or choose from a variety of volunteer opportunities if you live locally.

How to Find or Start a Community Garden

Looking to locate — or perhaps start — a community garden in your area? Here are some tips.

To find an existing garden, check out the American Community Garden Association database.

The University of Missouri also recommends these ten steps to bring your community garden from idea to success:

1. Talk with friends, neighbors, and local organizations about your idea to gauge interest.
2. Hold a meeting with anyone interested in the garden to determine the feasibility of making it happen.
3. Find and evaluate potential garden sites by exploring the area in detail, considering possible partners and plots of land. If necessary, get the soil tested for lead and other contaminants.
4. Identify local resources needed for starting a garden, like tools, infrastructure, knowledge, and supplies — and where these might be obtained.
5. Hold a second meeting to discuss notes from your initial meeting and cover additional questions and issues that have arrived since then.
6. Draft a lease agreement that outlines obligations and responsibilities of the parties involved.
7. Develop a site plan that includes things like lot boundaries, water source, individual or shared plots, compost bins, storage and sheds, open spaces, and a garden sign.
8. Establish gardener guidelines and draft the gardener application, which will include things like member fees and the application process, when your growing season will run, whether materials and tools will be shared, how pests will be controlled, guidelines for how to treat other people’s garden plots, and whether kids and pets are allowed in the garden.
9. Prepare and develop the site, which will take time and require scheduled workdays, leaders, and collaborators.
10. Celebrate your success! Throw a garden party for all involved to look at how far you’ve come and discuss plans for moving forward.

For a more comprehensive step-by-step to starting a community garden, check out this guide provided by the University of California Cooperative Extension.

Community Gardens Are Powerful

There are obviously a lot of problems in the world. And some days you may feel that the problems are just too much; that there’s nothing you can do. When I feel that way, I think about the last line of Candide, by Voltaire. After facing one disaster after another, and finding no support or solace in the philosophies of those he encounters, Candide ends his tale with a single realization: “We must cultivate our garden.”

Or, to paraphrase Edmund Burke, nobody makes a greater mistake than one who does nothing because they think they can do only a little.

One of the best things you can do right now is just to empower others to cultivate their existing gardens, so that the movement to take care of our planet and to take care of our own health, can spread and flourish across the globe. We can take responsibility for what is right in front of us, and make it grow into something strong, beautiful, and bountiful.

Tell us in the comments:

• Do you have a community garden in your neighborhood?
• Have you ever participated in the start-up of a community garden?
• If so, what benefits have you observed or personally experienced from having a community garden?

Feature image: iStock.com/kali9

Read Next:

• Starting a Food Garden: How Growing Your Own Vegetables Can Ease Food Supply Anxiety & Support Health
• From Food Deserts to Food Oases: Addressing Access to Healthy Food
• Opinion: How Urban Agriculture Can Improve Food Security in U.S. Cities

The post Community Gardens Are Growing Health, Food, & Opportunity appeared first on Food Revolution Network.

Below is the edited transcript of the video above:

Ocean Robbins: Welcome to this Food Revolution Conversation. I’m Ocean Robbins. And I am so thrilled to be here with you right now to talk about one of the most important topics of our times, which is how we can bridge the health gap and the nutrition gap to support healthy, ethical, and sustainable food for all. 

And we’re going to pay special attention to the communities that need support and are struggling the most right now. The communities that are suffering the most egregious consequences from a toxic food culture. 

And we’re going to look today at what’s possible, at hope, at visions, at how we can truly up-level the health and the well-being of all communities everywhere — and at practical examples of what works. 

And we’re here today with the perfect person to be in this conversation with, Benjamin Perkins. He is a social justice practitioner, an intellectual, and a creative thinker, and he is the CEO of Wholesome Wave.

Wholesome Wave is probably one of my favorite nonprofit organizations on the planet. They are creating partnership-based programs that enable underserved consumers to make healthier choices by increasing affordable access to healthy and locally and regionally grown foods. 

Ben has worked in the public health field for two decades. And since 2014, his focus has been on ending health disparities and inequities. He’s worked for the American Heart Association as Vice President for Multicultural Health Initiative and Health Equity and as Vice President of Health Strategies. And at Wholesome Wave, he is championing positive, practical, community-based solutions that can bring health and wellness where they’re needed. 

So Ben, thank you so much for being here today, and thanks for your amazing work.

Benjamin Perkins: Thank you for having me. Thanks for that great introduction. I sound interesting.

Food & Nutrition Insecurity

Ocean Robbins: Well, you are interesting. And we’re thrilled to be with you. 

You’ve talked about how food insecurity and addressing food insecurity is about providing enough food to those in need. But nutrition insecurity and addressing it is about providing the right food to prevent or alleviate diet-related diseases. 

So, tell us a little bit about what nutrition insecurity means to you, and why you think it’s so important in the world right now.

Benjamin Perkins: That’s a great question. I think in terms of thinking about food insecurity and nutrition insecurity, I was talking to someone last night. And I was saying that one of the ways to think about food insecurity, or nutrition insecurity, is to think about it as a subset. If you had a little Venn diagram, nutrition insecurity would be inside of food insecurity. In that, food insecurity is addressing the lack of food that folks might have. So issues of hunger. But nutrition insecurity… And this goes back to co-founder of Wholesome Wave, [Chef] Michel Nischan’s sort of assertion, that it’s not just about getting people food. It’s about getting people the right food and healthy food. 

And I think embedded in that is this concept of human dignity. That it is not just feeding people anything, but it’s about getting at healthy foods where people can thrive — particularly folks who are on the margins, which is a large part of the population that we pay especially close attention to.

Obese but Nutrient-Starved

Ocean Robbins: In the world right now, we have, perhaps for the first time in human history, more people who are obese than people who are starving. Right now, there are almost a billion people on the planet who are in danger of literal starvation — who have fundamental core food insecurity on a daily basis. But there are also over a billion people on the planet who are obese. In the United States, it’s now 40% of our population. Mexico is right up there with us. 

And there’s an interesting and really painful corollary here that people who are in poverty are more likely to starve. But they’re also more likely to be obese because they’re fundamentally fueling from maybe enough calories, maybe too many calories, but they are nutrient-starved.

Benjamin Perkins: Yes. That difference between energy dense and nutrition dense. And it really sort of drives home exactly the point you’re making. This idea that foods that are energy-dense often aren’t nutrient-dense. And there’s that sort of chasm between those things potentially.

Food 3.0

Ocean Robbins: Yeah. The way I look at it, food 1.0 is about survival. If you can get enough calories to fill your belly, then that’s success. Food 2.0 is governed by commerce. It’s the buying, selling, and marketing of goods. And it’s a step up for a lot of people to be able to have choice and authorship and some mobility around food. But unfortunately, it’s morally bankrupt. And it’s brought us nutritional and health disasters for many of the world’s people. 

And that’s why at Food Revolution Network, we’re calling for what we call food 3.0, which is a food system based around health. Health for our bodies and health for our planet. 

And it seems like what you’re doing is addressing how we can kind of leapfrog, for people who are on the margins, straight from Food 1.0 to Food 3.0. How we can move from, get enough calories; yes, of course. I mean, if all you can eat is a bag of potato chips, and that’s all you got, for goodness sake, eat the potato chips. But at the same time, what would happen if we focus on nutrient quality and nutrient density and how we create those opportunities for people? 

Addressing the Cost of Healthy Food

Ocean Robbins: But a lot of folks struggle with the cost of healthy food. I mean, Whole Foods has the unfortunate nickname, “Whole Paycheck.” And we see a lot of people who just feel like they have to pay an arm and a leg just to do the right thing. It’s almost like you’re being fined for wearing your seatbelt. You want to feed yourself and your family right, you have to pay extra. How are you guys trying to address that?

Benjamin Perkins: Another great question. How we’re trying to address it is… And you had mentioned SNAP, for instance, and that concept of doubling up SNAP bucks, which is one of our claims to fame. One of our co-founders, the late, great Gus Schumacher, who was the undersecretary of agriculture during the Clinton administration. He was a big proponent of the idea of incentivizing SNAP so that you could get more for your dollar by buying healthy produce, healthy fruits and vegetables. 

Now, the idea there is still giving people choice, but incentivizing healthier choices so that folks might be more drawn to those healthier choices. Because exactly what you said, if the perception is that healthy foods cost more, and I only have a limited pool of resources — namely dollars — I’m going to gravitate towards the cheaper food, the more energy-dense food, and less nutritionally-dense food. And so, that’s one of the ways we think about it. 

The Double Up Food Bucks Program

Ocean Robbins: So the Double Up Food Bucks program basically says for somebody who is on food stamps, who has food stamps, and there’s about what, about 42 million Americans who are a part of that?

Benjamin Perkins: Fourteen percent of the population.

Ocean Robbins: Fourteen percent of the population, and a lot of them kids, are dependent on this program to eat right now. And we could debate until the cows come home, what’s the right role of government. And I don’t think any of us want to see a world in which people depend on SNAP dollars to feed their families. Everyone wants to be self-reliant and have the resources they need to provide for themselves, but that’s not the world we live in right now. 

But at this point in time, we have a lot of people who are marginalized, who are on the edge, and who depend on SNAP in order to eat and live. 

Unfortunately, most SNAP dollars are not buying healthy foods. A lot of them are going to foods that are making people fat and sick and increasing their likelihood of getting diabetes and heart disease and cancer and Alzheimer’s, and fueling ADHD in kids who then have a harder time in school because they don’t have the nutrients they need to thrive. 

So you guys created this program where for every dollar SNAP recipients spend on fruits or vegetables, they’re getting double bucks, right? That means they go twice as far. So instead of paying a dollar for X amount of broccoli, you now only pay 50 cents, which means you can get twice as much broccoli. So it creates this financial incentive to buy more fruits and vegetables, specifically. 

Health Outcomes & Nutrition Incentives

Ocean Robbins: So when that happens, do people buy more fruits and vegetables? And maybe, more importantly, do they eat more fruits and vegetables? How many people are in the program? And what kind of results have we seen in terms of any possible health impact so far?

Benjamin Perkins: Yeah, so the research suggests that people, when presented with the opportunity, and I think this is something that’s really important to highlight, regardless of which program we’re talking about. When people have the opportunity to do healthier, to engage in healthier behaviors, namely eating healthier fruits and vegetables and foods in general, that they do. That’s the bottom line. 

The other thing to know about SNAP, specifically, is… So you’ve got 42 million people on SNAP. The research on SNAP beneficiaries tells us that they are twice as likely to die of cardiovascular disease and three times more likely to die of diabetes complications.

So you see, there is a huge need in terms of that population to do whatever we can to incentivize consumption of healthier fruits and vegetables. So things like looking at the drop in A1C, looking at drops in systolic and diastolic blood pressure, those sorts of things. All of those health outcomes tend to improve with nutrition incentive programs. And the thing is, right now, this is all proof of concept. 

Now, certainly, I would argue, and I think most people would argue that it seems pretty intuitive that people would get healthier. But what we have to do is we have to make the case. So all that we’re doing now is creating a gigantic proof of concept, marshaling all the data from all of the studies that we are a part of, all the work, and then using that data in the service of making the case so that, ultimately, these kinds of things can be embedded in federal and state policy in a long-term, sustainable way.

Expanding the Program

Ocean Robbins: Yes, absolutely. And there are about 882,000 people who are participating in the Double Up Food Bucks Program, in more than 20 states. And is that all funded by private donors so far? Or has the government pitched in?

Benjamin Perkins: There’s a mix. So Gus Schumacher, who I mentioned before, part of his legacy was that there was a farm bill in 2014; there was $100 million earmarked for these kinds of programs. And then he died in 2017. So in 2018, when that farm bill got reauthorized, it was renamed the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program, or what we affectionately called GusNIP. 

So that came in at $250 million over five years. That’s not a lot of money for an entire nation. So part of the program really looks to public-private partnerships. So the government put some money in. But also, we’re looking for matching dollars. So whether it’s corporations or foundations that are also interested in the health of communities and populations, they bring dollars in from private donors. And these partners match the federal dollars.

Community-Based Nutrition Education

Ocean Robbins: Got it. Thank you. So I guess the cynic might say, “Well, if people get double the value for fruits and vegetables, they might buy more fruits and vegetables because it’s sort of like it’s on sale, so to speak, but will they actually eat them? Or will they just rot in the fridge? Will people know what to do with them?” And so, do you have any thoughts about that? Have you brought in any sort of culturally appropriate recipes, or cooking techniques, or lifestyle habit education?

Benjamin Perkins: Yeah, that’s a great point. And yes. 

So part of it is that we also want to embed nutrition education programs. And so, at Wholesome Wave, our program directors work closely with community partners in health systems to, first of all, assess what kinds of resources they have. And then, we provide resources, which might include a nutrition education component. Because to your point, it’s great that people have access to healthy fruits and vegetables, but if they don’t know what to do with them, then, of course, we’re talking about the potential for food waste. 

It’s great that people have access to healthy fruits and vegetables, but if they don’t know what to do with them, then, of course, we’re talking about the potential for food waste.

Benjamin Perkins

The other piece of it that you alluded to that’s critically important, and this is a part of the dignity component, is it’s not just about getting people healthy food. It’s about understanding the particular culture because if you can get healthy produce that’s culturally specific, then the chances are greater that folks will know what to do with it in the first place.

The Produce Prescription Program

Ocean Robbins: Yeah, absolutely. Fabulous. Okay. Well, let’s look at another program your team has been running called the Produce Prescription (Rx) Program. A lot of Ps there.

Benjamin Perkins: Yeah.

Ocean Robbins: So the Produce Prescription Program, as I understand it, you’re piloting this. And the concept is that, at least for Medicare and Medicaid recipients, and perhaps, ultimately, all insurers could get in on this, that doctors can prescribe produce. Like go to the Farmacy with an F, not the pharmacy with the P-H, and essentially get your produce.

Diet Responsive Conditions

Ocean Robbins: It’s interesting because, for somebody who has heart disease or type 2 diabetes, which are extremely diet-responsive conditions, they can get results fast. I mean, arguably as quickly as with going on statin drugs, for example. They can bring down their LDL cholesterol levels. They can bring down their blood pressure rapidly with diet and lifestyle choices. This is proven in study after study. 

And unlike with drugs, the side effects are all positive. They’re also bringing down their risk of dementia and cancer, and they’re probably going to feel better and maybe even have a better sex life too. 

So my thought is that if their doctor tells them they need to change their diet, sure, some people will struggle. But if they really know what’s at stake, for those people who are in these conditions where it’s life or death, a lot of people are willing to make choices, even if it’s a little less fun, even if it requires some work or some new habits because they get what’s at stake. 

So obviously, we need doctors who are informed about nutrition and motivated and who give it appropriate gravitas. But then, we also need the resources so that they can not just say, “Hey, you need to eat better. Good luck with that.” And send somebody off on their own into the wild world of a toxic food culture. But rather somebody who can specifically prescribe specific things. Like saying, “I want you eating broccoli every day.”

So is this specific to produce, or do you include any other foods? How widely has it been used so far? And what’s the strategy here?

Better Health & Nutrition Access

Benjamin Perkins: I’ll start with the first question. The strategy is really, as you detailed, the idea that someone who has a specific and chronic health condition, namely cardiovascular disease and diabetes, would be prescribed produce. So fruits and vegetables, primarily. Although, there’s now talk about the role of legumes, but that is it right now. Now, that may evolve at some point, but for now, our focus is really on the healthy fruits and vegetables. 

So if you have a chronic health condition, or you are trending — and this is important — trending towards one… So you’re prediabetic, or you have a history of hypertension or those sorts of things, and the doctor really identifies that you are at risk, the idea is that they would then give you the produce prescription in the form of a credit card that you could use at a specific outlet grocery market. It could be a gift card that can be used at a certain venue. Or it could be our work with certain fulfillment vendors who will get you the produce. It can even be delivered directly to your home.

The idea is they’re enrolled; they’re able to get their healthy fruits and vegetables and are monitored over six months to a year. We actually like it to be as long as possible, but six months to a year is best, although some of the programs have been shorter.

The idea is to give them the fruits and vegetables, and then to look at the health outcomes. So things like their blood glucose or A1C, their systolic and diastolic blood pressure, their BMI, and see what the trends are over the duration of the prescription program. And that data is the data that we use to make the case for why this is impactful. And we look at things like the reduction of cost burden to the system. Improved health outcomes mean that the burden in terms of healthcare costs gets decreased. 

We’re also looking at improving patient quality of life, and that’s all part of this notion of the triple aims of value-based care now, which is a huge part of a paradigm shift in healthcare overall.

Improving Health Markers

Ocean Robbins: So what does the data say so far? Do you have any results back yet?

Benjamin Perkins: The data is compelling. One of our programs in Ohio, this is a Produce Rx program, saw a 0.5 point drop, a half a point drop in A1C, which if you know how A1C works, a half a point drop is quite significant. So a 22.3 point drop in systolic blood pressure, 14.2 point drop in diastolic blood pressure, and 4.9 point drop in body mass index or BMI.

Ocean Robbins: Wow. And that’s after what? Six months? A year of produce?

Benjamin Perkins: We usually look at, on the short end, about a four-month program. On average though, six. And the gold standard is getting it as close to a year as possible. Because what we know is the longer you have someone in these, the longer amount of time they have to build those habits and get that reinforcement that’s essential to sustain long-term health changes.

Ocean Robbins: Yeah. So Double Up Food Bucks and Produce Rx Programs are two brilliant strategies. 

Incentives for Scaling Up Programs

Ocean Robbins: Let’s talk about implementation and scaling and what could happen. So what would it take for the USDA to expand the Farm Bill to make Double Up Food Bucks normal throughout SNAP in the United States for the 42 million or so people who use SNAP to feed their families?

Benjamin Perkins: That’s a great question. And the question cuts right to the heart of the necessity for there to be both a public, so the role of the government, certainly, easily billions and billions. And we’re talking about every year. But also, in addition to the government, the private sector could play a really critical role. 

And one of the things you alluded to is about insurers. So the idea that insurers could play a key role in this. Because, guess what? If people are healthier, they’re less likely to need to avail themselves of medical visits that the insurer has to pay for.

Ocean Robbins: Sure. There’s a lot of incentives here. Employers have incentives, too, by the way. A healthier workforce is going to save them insurance premiums in the long run, especially for those that are self-insured, but it’s also going to give them better productivity. Their teams will have clearer minds on the job, and get more done. They’ll have fewer sick days. They’ll feel better. And all of that is good for company success as well. 

So employers have a stake in it. Public health initiatives have a stake. All of the insurers have a stake. The government social safety nets have a stake because a healthier population is going to be wealthier. It’s going to be more productive. It’s going to be more capable and able to respond to challenges in life effectively. 

And, of course, humanitarians and philanthropists have a stake here too. For anybody who’s got a little extra, these are places that you can invest in that could have an incredible bang for the buck in terms of net impact on human quality of life.

Utilizing Medicare & Medicaid

Ocean Robbins: I want to talk about the Produce Rx Program for a moment and a study that Tufts University did in 2019 on this. They looked at what could happen if this was scaled, on a large scale, through the Medicare and Medicaid program, which combine for 27% of federal spending. And if we implemented Produce Rx Programs throughout the Medicare and Medicaid system, for those people who are dealing with lifestyle responsive health ailments, what would happen?

Well, the first co-author of the study ended up commenting: “We found that encouraging people to eat healthy foods in Medicare and Medicaid, healthy food prescriptions, could be as or more cost-effective as other common interventions, such as preventative drug treatments for hypertension or high cholesterol.” 

Giving out the big numbers, they concluded that if they were to implement a program where people were not just prescribed fruits and vegetables, but also legumes and nuts and seeds, and they also added in there seafood and plant-based oils — because these are all things that have been found in studies to be beneficial for health. And if they provided a 30% coverage for those things, essentially through the Produce Rx Program, that the total cost would come in at a couple hundred billion dollars over the course of a long period of time. We’re also talking about savings of a hundred billion dollars in immediate health care utilization within just a five-year period.

Long-Term Healthcare Savings

Ocean Robbins: But we’re also talking about long-term savings that go far beyond that. The conventional cutoff point for a medical intervention to be considered cost-effective is if it’s less than $150,000 per quality of life year gained. If costs are less than $50,000 per quality of life year gained, those are considered highly cost-effective and medical best buys. 

Well, here we wound up with looking at around $13,000 in net intervention cost per quality of life year gained. And half of that comes back through reduced medical savings within a five-year period. And obviously, there are so many other benefits to it from the humanitarian perspective, public health, economic productivity, etc., not to mention just caring about people’s lives and wanting them to be happy and well.

They found that the Produce Rx Program could, in a five-year period, prevent 120,000 cases of diabetes. It could prevent 3.28 million cases of cardiovascular disease. And again, it will be as or more cost-effective than a lot of currently covered medical treatments. 

Ben, when you hear about these numbers, what goes through your mind?

Health Promotion Over Disease Management 

Benjamin Perkins: Let’s do it. I mean, you marshaled all of this data. And as I was saying, a lot of our work is around marshaling more data through these programs. But there is tremendously compelling evidence already. 

And one of the things I think you alluded to, which a lot of us are aware of, is in the United States, our health system is really disease management and not health promotion. And so, when you ask yourself, where are the incentives to doing stuff like produce prescription if there’s more money in medication and those sorts of things? It really sort of leads you to some uncomfortable kinds of conclusions about how our system is configured in the US.

In the United States, our health system is really disease management and not health promotion.

Benjamin Perkins

Ocean Robbins: Well, I mean, the bottom line is nobody’s getting rich from prescribing broccoli right now. I have often thought if reimbursements were the same for prescribing broccoli as prescribing chemo drugs, we’d see more broccoli prescribed, and we’d probably see fewer chemo drugs prescribed. The reality is that food is medicine, and it prevents the need for other medicines. But unfortunately, we have a healthcare system that sometimes acts as if food didn’t matter. 

Navigating a Toxic Food Culture

Ocean Robbins: And, of course, we have a food system that acts as if health didn’t matter. And at the end of the day, in this context, it’s up to each of us to take as much personal responsibility as we can, to not be a victim of the status quo, which is a fast track to disease and premature death.

But a lot of folks in this system do not have the means, the resources, the time, or the money to be able to exercise that kind of self-authorship. Because when you’re working two jobs, and you’re barely able to pay rent, and you’re super stressed out, it’s really hard to learn a whole new way of cooking and feeding your family. And it can be hard to afford it.

So what you all are doing is hitting the nail on the head on how to address that issue. I know of no other organization in the world that is addressing, so directly, this core problem we face right now, so pragmatically and so effectively, with solutions that really could change the entire game.

So Ben, what’s your vision, what’s next? How do we make this happen? And how can folks help you?

The FED Principle

Benjamin Perkins: So the vision for me, as someone who stepped into this role of leading this organization, is really to help us live out our core values. And so, one of the things that I have sort of coined is this concept called The FED Principle, which coincidentally, as an organization that does work in nutrition security, is kind of fun to play with. But FED stands for Fidelity to communities, Equity, removing barriers and improving access, and Dignity — the acknowledgment that human beings have inherent worth and, therefore, are entitled to healthy food. Nutritious food is a human right.

So that FED Principle is our north star. And so, everything that we do in terms of how we think about our work needs to measure up to that. That is the measure by which I am gauging our success. 

And ultimately, the vision is that we can get things like produce prescriptions embedded in federal and state policy. Because what we know is that that policy lever plays such a vital role in the health and well-being of not just communities, but entire populations. Because we know that, ultimately, there’s a deeply structural element to this. And one of the ways you get at structural issues is through policy levers. So that is key to how I see us in the future moving forward.

The Link Between Illness & Poverty

Ocean Robbins: Yeah. I’m just reflecting on how illness, chronic illness, is a leading cause of bankruptcy in the United States. There’s a direct connection between illness and generational, and even intergenerational, poverty. When someone dies penniless, they leave nothing to their children. And so, cycles of poverty continue across generations. 

And I think it’s not too bold an assertion to suggest that if programs like what you’re talking about were implemented, let’s say we even just, let’s just talk about Double Up Food Bucks for a second. If that was implemented on a broad scale, I think that within a generation, we would have fewer people dependent on SNAP because we’d have less grinding poverty because we’d have a healthier population. 

And by focusing on those communities that are the most impacted by chronic disease, and that are struggling the most, and giving them a leg up on their health outcomes, we can change the whole game. We can build a fairer, more equitable society that empowers people and families to save instead of depleting their resources on medical expenses they can’t afford. And maybe we can turn things around. That gives me a lot of hope. I’m so grateful to you. 

Supporting Wholesome Wave’s Mission

Ocean Robbins: And, of course, it goes without saying, but this is a nonprofit organization, Wholesome Wave. And it should be said, anybody who can, please contribute. Spread the word. Share this video. Share their website. 

And if you can, donate money. 

People can support Double Up Food Bucks programs or Produce Rx Programs, and they can also support the organization that’s seeking to leverage tens of billions of dollars in public funds to make these things happen. 

We’re probably never going to get all the way there, just with private donations. We can pilot stuff with private donations, but the goal here is much, much bigger. So, investing in this organization really is leveraged in a huge way.

And if we can establish the data that shows that this stuff works, and I think it’s inevitable that that data is going to come out more and more, then it’s just a question of getting folks in power to act on that data. And I think we can get something done here.

So Ben, thank you. Bless you.

Benjamin Perkins: Thank you.

Ocean Robbins: It’s been wonderful to have this time with you. And we look forward to doing a lot more together in the future. And by the way: Food Revolution Network is a major supporter of Wholesome Wave. My dad and I, and our whole team, are on board. And we invite all of our members to join us. Ben, thanks so much.

Benjamin Perkins: Thank you.

Note: Find out more and support the work of Wholesome Wave, here.

Tell us in the comments:

• Do you struggle with the cost of healthy food?
• Were you aware of Wholesome Wave or their Double Up Food Bucks program?
• Are you aware of any other programs or incentives to encourage healthy eating among low-income individuals?

Feature image: iStock.com/PeopleImages

Read Next:

• What Are Food Banks? (And How They Can Help Hungry People Eat Real Food)
• From Food Deserts to Food Oases: Addressing Access to Healthy Food
• Increasing Health & Opportunity for All: An Interview with Terry Mason, MD

The post Bridging the Health & Nutrition Gap: An Interview with Benjamin Perkins of Wholesome Wave appeared first on Food Revolution Network.