The Flavor of Hope
Bringing Organic Fixin's to an At-risk Neighborhood
Every Tuesday, Farm Fresh Choice makes buying vegetables a main event in west Berkeley, California. Today, with typical flourish, Caroline Loomis, Antonio Rosano, and Karina Serna unfurl bright tablecloths, lay them over folding tables, and fill baskets with organic produce, setting up a miniature market just outside the front door of a childcare center operated by Bay Area Hispano Institute for Advancement (BAHIA). As parents arrive to pick up their children, they stop to buy yams, avodados, and eggs plucked from nests that morning.
"¿Puedo cambiarlas?" a woman asks, hoping to trade a few bruised strawberries in the basket she's selected.
"Sï, sï, señora,"Roasano replies, cheerifly offering plump substitutes. "You have to get good ones; the children love them," he adds, shaking the fruit into a plastic bag. "Adios, que te vayas bien," he says in farewell.
Rosano is doing more than selling a sweet treat; he may be ensuring a child's future. By bringing organic produce to neighborhoods where it's easier to buy a bottle of malt liquor than a ripe peach, the nonprofit enterprise Farm Fresh Choice encourages residents to replace fast food with the "five a day" servings of fruits and vegetables promoted by a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) campaign. The three-year-old program also provides a market for local farmers of color and boosts the regional economy. And by teaching young workers to manage the business, it is planting the seeds of long-term change.
"The basic tenet that drives us is that every person has a right to share the bounty of the Earth equally," says Farm Fresh Choice co-founder Joy Moore. "You can't just go to a child that's homeless and say, 'I'll feed you.' You have to empower people to help themselves; and not just that, but to share themselves."
The west and south Berkeley "flatlands" where the BAHIA center is located are less than two miles from the "gourmet ghetto" where chef Alice Waters taught America to love baby veggies. But the organic bounty hadn't spilled over into this neighborhood. In one eleven-block stretch, according to Moore, liquor stores outnumber produce markets nine to one. A 1999 Berkeley Department of Health report found that residents, predominantly African-American and Latino families, were more prone to nutrition-related ailments than people living in Berkeley's wealthier areas.
"Basically, the study showed that my grandson was likely to die sooner than a white child living in the hills," says Moore, pointing out that obesity, hypertension, and diabetes are statistically higher among African-American families that have little access to fresh, non-processed foods.
"American culture was eating us up," adds Martha Cueva, site supervisor of the BAHIA childcare center. "Latin people in their home countries were surrounded by fresh food, but over here we're living in apartments with no plots to farm. Everyone's working, so it's easier to grab fast food when there's no time to go to the store."
The Health Department report jolted Cueva and Moore into action. As members of the Food Policy Council, a loose coaltion of local, food-related nonprofits, they were determined to improve food delivery to their neighborhoods and change eating habits in the process.
But first, the council had to identify the barriers that stood between residents and healthier food. A community survey identified three main reasons locals chose Big Macs over baby beets: convenience, cost, and availability. Convenience was the biggest obstacle. Organic food generally wasn't sold in flatlands neighborhoods, and so was inaccessible to seniors or anyone without a car. Community supported agriculture farms (CSAs) could deliver preboxed organic produce to subscribers, but "you can end up with a week's worth of rutabagas you don't kjnow how to cook," says Moore. And that's not convenient either.
Then Moore learned of a USDA grant to fund programs that spread the "five a day" message. What better place to spread that message — and offer a wide choice of fixin's — than a produce stand in front of a childcare center? The parents, Cueva reasoned, would be a captive audience, stopping by routinely with their minds on dinner. "We married our idea to [the USDA's]and came up with Farm Fresh Choice," says Moore.
The four-year grant offered seed money in increasing increments, from $37,000 in 2000 to $45,000 this past year. Local environmental institutions and Alice Waters's Chez Panisse Foundation pitched in as well. Once the BAHIA stand was established, two more produce stands were added: at the Berkeley Youth Association (BYA) and the Young Adult Project. A fourth stand is planned near a south Berkeley senior center.
The grant also removed the cost barrier. The group used the money to subsidize produce sales, offering organic veggies to the public at wholesale prices. A week's worth of "five a day" averages just seven dollars per person through Farm Fresh Choice. And shoppers can use food stamps or a Farm Fresh Choice discount punch card, issued to members in seven-dollar increments. About 150 families currently have Farm Fresh Choice memberships, which are offered free of charge. Nonmembers can participate, too, but they're encouraged to sign on as members. Thirty to fifty percent of business comes from nonmember walk-up shopping, Moore estimates.
The issue of supply was resolved when Farm Fresh Choice discovered growers practically in its own backyard. Moore contracted with six farms — all operated by people of color — to provide eggs, juice, and seasonal produce. These items are picked up from the local Tuesday farmers' market in the Farm Fresch Choice van and driven to the neighborhood stands.
One of the program's farmers, Richard Firme, grows organic greens and beans on land worked by his Filipino father. Raised on his Mexican mother's home cooking, he believes healthy eating should be a right, not a privilege. To Firme, Farm Fresh Choice seems a good deal all around: "They help me make extra income, they get to give good food to lots of people, and they're showing young kids one way to pull away from the environment they're in, and do something else."
Farm Fresh Choice hires Berkeley Youth Association teens at twelve dollars an hour, trains them, then puts them to work for three months at the BYA stand. When their stint is up, some stay on as regular employees. Moore sees the youthful workers as the key to the project's sustainability. "We use [them] as a sounding board; as a way to come up with fresh ideas to market the program."
The young workers keep journals and attend weekly meetings, where they join in opinionated discussions about global food policy and brainstorm ways to raise the $75,000 a year needed to keep the program going after the grants expire. At the moment, they're deciding whether to charge an annual fee for membership; they decide instead to try increasing participation through a colorful brochure and door-to-door canvassing.
"You guys are doing work that goes on in corporate board rooms," Moore says, listening and nodding as the team debates the issues.
Creativity has been key to the program's success. Martha Cueva recalls how they originally had trouble selling greens, which are a staple for many African Americans, but not as common in Latino cooking. "We started cooking classes, and now the Latinos are buying more greens," she says.
Moore, who seems to run on optimism, thinks Farm Fresh Choice is a stone cast in the middle of a pond: its influence will ripple outward to change the habits of the next generation. "I'll do whatever it takes to plant the seed in their minds," she says. "I'll use guilt, I'll cajole, I'll badger people — if that's what it takes to get them to eat real food."
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This story was produced under the George Washington Williams Fellowship, a project sponsored by the Independent Press Association. "The Flavor of Hope" originally appeared in the September/October 2003 issue of Orion.