Can City Farmers Stand in for Supermarkets?

With few supermarkets, city dwellers seeking fresh good grow their own.

It's easy to dismiss the growing trend of urban agriculture as a phenomenon for the affluent, given the lofty undertones of most writing on fresh and local food. However, as I tried to point out this New York Times food section piece published yesterday, it's being driven in part by necessity.

You won't find this until the end of the piece, but much of today's city farming--growing food for sale--is tied closely to the lack of supermarkets in urban neighborhoods, particularly poor ones. While these urban farmers often share the ethos championed by Michael Pollan, they're getting their hands dirty for a more pragmatic reason: They can't find quality, fresh food close to home.

That used to be dismissed as simply one of the many inconveniences attached to poverty, but a growing number of studies are suggesting that access to fresh food is key to health. The most recent addition came last week, when the think tank Policy Link published a study of 40,000 Californians finding higher rates of obesity and diabetes in communities that had a disproportionate share of fast food and convenience stores.

And as the price tag for the obesity epidemic begins to eclipse our spending on tobacco-related sickness, public health officials are trying to figure out ways to solve the access problem. Pennsylvania, Baltimore and Washington DC have all experimented with programs to encourage supermarket development.

New York City added its name to the list earlier this week with the release of a study charting out food access in the five boroughs. The primary finding was no surprise, but it was nonetheless sobering: Neighborhoods with high rates of obesity and diabetes typically correlated with those lacking supermarkets.

The one problem with the supermarket model? It takes a near-Herculean effort to get the land, zoning and infrastructure in place to serve it. And that's without the arduous task of convincing supermarket chains, most of whom have built their business model on suburban developments, that it's worth the trouble. Which is precisely where urban growers make their mark: Providing solid proof that, supermarkets or no, even the city's more modest neighborhoods are looking for fresh food.