Urban Farmers, Food City seek to drain ‘food swamps’
Photo by Erica Williams | Courtesy of A Red Circle
Research shows Black residents are nearly twice as likely as white residents to live in census tracts with low access to healthy food.
By Ashley Winters
The St. Louis American
Feb 15, 2024
Excerpt:
She describes the neighborhoods as food swamps because food is available but it’s not healthy. Many of these communities receive food from local food pantries and other service-based organizations; however, Bannoura said, “Food pantries are great, but you’re just giving people packaged food, you’re not helping them get out of non-nutritious diets.”
Urban Harvest 2022 Annual Report shows in 2021 the organization grew almost 3,000 pounds of organic produce across four farm sites, they also distributed over 90% of their produce to their non-profit partners. Overall, this translates to over 2,900 healthy meals distributed to the community.
City farmers like Chambers help combat the packaged food cycle; she grows tomatoes, Swiss chard, okra, blackberries, and raspberries. Her farms grow cabbage, bell peppers, and onions to name a few. Chambers’ neighbors and those she serves are so grateful for her farms, that this empowers her to continue with the work. “What I’m doing has a direct purpose,” said the farmer.
Bannoura is dedicated to the work done at Food City, “When you look at the data and see people dying before they need to, compared to those in West County. That’s why we’re doing this,” said the research manager.
