{"id":15779,"date":"2013-07-25T09:11:47","date_gmt":"2013-07-25T15:11:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=15779"},"modified":"2013-07-25T09:11:47","modified_gmt":"2013-07-25T15:11:47","slug":"peoples-grocery-oakland-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/peoples-grocery-oakland-california\/","title":{"rendered":"Harvesting Justice 21: Food for Body, Food for Thought, Food for Justice – People\u2019s Grocery in Oakland, California"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"box<\/a><\/p>\n

By Tory Field and Beverly Bell<\/strong><\/p>\n

Part 21 of the Harvesting Justice series<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Deepa Panchang co-authored this article.<\/em><\/p>\n

The neighborhood of West Oakland in California has long been without a large grocery store, let alone one that offers healthy, fresh food<\/a>. With unemployment at about 10% and nearly half the population of 30,000 residents living at or below the poverty line, West Oakland is a neighborhood that grocery store chains have claimed isn\u2019t able to sustain a full-functioning store.[1]<\/p>\n

But the logic that West Oakland lacks buying power isn\u2019t sound. Its residents spend almost $42 million a year on food outside their community.[2] \u201cThe math is simple,\u201d said local activist and cofounder<\/a> of the organization People\u2019s Grocery<\/a>, Brahm Ahmadi. \u201cIn West Oakland, we assessed a $60 million market. There\u2019s a very affluent neighborhood nearby with a $60 million market. It\u2019s the same aggregate spending power. You actually have parallel markets. They just look different.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was vital to prove that this was true because, said Brahm, \u201cThe number one cause of death in West Oakland is heart disease. It\u2019s not gunshots. It\u2019s food, the way people eat<\/a>. There\u2019s a correlation between lack of grocery stores and rates of chronic disease. People in West Oakland are seeing that health-care costs are too high, and a critical mass is growing to say enough is enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

When individuals are forced to travel outside their community for groceries, not only does their access to healthy food suffer. The economy does, too. Money continuously flows out of the area instead of building job opportunities and tax revenues locally.<\/p>\n

The problem is national in scope. A research sampling in New York, Maryland, and North Carolina found that neighborhoods of color and racially mixed areas had half as many supermarkets as predominantly white neighborhoods.[3] Residents without cars or adequate public transportation systems are often left to shop for highly processed food at corner liquor or convenience stores, where prices are usually higher and healthy options fewer than those at suburban supermarkets. A fast-food franchise may provide the only other nearby option.<\/p>\n

In the US, unhealthy food is creating unprecedented levels of heart disease and other diet-related illnesses. One in four deaths<\/a> in 2009 was caused by heart disease.At the same time, people continue to go hungry; 14.5% of households<\/a> were deemed \u2018food insecure\u2019 in 2010. Even when a farmers\u2019 market or community-supported agriculture (CSA) program is nearby, many households cannot afford the higher cost of local, organic vegetables or the upfront deposit required by most CSAs. Unfortunately, just demanding lower prices for local, organic food is not a viable solution, because most small farmers can barely survive on their current incomes while trying to compete in an industrialized system not designed in their favor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Inequitable access to healthy food is a symptom of larger structural injustices such as racism, poverty, lack of community control and representation in local government and organizations, inequity in housing and healthcare, and ecological degradation. These inequities can also play out among groups in the food movement.<\/p>\n

Organized communities, together with their allies in national advocacy groups, are taking on all of these elements as part of a movement for food justice. They are working on solutions that, first, support local production; second, make healthy food available to everyone, not just those who can access it by virtue of income or where they live; third, ensure that their communities have democratic control over the food they eat; and fourth, addressing structural injustices like racism.<\/p>\n

People\u2019s Grocery: Nourishing Food and Transformation<\/h3>\n

The grassroots community organization, People\u2019s Grocery, is situated Oakland, a city that has played a starring role in the history of the food justice movement. It was there, in 1969, that the Black Panthers began their free breakfast program, through which they fed children breakfast at over 45 branches around the country. The Panthers\u2019 larger goals were ending racism and oppression and the stated objective for the breakfast program was \u201csurvival pending revolution.\u201d Not only were the free breakfast sites filling bellies so that children had a fighting chance of learning something once they got to school, they also served as places to gather community for discussion and education towards deeper social transformation. The Panthers\u2019 food program also helped elevate public demands on the federal government to expand and improve national school nutrition programs.[4]<\/p>\n

For the last 10 years, People\u2019s Grocery has been working to bring nourishing food to the neighborhood. At the same time, the group is addressing the underlying causes of what determines the availability of this food in the first place. As Executive Director Nikki Henderson described<\/a>, \u201cWe collaborate with health and economic development organizations, gather residents for food celebrations, and work to raise the consciousness about structural racism and the role it has played and continues to play in creating and maintaining food deserts. We grow food, maintain urban gardens, and pursue effective systems change.\u201d<\/p>\n

People\u2019s Grocery\u2019s flagship project, which has since been replicated around the country, was a mini-grocery store on wheels that traversed neighborhoods selling affordable, healthy food. Another project, a modified CSA program called the Grub Box, has been growing strong since 2007. The Grub Box is a pre-ordered, weekly box of vegetables and fruits grown at People\u2019s Grocery\u2019s gardens and at other local farms. The program now works in partnership with Dig Deep Farms and Produce. People\u2019s Grocery also runs nutrition education programs, an urban garden at a low-income housing development, and a buying club where people can order healthy bulk food for wholesale prices. Its Growing Justice Institute is a two-year training program that supports residents interested in designing and implementing food projects and small food service businesses, like catering companies and cooking classes.<\/p>\n

Consciousness-raising about the deeper causes of food injustice is woven into People\u2019s Grocery\u2019s work. For example, they ask their Growing Justice Institute fellows to identify the root causes of food injustice that their projects are going to address. People\u2019s Grocery also works to address the ways in which structural racism and classism can play out in the inner workings of the food movement. These manifestations can include inequitable distribution of funding amongst organizations, exclusion in organizing circles or leadership roles, and tension and mistrust between groups. In 2011, People\u2019s Grocery co-created a process<\/a> to address what they described as the \u201cfear, projection and lack of common perspective\u2026, [which interfere] with the building of trust between \u2018privileged\u2019 and \u2018under-resourced\u2019 food system reform groups in the Bay Area [of California].\u201d In partnership with another food justice group in their region, Roots of Change, they participated in workshops and trainings. The goals were to traverse race and class lines to develop a joint understanding of oppression and its effects, engage in honest communication, and build up trust and accountability. They\u2019ve also developed \u201callyship\u201d workshops to help members of the food movement cultivate more authentic and equal relationships across race and culture.<\/p>\n

Nikki Henderson said this<\/a> about food justice: \u201cOur movement has the unique potential to be driven by principles of justice, while maintaining our identity as the community-centered \u2018feel good\u2019 network. If we can cultivate this potential, we\u2019ll be unstoppable. That\u2019s our mission in the next 10 years\u2014to embody justice, relationship building, and social action in a way that inspires our country to create the policies and systems that ensure healthy food for all.\u201d<\/p>\n

[1] Matthias Kuruvila, \u201cWest Oakland Grocery Store Fight Heats Up,\u201d San Francisco Chronicle online http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/cgi-bin\/article.cgi?f=\/c\/a\/2010\/10\/11\/MNNS1FQ9HV, October 11, 2010, http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/cgi-bin\/article.cgi?f=\/c\/a\/2010\/10\/11\/MNNS1FQ9HV<\/a>; and City of Oakland Community and Economic Development Agency, Agenda Report, July 2007, 2, http:\/\/clerkwebsvr1.oaklandnet.com\/attachments\/16900.pdf<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[2] Brahm Ahmadi, email to authors, May 25, 2011.<\/p>\n

[3] Mark Winston Griffith, \u201cHow Harlem Eats: Urban Activists Seek \u2018Food Justice,\u2019\u201d The Nation, September 11, 2006, 38. Study conducted by the University of Michigan, 2006.<\/p>\n

[4] Levine, Susan. 2008. School Lunch Politics: The Surprising History of America\u2019s Favorite Welfare Program. Princeton\/Woodstock, UK: Princeton University Press. Pg 127, 139.<\/p>\n

You can find action items, resources, and a popular education curriculum on the Harvesting Justice website<\/a>. Harvesting Justice was created for the US Food Sovereignty Alliance, check out their work here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Read more from <\/strong>Other Worlds here<\/strong><\/a>, and follow us on Facebook<\/a> and <\/strong>Twitter<\/strong><\/a>!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Copyleft Other Worlds. You may reprint this article in whole or in part. Please credit any text or original research you use to Tory Field and Beverly Bell, Other Worlds.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The neighborhood of West Oakland in California has long been without a large grocery store, let alone one that offers healthy, fresh food. With unemployment at about 10% and nearly half the population of 30,000 residents living at or below the poverty line, West Oakland is a neighborhood that grocery store chains have claimed isn\u2019t able to sustain a full-functioning store. People’s Grocery aims to prove traditional grocers wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":15780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,24],"tags":[6482,6325,6326,23,6328,6329,6462,1198,6529],"yoast_head":"\nPeople's Grocery of West Oakland: Harvesting Justice<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Traditional grocers have written off West Oakland, California as a neighborhood that can't support a store. 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