This evening I attended a meeting about access to healthy food as supermarkets in NYC close and developers pressure community gardeners to remove potential food sources.  The event was organized by New York City's Urban Center and was attended by about 75 people.  The Urban Center happens to be located on Madison Avenue in the landmark Villard Houses which is also home to the New York Palace Hotel. While the building is beautiful, it was also an interesting juxtaposition to the evening's discussion. 

The panelists included Hilary Baum, President of Baum Forum; Leslie Kaufman, Brooklyn District Public Health Office; Perry Winston, Architectural Director, Pratt Center for Community Development and Salima Jones-Daley, ENY Farms!, Local Development Corporation of East New York. City Council Member Eric Gioia while expected, was held up by public hearings about Con Ed and Queens--another NYC infrastructure issue.  Panelists focused on how critical it is to protect the city's endangered food system for all socio-economic classes while especially strengthening it by bringing healthy food options to NYC neighborhoods in the South Bronx and Brooklyn plagued by obesity, diabetes and the lack of access to physical activity/open space.

Hilary Baum spoke about how New York's food system is such a critical issue that New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn is holding monthly hearings about it and intends to ask Mayor Bloomberg to open an Office of Nutrition and Hunger.  The purpose of the office is intended to bring under one umbrella the issues of land use policy and zoning and food system planning in our urban setting.  This is not just an issue for the South Bronx and Brooklyn.  While there may be far fewer cases of diabetes on the Upper East and West Sides, supermarkets a source for healthy food in between visits to the farmer's markets, are closing at a disturbing rate.  Gristedes, a well-known Manhattan supermarket chain, has recently closed one of its locations on the Upper West Side because rent has now climbed to 20% of its operating costs.  D'Agostino and Food Emporium are facing the same fate.  The poor have bad food choices in their bodegas while the more wealthy among us may soon have far fewer markets period.

Leslie Kaufman of the Brooklyn District Public Health Office spoke about their efforts to work with Brooklyn bodegas to improve food choices for area residents. Bodegas are small, family-owned markets usually found in heavily Hispanic communities.  The Spanish word Bodega means storehouse or warehouse and many of the ones I have been in here in NYC are much less appetizing than that.  Because the stores are often mom and pop establishments, there is little staff for high maintenance items like produce and groceries.  The stocked food has long shelf lives like junk foods, sodas and other high carbohydrate items.

The bodega/supermarket relationship plays a very significant role in the health or lack thereof in poorer communities. It factors very heavily in the "monthly shopping cycle." At the beginning of the month when benefits are received, families can afford to shop at supermarkets with their wide variety of healthier foods.  This unfortunately leads to overeating and thus another reason for obesity.  As the month progresses and money dwindles, families return to the bodegas where credit is accepted, but less healthy food choices abound.  Other interesting phenomena in lower socio-economic communities around obesity are that parents and in particular mothers feel that "obese children are safer, less fragile" in tough neighborhoods and that "food is accessible and can provide immediate pleasure to children" who have little else.  Mother's also tend to feel that "the desire to satisfy children in the intermediate term outweighs the longer-term health benefits."  One of the Public Health Office's efforts has been to work with bodega owners to institute a 1% milk pilot program that helped promote the health benefits of low fat milk over sodas and whole milk.  The program increased the initial 1% milk sales to 8% in one Brooklyn neighborhood.  

Salima Jones-Daley spoke about the ENY Farms! which was of particular interest to me because of our involvement with the Millbrook Farmer's Market and our own farm to table efforts.  ENY Farms! began in 1995 in East New York, Brooklyn as a community-based effort to provide fresh produce, employment, open space and youth programs to the neighborhood.  The centerpiece of the program is a farmer's market that takes place every Saturday from June through Mid-November.  Millbrook and East New York are about as far as you can get from one another both geographically and economically, but ENY Farms! can teach Hudson Valley farmer's markets a thing or two.  ENY Farms! has created an internship program for local youth that has 22 participants this summer.  Many of the participants return year after year and this season an intern is managing the ENY farmer's market.  There is also a Junior Staff Program which provides leadership development opportunities for local youth where younger participants are shadowed by older ones.  Participants are taught where food comes from and how it is grown.  Participants also conduct cooking demonstrations and coordinate activities for children while their parents are shopping at the market.

Some of the other issues that ENY Farms! is addressing is conservation particularly around water for the community gardens.  Currently they are using fire hydrants and working with the local fire department to monitor usage, but an effort is underway to try using rain water instead.  The community gardeners are looking at how they can create a higher quality market and there is also an effort to more carefully address the community's needs.

ENY farms! has created an exciting destination for residents who are connecting with their neighbors, lining up to enter the market well before it opens and hoping to add one more market day during the week.