How One Ohio Non-Profit is Trying to Give People Power Over Their Food

It’s not clear the small plot of land on the north side of Youngstown is a community garden. At least not anymore.

Weeds stretch toward the sky, where there once was rows of bright beets and tall turnips. Without dedicated growers, Jubilee Gardens has fallen into disrepair. But on a Friday evening in July, a small group of people are planting.

They’re led by local farmer Jessie Holland who stood at a table of seeds, brushing the dew off of wide green leaves, as she rattled through which fall crops the group will focus on today .

“Kale is a really nice plant to grow around here,” she said. “Our clay rich soil loves kale.”

The plentiful greens on Holland’s table aren’t accessible to many in the northeast Ohio city. The majority of Youngstown lives more than a mile away from a grocery store. And, according to food advocates in the area, that’s not the only issue to getting nutritious food: there’s transportation and cost and limited healthy options once folks get to those markets.

The Mahoning Food Access Initiative aims to get fresh, healthy food to people directly, by teaching them to grow it. It hopes its gardening lessons can give Youngstown residents more of a choice in what they consume.

“If we're telling them they need to eat their whole foods and to have access to them, we also need to include growing it,” said Sophia Buggs, Mahoning Food Access Initiative director.

Taking back control

Bob Hayes bobbed a toddler on his lap as he planted. He attended the gardening lessons because he wanted to take control of his diet – in a way he’s not usually able to.

“Youngstown is a food desert,” he said. “So you don't have a lot of access to a lot of healthy foods. So that really plays a part in a lot of the symptoms and diseases that people have going on here.”

Hayes is vegan and wants to find organic vegetables, grown sustainably, for his family. But he can’t make a farmer’s market appear in his neighborhood or force large grocery corporations to carry that kind of food. His diet – and food access in Youngstown – is largely out of his control.

Director Buggs said community members deserve more power over what goes on their plates. By growing their own food, Buggs said the community can build so-called “food sovereignty," or the right to access healthy and sustainably-grown foods.

Source: statenews.org

Photo Credit: gettyimages-sizsus