Friday, December 16, 2011
Real Food, Fast
Real Food Farm's "Big Blue" brings fresh produce to food deserts
Posted by Andrew Zaleski on Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 11:13 AM
In 2012, Real Food Farm will try to expand its mobile market program into more neighborhoods by using part of its Farmers Market Promotion Program (FMPP) grant to hire a full-time mobile market manager, who will be responsible for community outreach, advertising, and promoting the mobile market.
“We want to grow as much as we can,” says project manager Zach Chissell, who also mentioned that the farm hopes to make community market stops five days a week next summer.
Real Food Farm, which grows produce on a six-acre plot of land in Clifton Park, was awarded a FMPP grant by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in October. More than $9 million was distributed among 149 projects nationwide. The grant money, given to farmers markets making efforts to improve consumer access to healthy foods, will be used to expand the farm’s mobile market program, according to Chissell. In Baltimore, that’s for good reason: the city’s 2010 Health Disparities Report Card revealed that 43 percent of residents living in predominantly black neighborhoods have limited access to healthy foods. In the Clifton neighborhood, where Real Food Farm operates, more than 96 percent of the area’s 9,874 residents are African American, according to the city’s 2011 Neighborhood Health Profile.
In March 2011, the farm purchased an old Washington Post newspaper delivery truck—now known as “Big Blue”—retrofitted it, and began making stops in and around the Clifton-Berea neighborhood in July. This summer, Real Food Farm set up two, two-hour-long “community market” stops. On Wednesdays, the truck sold produce at 3120 Erdman Avenue; on Fridays, city residents were able to purchase produce at Lake Montebello near Montebello Elementary School. Generally, says Chissell, these stops take place between the months of May and October. During the winter, because there are no peppers, tomatoes, or fruit to sell, Real Food Farm makes no community market stops.
According to Chissell, one of the main reasons Real Food Farm’s mobile market exists is “to go into neighborhoods that are food deserts and supply the fresh vegetables,” as well as “reach people who have mobility issues.”
The farm also schedules twenty-minute-long “mini-stops” at schools and businesses. Right now Big Blue makes a mini-stop at the Green School every Wednesday at 3:30 p.m.; afterward, the truck makes another stop outside the offices of Blue Water Baltimore. And Real Food Farm also makes home deliveries of produce one day each week to the Coldstream Homestead Montebello, Darley Park, and Bel Air-Edison neighborhoods.
While there’s talk of adding to Real Food Farm’s mobile market fleet, the farm’s main goal for now is to expand the geographical reach and operations of its one truck, Chissell says. “When we master that, or when we can get funding for another truck … there’s no reason why we wouldn’t get into that.”
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Comments (1)
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That's interesting. I am a big city citizen so I bet that all the food I consume is not that healthy and not organic at all. That was very interesting to read this post thank you for sharing!
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