Can We Squash Food Deserts?

So our program title tonight asks, can we squash food deserts? But before we talk about solutions, I want to interrogate that premise a little bit.

We often use the term food deserts to describe communities without reliable access to affordable, nutritious food.

But does the term food desert accurately describe that problem? And what might it miss about why access to healthy, affordable food is so imbalanced in Los Angeles?

I'll start, I'll say, I think the term food desert is a very polite term that assigns responsibility to some naturally occurring feature in our environment.

But that's not really the case.

The grocery stores and our food system is set up intentionally with profit in mind.

I think we know that.

But it didn't happen on its own.

And as much as we can begin discussing it, I want to say honestly about the fact that we have a part to play as well in our own food security.

If we each go back about two generations, our grandparents would naturally be growing food or would naturally have livestock in their family spaces.

They might be even growing their own fibers for their clothing or growing their own medicines or even some of their own building supplies coming straight from the earth.

All of that was natural and expected of that generation.

I think something new, natural and expected of our generation is to try to move back toward that direction, even in small ways, even if you can't grow your own products.

cotton or wool or otherwise.

Try to find clothing that are made out of those natural fibers to improve your lifestyle.

Even if you can't grow something like comfrey, which is a healing plant for your body and your bones, maybe you can find someone who is and pay them and thank them for giving you that healing medicine.

But going out of our way and being intentional about taking up those practices again from our grandparents, I think that that's our responsibility right now.

So both of you approach food, not just in terms of what communities lack, but what they can grow and restore and regenerate.

So what does regeneration mean to each of you for land, but also for community?

I've spent a lot of times in community gardens in LA and I'm in the Master Gardener program.

So Anything that we do with the Master Gardener program, we are going to these sites to visit.

So we are meeting people where they live on their projects, on their terms.

And so I think it's really important to just remember how much community can be shared through really any type of gardening, whether you're gardening food, especially if you're gardening food.

Yeah.

And yeah, I think it's inherent.