Bed-Stuy is Not a Food Desert

A food desert is defined as “a neighborhood with limited access to large grocery stores offering fresh and affordable foods necessary to maintain a healthy diet”.

“Fresh”,  “affordable”, and “healthy” are subjective terms when it comes to what people know and understand about how food is grown, harvested, stored, and prepared, the value and/or budget households place on grocery shopping, and how the body assimilates nutrients.

That is a conversation that can go on forever, so I won’t define those terms here.

Instead, I’d like to discuss (and invite you to consider) what else the food landscape of Bedford-Stuyvesant might be considered when

• Food/eating is and has never been just about fresh, affordable, and healthy; food/eating is also experience, livelihood, place, memory, family, ritual, culture, religion, healing, and pleasure
  
  
• There are at least 30 “large” grocery stores directly and indirectly* serving Bedford-Stuyvesant within Community Board 3’s neighborhood map
  
  
• There are 3 community based organizations running farmers markets four days a week (4+ years)
  
  
• There is a community supported agriculture project that directly invests in farmers of color and gets fresh vegetables in return (8+ years)
  
  
• There is an online organic buying club just for residents
  
  
• There are over 20 community gardens that produce food 
  
  
• Black farmers from the south load their pickup trucks full of produce and meat and drive several hundred miles to sell to Bed-Stuy residents
  
  
• The majority of the supermarkets and bodegas are owned by people who don’t reside in Bed-Stuy, don’t hire within the neighborhood, and don’t train their staff efficiently (to be courteous, knowledgeable, and expeditious)
  
  
• A customer notices moldy produce, a dented can, or an otherwise spoiled food and points it out to an employee or manager, only to see that item reshelved
  
  
• Food items are not consistently rotated, stores are not properly sanitized/maintained, and the response is indifference or outright hostile when complaints are made
  
  
• Prices for the same foods are noticeably higher when compared to prices in the same chain in other neighborhoods
  
  
• Prices on the shelves consistently do not match prices at the register
  
  
• Customers are consistently told, “that stuff won’t sell here” and, “these people don’t want that” when inquiring about the availability of fresh, organic, and/or speciality food items that have never previously been offered
  
  
• A bodega owner, who has owned in the neighborhood for years, opens up a new “grocery store” directly across the street from his existing location, offering brighter lighting, open counter space, fresh produce, organic items, and clear, unobstructed views of the store from the outside, while the other store remains unchanged
  
  
• Nonprofits from outside the neighborhood launch programs in the name of nutrition education and increasing food access, making decisions for Bedford-Stuyvesant residents with little input and buy-in from the community, and are run by people who do not live in Bedford-Stuyvesant, are not even from NYC, and therefore lack the cultural literacy, historical insight, and institutional representation that reflects the majority of Bed-Stuy residents

“Food deserts” have become a multi-million dollar enterprise for nonprofits and corporations cashing in on public and private funding made available only to those who “fit the criteria”, yet folks are still traveling outside of the neighborhood for “fresh, affordable” food, and others are dependent on emergency food.

Instead of a food desert, I see a lack of critical thinking and engagement on the intersections of policy, race, class, access, direct action, and self-determination. 

I see food apartheid.

I see poverty pimps.

What do you see?

*Large grocery stores that border Bedford-Stuyvesant along Clinton Hill and Bushwick were counted in this number.