Food Apartheid: Limited Access to Healthy Food
Black residents of St. Louis are almost twice as likely to have limited access to healthy food as white residents—11.9% of black residents compared to 6.3% of white residents.¹ Food justice advocates have termed this phenomenon “food apartheid” to reflect the role of systemic racism in engineering this result.²
Food apartheid in St. Louis is largely due to two factors: (1) there are few grocery stores and markets with fresh food in majority-black parts of the City; and (2) it is difficult for people to reach more distant stores because many do not own cars and are poorly served by public transportation.
Figure 6.1 shows that many of the City’s census tracts that are low-income and have low supermarket access—meaning a significant share of the population lives more than a half mile (or mile) from the nearest supermarket—are in North City.³ It also shows that most of those tracts are majority black. Even in South City, where there are fewer majority black census tracts, the tracts that are majority-black tend also to be low-income and have low supermarket access.
FIGURE 6.1. LOW-INCOME CENSUS TRACTS WITH LOW SUPERMARKET ACCESS⁴
As shown in Figure 6.2, most of the City’s census tracts with low vehicle availability correspond with neighborhoods in which the population lives more than a half mile from the nearest supermarket. Unsurprisingly, most of these tracts are also majority-black.⁵ “Perhaps the best measure of whether someone who lives far from a grocery store faces obstacles to accessing affordable and nutritious food is whether or not he or she has a car. Access to a car allows people to leave the food desert and shop at supermarkets and large grocery stores outside of their neighborhoods.”⁶
FIGURE 6.2. CENSUS TRACTS WITH LOW VEHICLE AVAILABILITY TO ACCESS HEALTHY FOOD⁷
Although public transportation can potentially increase mobility in residential areas with low vehicle availability, the St. Louis Metro (“Metro”) transit system prioritizes commercial areas over residential areas. When Metro released its first long-range plan in 2010, it noted that focus group participants identified expansion of services into North and South City as top priorities.⁸ Although Metro has since opened a new transit center in North County,⁹ it has not yet expanded service in North City. The leader of a recent study regarding possible MetroLink light-rail expansion into North and South City emphasized the problems with the existing service: “There is a demand for transit in this area, and there is a need for transit. Proportionally, more study area residents use transit to commute and don’t have access to a car, compared to other areas across the city and region. We’re trying to connect people to jobs.”¹⁰
Small-scale food retailers, urban agriculture, and mobile markets are working to improve healthy food access for St. Louisans. City Greens Market in the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood is a small food retail outlet that started in 2004. It sells produce to low-income families at wholesale prices. Gateway Greening supports community gardens throughout St. Louis. Urban Harvest and Good Life Growing—both urban agriculture operations—grow produce for distribution throughout the City, focusing on communities with low access to healthy food.¹¹ Urban Harvest does this in part through its MetroMarket, a refurbished city bus that services “low income, high need communities”¹² in North St. Louis. The bus makes three scheduled stops: in Jeff VanderLou, North County, and Carr Square. Despite these and other promising programs and initiatives, more needs to be done to address disparities in healthy food access in St. Louis.
Why Healthy Food Access Matters
“Access to healthy food is associated with lower risk for obesity and other diet-related chronic diseases.”¹³ Black St. Louisans have less access to healthy food and higher rates of diet-related chronic diseases than whites. “In St. Louis City, 38% of African American adults are obese” compared to 27% of white City residents.¹⁴ In addition, “14% of African Americans have been diagnosed with diabetes compared with 11% of whites.”¹⁵ Furthermore, “for each chronic disease type, African Americans have a higher rate of death compared to whites.”¹⁶
Tosha Phonix, Food Justice Organizer
Tosha Phonix, Food Justice Organizer at the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, highlights the hard work and potential of urban growers in St. Louis. Tosha works with about 25 growers in North City, North County, and the Metro East. She helps them find ways to access land, establish farms, and create valueadded products from what they grow. According to Tosha, “Food justice is not like any other social activism you’ve seen—it takes into account all social ills.”
As Tosha points out, “there is food in these communities, it’s just not anything worth eating.” Fast food restaurants and corner stores simply do not offer the whole, nutritious foods that make up a healthy diet. In 2011, a local partnership started the St. Louis Healthy Corner Store Project to change this, but the project has faced resistance in many communities because corner stores have a reputation for being hubs of illegal activity. There also are concerns about cleanliness, and the produce offered at corner stores often is overpriced or expired. “You can bring fresh produce into corner stores but if the community doesn’t have a good relationship with the store, they’re not gonna come in and buy it.”
Looking at the maps showing food access in St. Louis City, “you would think that no one is doing the work, but that’s not true. If people aren’t in tune, they’ll never know about city growers, but you have amazing people in your community doing amazing things.” Local growers don’t just provide healthy food; they encourage communities to take ownership of their neighborhood by making them safer and more self-sufficient.
Tosha notes that while local growers are bringing healthy food to some City residents, it’s very hard for others to get to grocery stores. “Some buses only come once an hour, and you have to time your trip very carefully to catch the return bus. It’s especially difficult when you work during the day. It takes a lot of time to go grocery shopping by bus, and the buses run less frequently in the evenings and on weekends. The whole system is jacked up and inconvenient.”
Spotlight on Heru Urban Farming
Tyrean Lewis is the founder and president of Heru Urban Farming and Garden. Its mission is to provide quality organic food and herbal supply for under-resourced and health-stricken areas within urban communities. The project started in 2018 with three lots in the Kingsway West neighborhood in Ward 1, where 33% of the population lives below the poverty line. Most of the residents are elderly and lack reliable transportation. The community was excited to learn about and help out with the urban farm. This pilot farm was so successful that Heru Urban Farming acquired four more lots in the College Hill neighborhood in Ward 3, where 41% of the residents live below the poverty line. Tyrean is excited to see what the second year in operation will bring because the first exceeded expectations.
Tonja Bulley’s Transportation Struggles
Tonja Bulley is a resident of the Greater Ville neighborhood in St. Louis City. She grew up in the City then moved out to the County to raise her children. She relocated back to the City because rent is much more affordable. Ms. Bulley cares for her aunt who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease and works as a home health aide.
Recently, Ms. Bulley had to start using public transportation because she does not have a vehicle. What was previously a twenty-minute car ride to work now takes over an hour and requires three separate buses. Bus fare is costly and adds up. Often, Ms. Bulley asks family and friends for a ride but feels burdensome. However, she would rather catch a ride to the grocery store than shop at a local corner store. Ms. Bulley emphasized the high-priced foods and poor treatment of customers by management.
References
¹ Equity Indicators Report, p. 146. See also For the Sake of All, pp. 33, 51-52.
² The Guardian, Food Apartheid: the Root of the Problem with America’s Groceries, available at https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/may/15/food-apartheid-food-deserts-racism-inequality-america-karen-washington-interview.
³ U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Food Access Research Atlas Documentation, available at https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-research-atlas/ documentation/. “Low-income” is defined as having a poverty rate of 20 percent or greater, a median family income less than or equal to 80 percent of the state-wide median, or – in a metropolitan area – a median family income less than or equal to 80 percent of the metropolitan area’s median. “Significant share” is defined as at least 500 people or 33 percent of the population.
⁴ Prepared by the Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic. Data Sources: U.S, Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Food Access Research Atlas Data Download 2015, available at https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/DataFiles/80591/DataDownload2015.xlsx?v=0; Missouri Spatial Data Information Service, 2010 U.S. Census Tract Data, available at http://msdis-archive.missouri.edu/archive/Missouri_Vector_Data/USCensus2010/tract10.zip.
⁵ U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Food Access Research Atlas Documentation, available at https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-research-atlas/documentation/. “Significant number” is defined as at least 100 households.
⁶ Michele Ver Ploeg, Access to Affordable, Nutritious Food Is Limited in “Food Deserts,” Amber Waves (Mar. 1, 2010), available at www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2010/march/access-to-affordable-nutritious-food-is-limited-in-food-deserts/.
⁷ Prepared by the Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic. Data Sources: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Food Access Research Atlas Data Download 2015, available at https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/DataFiles/80591/DataDownload2015.xlsx?v=0; Missouri Spatial Data available at http://msdis-archive.missouri.edu/archive/Missouri_Vector_Data/USCensus2010/tract10.zip
⁸ Metro, Moving Transit Forward: St. Louis Regional Long-Range Transit Plan, p. 34, available at http://www.metrostlouis.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/moving-transit-forward-plan.pdf. The report identifies “Downtown St. Louis through north city and into north St. Louis County” and “Downtown St. Louis through south city and into south St. Louis County” as two of five expansion priorities.
⁹ Matthew Hibbard, North County Transit Center Makes Its Inaugural Debut, Metro (Mar. 14, 2016), available at https://www.metrostlouis.org/nextstop/north-county-transit-center-makes-itsinaugural-debut/.
¹⁰ Citizens for Modern Transit, 2018 Annual Report, Transit: Benefits Beyond the Ride, p. 3, available at https://cmt-stl.org/app/uploads/2014/11/CMT-Annual-Report18web-only.pdf.
¹¹ Urban Harvest STL, About Us, available at www.urbanharveststl.org/about-us; Good Life Growing, Home, available at https://www.goodlifegrowing.com/.
¹² St. Louis Metro Market, About Us, available at https://www.stlmetromarket.com/about.
¹³ Sarah Treuhaft and Allison Karpyn, The Grocery Gap: Who Has Access to Healthy Food and Why It Matters, PolicyLink and The Food Trust (2010), p. 8, available at http://thefoodtrust.org/uploads/media_items/grocerygap.original.pdf.
¹⁴ For the Sake of All, p. 48.
¹⁵ Id.
¹⁶ Id.