Scarcity in the Land of Plenty: Examining the Food Situation in East Palo Alto

The following article was written by Lucia Constantine of the Stanford Community Writing Project

Every time I walk into a grocery store like Whole Foods, I am overwhelmed by the abundance and selection of produce. Regardless of the season, there’s everything from apples and bananas to mangoes and avocadoes, usually labeled organic and all presented in eye-pleasing arrangements. As a conscientious consumer, I try to buy locally grown and organic products as much as possible and am able to do so because I have the time, transportation, and funds to shop at stores like Whole Foods. But what about the low-income shopper who, strapped for time or money and without a car or nearby bus-stop, is deprived of reasonable access to a basic supermarket, much less a Whole Foods, and is denied the benefits of fresh produce? Mark Winne, author of Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty observes, “As trends in consumption associated with lifestyle and health expand one class’s universe of choice and perceived health benefits, a lower, less privileged class barely catches up to where the other class was in the last decade” (xvii). While low-income households struggle to put food on the table, wealthier families can afford to debate the merits of locally grown versus organic produce. The stark contrast between the overabundance of choice in Palo Alto and the scarcity of selection in East Palo Alto illustrates the paradoxical nature of the food landscape in the United States. Whereas most residents of Palo Alto can afford to shop for food among well-stocked supermarkets and stores, low-income citizens in East Palo Alto are often unable to buy nutritious food or even enough food to maintain good health. They are excluded from our current food system that views them in terms of profit, costs, and margins, and fails to take their needs into account.

The increasing food gap between the rich and poor is largely due to the global food system currently in place. Most of the food consumed in the United States travels over 1,500 miles from the farm to our plate (Norberg-Hodge xiii). The journey involves a complicated supply chain of producers, middlemen, and distributors. The long distance food chain and its supposed efficiencies – economies of scale, lower prices, and produce year round – while clearly benefiting well-off communities in the U.S. has left many people malnourished through the creation of “food deserts,” a cityscape or rural area where affordable healthy food is unavailable or inaccessible. East Palo Alto, a mere five miles from Stanford’s campus, is an example of a veritable “food desert” which hasn’t had a supermarket since the early 1970s, and whose citizens have to travel outside of their community to buy fresh produce (Collective Roots).

In response to the growing food gap, many communities are looking at ways to revitalize the local food system through projects like farmers’ markets and community gardens. Local food systems can counteract some of the systemic problems associated with the globalization of food and provide tailored solutions for the different needs of communities. Benefits of a local food system include increased access to fresh produce, direct contact between consumers and producers, and a boost to the local economy.  While farmers’ markets are not a substitute for full-service supermarkets that carry foods such as meat and dairy as well as fruits and vegetables, they provide options in communities that have none.  By examining the evolving situation in East Palo Alto, I seek to identify how local food systems can provide greater food security for people in low-income communities who currently lack access to nutritious foods.  

Living in a Desert
Up until the 1950s, most of the fruits and vegetables consumed in our cities were grown on nearby farms. Advancements in food processing, technology, transportation, and infrastructure, such as refrigerated long-haul trucks and a national interstate highway system, have made long distance shipping of food possible and led to the decreased dependency on local farms (Halweil 7). East Palo Alto, formerly known as Ravenswood, was a rural community at the beginning of the twentieth century, with about one thousand family owned farms producing their own food. The city has undergone radical transformation: the sprawling farms have been taken over by crowded housing and commercial development; the population of self-reliant white farmers has become mostly Hispanic working-class families (“EPA Acceptable Use”). While surrounding communities in Silicon Valley have prospered, East Palo Alto has remained an enclave of marginalization and poverty with no thriving economic center and no viable food system.  The poverty associated with East Palo Alto has discouraged the establishment of much-needed businesses like supermarkets. Presumably, the decision makers of supermarket chains believe that locating a store in a community such as East Palo Alto would yield too little profit. In actuality, numbers suggest that East Palo Alto’s population of 30,000 spends a significant amount of money on food, over $68 million in 2006 (Sudekum). Unfortunately, since members of East Palo Alto must travel to nearby Redwood City or Menlo Park to do their grocery shopping, most of the money leaves the community perpetuating a cycle of poverty and dependency.

The last supermarket in East Palo Alto, a Safeway store, closed down in 1974 leaving in its place a range of convenience stores, corner markets, and fast food chains (“EPA Acceptable Use”).  In San Mateo County, there are three times as many fast food restaurants and convenience stores as supermarkets and produce vendors (“Searching for Health Food”). East Palo Alto has two McDonald’s, a Pizza Hut, and a Taco Bell, all within a mere 2.5 square mile area (Sudekum).  While these locales provide prepared food at little cost, this food is often high in calories and sugar content and low in nutritional value. For many residents of East Palo Alto who are pressed for time and money, travel outside the city limits to purchase fresh produce is simply not an option: “A lot of families in East Palo Alto are working two jobs, so they come home late, their kids are waiting for them, and what do they do? They stop at McDonald’s or Taco Bell and get a meal for under two bucks,” explains Wolfram Alderson, executive director of Collective Roots. The consequences of the desertification of the food system in East Palo Alto go beyond questions of consumer choices and economics. Restricted access to healthy, nutritious food and the prevalence of cheap junk food has contributed to increased rates of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease for East Palo Alto’s citizens (“Searching For Health Food”). 

What’s happening in East Palo Alto is not unique; all over the United States, low-income communities are being marginalized by a food system not serving its primary purpose of delivering fresh, nutritious, reasonably priced food to its constituents. About 30 million people in the United States are unable to buy enough food to maintain good health (Koc 1).  In what would seem like an unlikely combination, the same people who do not get enough to eat are suffering worse health outcomes because they are not given the option to purchase healthy food more locally.

Many supermarkets are concentrated in suburbs in what are perceived as more lucrative markets, limiting options where low-income people live (Anderson 4).  Thus, while Palo Alto has a plethora of supermarkets, and specialty grocery stores, its close neighbor East Palo Alto has corner markets and convenience stores. Frequently shunned for their garish advertisements of alcohol and tobacco, these corner markets serve as a source for essentials like milk and ethnic food supplies that appeal to the Latino community (Rayson). Given incentives and consumer support, these locales with limited floor and shelf space could conceivably offer a better selection of produce, which would alleviate the immediate needs of the community.

Realistically, however, these small locally owned businesses are not to blame for the lack of access to fresh produce in the community and should not be expected to shoulder the responsibility. Similarly, neither should we expect that other sectors of the  food industry in East Palo Alto and around the country will depart from the current food system model and seek to shrink the food delivery chain of their own accord. Subject to market forces, rising fuel costs, government incentives, land use and zoning laws, and economic modeling, large supermarket chains will logically open outlets in areas where they will make the largest profits (Winne xvi). Excluded from the food chain and unable to attract a super market chain, the citizens of East Palo Alto are taking matters into their own hands, seeking alternative ways to feed themselves.

Making the Desert Bloom
The challenges currently faced by East Palo Alto are representative of problems facing cities across the United States: long food chains, lack of sustainability, and marginalization of the poor. Initiatives to reestablish local foodsheds have arisen in response to the failures produced by the global food system. While the movement to “eat local” has become popular among the educated elite concerned with the environmental costs of global food, a more sustainable food system can have a vital role in addressing the needs of low-income communities as well. According to Clancy, issues of sustainability and social justice are closely linked. At their core, both agricultural unsustainability and poverty are based in the larger, capitalistic economic system. But food, like voting, education, employment, and access to healthcare, is a basic human right. The poor are a logical constituency and a new domestic market for small farmers (qtd. in Power 32). Spearheaded by concerned citizens and local nonprofit organizations, a social, health, and sustainable living movement is already underway to improve the food system in East Palo Alto using homegrown solutions. One organization, Collective Roots, has established a garden education program in East Palo Alto Charter School. The program encourages children to have healthy eating habits by showing them how food is grown. Additionally, Collective Roots, along with the EPA Community Farmers’ Market Organizing Committee, has been involved in the effort to bring a community farmers’ market to EPA, which will open in June 2008 (Collective Roots).

Similar grassroots initiatives taking place across the country are finding creative solutions to overcome the challenges posed by the global food system. The People’s Grocery in West Oakland, for example, has solved issues of food access by “bringing food to the people” using a mobile market (Anderson, “Making Food Accessible” 7). In Connecticut, the Hartford Food System, a non-profit founded in 1978, has established farmers’ markets, improved transportation to food venues, and launched the Connecticut Food Policy Council (Halweil 135). These community-based projects increase the supply of health foods in low-income communities.

The opening of the first farmers’ market in East Palo Alto marks a turning point in a city that has had no supermarket for over thirty years. “The immediate effect is we would have healthy food right around the corner. The intangible aspect is that we deserve access to high quality food,” says Lettecia Rayson, long time resident of East Palo Alto and chair of the EPA Community Farmers’ Market Organizing Committee (qtd. in Allen). Access and availability of health foods, a form of food security formerly denied to low income communities like East Palo Alto, has been made possible thanks to the collaborative efforts of concerned citizens like Rayson, and local nonprofits like Collective Roots. Now instead of having to gas up the car to go to the nearest supermarket just to be able to buy fruit or vegetables, the citizens of EPA will be able to walk to the farmers’ markets on Sunday afternoons and get fresh, locally grown produce at a reasonable price.  To meet the economic realities of its low-income shoppers, the farmers’ market will accept government benefited payment options through Farmers’ Market Nutrition Programs like Electronic Benefits Transfer Card booth and Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (Rayson).

In addition to increasing families’ access to fresh produce, the establishment of farmer’s market in East Palo Alto provides a direct contact between local producers and consumers, allowing residents to engage the farmers who are directly involved in the production, handling, and distribution of the produce being sold (Rayson).  Unlike in a supermarket where the customer has no voice as to what is put on the shelves, close relationships with farmers will allow residents to provide feedback and communicate what they want or need, making them active participants in the food chain and not just neglected bystanders. While citizens of East Palo Alto would ideally be able to shop at a supermarket, farmers’ markets are a way for members of underserved communities to help themselves to the food they deserve.  

Increasing interest in reducing the environmental and social costs of food often conceals the fact that many Americans do not have access to high-quality healthy foods. Some of us take the supermarket and all of its amenities for granted. We have the luxury of choice: we hop into a car for a relatively short drive to a supermarket or grocery store located in a safe, well lit area, grab a basket, and stroll through the aisles of neatly shelved or stack products, picking and choosing what we want. The residents of East Palo and other underserved communities around the country have limited choices within their reach. They choose between a two dollar burger from McDonalds’ or an overripe banana from the corner market, neither of which are particularly attractive options. The scarcity of selection in East Palo Alto is a result of a global food system that has resulted in the creation of a two-tiered market place with Whole Foods for the affluent and convenience stores for the impoverished, placing profits before consumers and making high quality food a luxury (Winne 124)

Food should be a right and not just a privilege. But in order to make food accessible to all members of the community, we must regain local control of our food system, and reconnect with the food we eat. The residents of East Palo Alto deserve to have the benefits of fresh fruits and vegetables, which are prerequisites for good nutrition and good health. Through local solutions like a farmers’ market and a community garden, residents of East Palo Alto are helping themselves to the food they deserve.