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Bringing food desert residents to an alternative food market: a semi-experimental study of impediments to food access

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Abstract

The emerging critique of alternative food networks (AFNs) points to several factors that could impede the participation of low-income, minority communities in the movement, namely, spatial and temporal constraints, and the lack of economic, cultural, and human capital. Based on a semi-experimental study that offers 6 weeks of free produce to 31 low-income African American households located in a New Orleans food desert, this article empirically examines the significance of the impeding factors identified by previous scholarship, through participant surveys before, during, and after the program. Our results suggest economic constraints are more influential in determining where the participants shop for food than spatial and temporal constraints, and the study participants exhibit high levels of human and cultural capital regarding the purchase and consumption of locally grown produce. We also find them undeterred by the market’s predominantly White, middle-class cultural social space, which leads us to question the extent to which cultural exclusivity discourages their participation in AFNs. For all five factors we find that the constraints posed to accessing the local food market were not universal but varied among the participants. Finally, the study reveals some localized social constraints, fragmented social ties in particular, as a possible structural hurdle to engaging these residents in the alternative market in their neighborhood. Conclusions point to the need for a multi-dimensional and dynamic conceptualization of “food access.”

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Notes

  1. This is the actual name of the neighborhood and the organization.

  2. It is important to acknowledge that New Orleans neighborhoods continue to be shaped by gentrification (Gladstone and Préau 2008), repopulation (Elliott et al. 2009; Stringfield 2010), and related neighborhood dynamics (Elliott and Pais 2006; Fussell 2009) in wake of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. Nevertheless, we do not provide an elaborate discussion of these issues, partly because the food desert status of the neighborhood predates the Hurricane, but also because doing so is out of the scope of the current project. Instead, we refer the reader to the work cited above that explicitly addresses these concerns.

  3. For example, 1 week’s box included the following items: Sweet Potatoes, Apples, Eggplant, Mustard Greens, Pickling Cucumbers, Baby Heirloom Squash, Bell Peppers, Cajun Grain Rice, Red Frill Mustard, Natural Arugula, and Satsumas (October 23, 2013 box delivery content).

  4. Original pre- and post-study surveys, as well as bi-weekly market consumption survey used in the study can be made available upon requests to the authors.

  5. We acknowledge that this only reduced the residents’ barriers to fresh food through the particular market, and not their food purchasing budget in general. The aim was to ease the risk of trying out the new market by providing an economic incentive, which turns out to be roughly equivalent to the average weekly fresh produce budget of our participants (see Table 2).

  6. The expanded business hours impacted only a handful of study participants who started a few weeks behind the others.

  7. HMF’s website and weekly newsletters also feature recipe suggestions, but we used slightly different recipes for our study.

  8. Due to some participants not returning the surveys in a timely manner, we were not able to collect pre-study survey from all of the initially enrolled participants, making our survey data’s total responses per question <31.

  9. We contacted the individuals who ceased to participate to inquire if they would be willing to provide information on why they did not complete the study, but none responded to our multiple attempts at correspondence.

  10. One participant received box deliveries throughout the study due to personal mobility issues that prevented her ability to easily access the store, but this was the only exception in the altering options during the first 4 weeks.

  11. The fact that the majority of the study participants who remained in the study were seniors may contribute to their flexibilities with time, when compared to their younger counterparts.

Abbreviations

AFN:

Alternative food network

CSA:

Community supported agriculture

EBT:

Electronic Benefits Transfer

HMF:

Hollygrove Market and Farm

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Acknowledgments

Authors thank Melissa Moss, Sarah Denson, Sarah Sklaw, Tyler Minick, Jennifer Mirman, who assisted in conducting the free produce program in Hollygrove neighborhood, as well as Hollygrove Market and Farm for collaborating with us on the project. We thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions for improving the manuscript. We also thank the Center for Public Service at Tulane University for providing funding for the project through the Community-based Research Program grant.

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  1. Department of Sociology, Tulane University, 220 Newcomb Hall, New Orleans, LA, 70118, USA

    Yuki Kato & Laura McKinney

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  1. Yuki Kato
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Correspondence to Yuki Kato.

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Kato, Y., McKinney, L. Bringing food desert residents to an alternative food market: a semi-experimental study of impediments to food access. Agric Hum Values 32, 215–227 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-014-9541-3

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