Brahm Ahmadi wants to open a grocery store in West Oakland. But not just any old store: one that hires local residents and pays them a decent wage with benefits; one that stocks healthy, affordable and ethnically appropriate foods; and one that is financially sustainable.
The trouble is, to do that will take at least two to three years between getting the financing in place, signing a lease, building out the store, setting up a supply chain and hiring staff. That's time that city and state officials, under pressure to address the problem of urban food deserts—pockets of urban areas that have no access to fresh food—aren’t inclined to spend.
The Obama Administration has shone a light on the food desert issue with the Healthy Food Financing initiative, a program announced this February as part of the proposed 2011 federal budget this February, which would devote $400 million to funding grocery stores in low-income and rural areas. While the initiative is intended to fund a variety of food options, including grocery stores, community-supported agriculture (CSAs) and farmers’ markets, larger corporate stores, like Kroger’s or Walmart, are poised to take more advantage of this public help than independent efforts, as there are no requirements in the funding that would preclude them, and they can get stores up and running faster.
Meanwhile, nonprofits and food access activists are pushing for more farmer's markets or urban farms as the solution.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: The Bay Citizen (San Francisco, CA).
Photo courtesy of People's Grocery