By Chinyere Osuala

The brook that ran down the side of The Farm at Miller’s Crossing was peaceful. All one heard were the sounds of the water feeding into the Hudson River, the kids’ chatter and giggles as they played in the water, and Geraldine Edwards’ explanation of why she could not afford food.

“I started going to the pantry because of the economy and I needed to make ends meet,” Edwards, who works nights for UPS, said. “So one woman was telling me that they have a pantry [in the neighborhood] and they give you food. So I started to go there every Monday.”

Curious kids from the Just Food group from New York City observe a plant in one of the greenhouses on the Farm at Miller's Crossing in Hudson, N.Y.

The light peeked its way through the tree that she was leaning on so that Edwards could get her balance in the cool, sandy stream that had a bottom of slippery rocks. The back of her black t-shirt and black shorts was wet because she had fallen into the water. Beads of sweat sat on top of her brown skin and streaks of gray ran their way through her short, thinning hair.

She was enjoying the farm that sends her pantry in Long Island City fresh food every week.

“Fruits are very expensive. And people talk about how we don’t eat properly; we don’t get nutritious food… We can’t afford it! We can’t afford vegetables and things we should be eating. [And this program] gives us the opportunity to eat nutritiously.”

Just Food, a non-profit organization that advocates a just and sustainable food system in New York City, hosted a site visit on Tuesday to the Farm at Miller’s Crossing in Hudson, N.Y. to bring staff, volunteers, and clients of inner-city emergency food organizations in touch with the farms that provide them with fresh fruits and vegetables, weekly, through Just Food’s Fresh Food For All Program.

The program, along with Local Produce Link, connects food pantries and soup kitchens in the five boroughs with farmers in the New York region. Local Produce Link, a joint partnership among Just Food, United Way NYC and the Hunger Prevention and Nutrition Assistance Program (HPNAP) of the NYS Department of Health, started in 2001 with five emergency food providers in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn and one regional farm. Today, the programs consist of 35 emergency food providers throughout the five boroughs and two to three regional farms. And the numbers are growing.

“There’s an increasing demand for locally grown food and food that’s really fresh,” Abby Youngblood, the Fresh Food for All program coordinator, said. “This year we had about 60 applications from food pantries and soup kitchens that were interested in the program and we had about 10 spots open.”

Despite the small number of pantries in the city that participate in this program, Fresh Food For All helps to alleviate the problem of the lack of availability of fresh foods in inner-city neighborhoods. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that 2 million New Yorkers—11 percent of the city populace—do not have enough money to meet their basic nutritional needs. Most people say that a major obstacle to obtaining fresh and nutritious food is the high cost of fruits and vegetables.

“For people who are relying on emergency food, fresh fruits and vegetables are the things they can least afford,” Stacey McCarthy, a nutritionist with the United Way of NYC said.  “If you’re strapped for money and you need to rely on emergency food, vegetables are going to be the last thing you would buy.”

Mireille Massac, Public Relations coordinator for Child Development Support Corporation, a multi-service, non-profit organization with a food pantry in central Brooklyn, N.Y., said that her organization began participating in the Fresh Food for All program this year and was willing to send her staff all the way to Queens, N.Y. to pick up the fresh food delivered to the program’s satellite locations.

“My clients tell me that they have never, ever in their lives seen vegetables as fresh as the ones that we’re getting from [this] farm,” Massac said as the rest of the group joined us near the stream. “They won’t even go near some of the vegetables because they do not know what they are.”

The lack of supermarkets in the inner-city area does not help the situation as the proliferation of bodegas that do not have the space nor the funds to sell fresh food don’t give local area residents a nearby place to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables.

“In terms of options in the community, I know that our local bodega serves bananas but they’re 35 to 55 cents per banana and usually the bananas are not good-looking bananas,” Massac said. “They serve apples and they are 55 to 75 cents per apple and they’re not the greatest-looking apples. They have onions of course and lemons and that’s about it.  And in terms of the major supermarket we have on the block, those vegetables are expensive. So I could see that, if I were in my clients’ position, I would not choose fresh when I could get four cans for the same price as a pound of fresh food.”

Hence, with the Fresh Food for All program and Local Produce Link, more people in the City are able to have access to better foods. However, the program does not only benefit the consumer, it also benefits the producers, or the farmers, that are able to have a direct market for their foods and put some money in their pockets.

Chris Cashen, the owner of the Farm at Miller’s Crossing in Hudson, N.Y. which grows only organic food, said that their partnership with Just Food is a wonderful deal for him and his family.

It’s a great arrangement for the farmer because they get paid upfront,” Cashen said of the program and Community Supported Agriculture, or CSAs, which the program stems from. “They know what they are growing and the people they are growing for. They get an idea of what they’re going to provide for people. So the planning part for someone that is trying to grow something and sell it is a lot easier than just trying to figure out what the marketplace is going to want and try to sell it all when it’s ready.”

The increasing amount of emergency food providers requesting fresh food is part of a larger movement gaining ground in New York City, the Food Justice movement, which Just Food spearheads. Not only is the idea of locally grown food and CSAs a big part of it, but there are Urban Farms, people growing livestock, such as chicken coops, in the city, advocates pushing for locally grown foods in school lunchrooms, and food education.

“We do cooking demonstrations at the food pantries,” Youngblood said. “We provide our food pantry staff and volunteers with, what we call our Produce Binder, which has each of the vegetables that they might get from the farm. It has 1 or 2 or even 3 pages on each of the vegetables that tell how you store this vegetable, what is it, what you do with it and some recipes for each vegetable.”

“Most of the time, when we have the vegetables, we are educating the clients about the vegetables,” Massac said, while the group was playing with one of the horses on the farm.  “So the education piece is a vital part of the program.”

Carly Hutchinson, a volunteer at Just Food and a PhD candidate at Columbia University studying Just Food and its impact on the Food Justice movement in New York City, accompanied us on the trip and said that she believes that this is the beginning of a movement.

“Some people are joining a local CSA because there isn’t anywhere to buy fresh food in their neighborhood,” Hutchinson said. “Or they may want to do this to support a local farm like this farm. Others just need to have healthy food at an affordable rate. Then there are those that want to grow their own food and are able to grow a substantial amount of food in an urban environment that they provide food to markets. People are even starting to grow their own chicken and eggs.”

She noted the lack of garden area in the City. “50 years ago, everyone had a little backyard or outside garden. Almost nobody does now and its interesting to see that all changing,” Hutchinson said. “People are experiencing so many health issues around having access to food, quality healthy food, that it has really become a matter of life and death. I really do think it’s the beginning of a movement”

But what Food Justice does for people on an individual level may be all the drive politicians need to take notice of the whole movement.

“I just feel that bringing something to a community food pantry that is normally considered an exclusive item like organic fresh produce somehow makes people feel special. [They think] ‘These people who are serving me, respect me enough to bring this to me,’” Massac said.

And as Edwards enjoyed the quiet of the farm near the brook before she goes back to her home in Long Island City, she spoke on how the Fresh Food for All program helps her.

“You get to feed your children and yourself. It’s nutritious; this gives us the opportunity to eat nutritious foods that we can’t afford. It’s wonderful.”

Chinyere Osuala is a recent graduate of New York University and will be attending Law school next fall.