Fertile Mississippi Delta Region a 'Food Desert'?

by Jennifer Lawinski, Posted Jul 27th 2010 @ 4:00PM

Despite living on some of the most fertile soil in the country, some residents of the Mississippi Delta have trouble finding fresh produce.

A U.S. Department of Agriculture study on "food deserts" -- where fast food, convenience stores and liquor stores dominate the landscape and fresh fruits and vegetables are hard to find -- found that in Leflore County, Ms., nearly 12,000 low-income households are more than a mile from a grocery store, the Associated Press reported.

The county's adult obesity rate, at 38.6 percent, mirrors its poverty rate at 38.8 percent, the AP article also reported.

"The biggest concern I'm hearing is that our citizens tremendously need a grocery store," Wayne Self, president of the Leflore County Board of Supervisors, told the AP. "If that's what the citizens want, then that's what I am going to fight for."

Self told the AP he was looking into bringing a farmers' market to downtown Itta Bena, Miss., a town of about 1,000 people, and that its population could support a grocery store. The nearest grocery store is seven miles away, at Wal-Mart in Greenwood, MS.

A lot of elderly residents don't have cars, Self said, and many can't afford to pay someone to drive them to the Wal-Mart.

"You can't always get to the store, but you got to eat," John L. Jurney, a 30-year Itta Bena resident said of getting to Greenwood to go food shopping. But even those stores, he said, don't have everything he needs.

"There's certain things you need to eat that you just can't get here," he told the AP. "You get tired of cold cuts all the time. I know I do."

Dr. Anita Batman, a Greenwood family practice physician and former public health adviser to the U.S. Surgeon General, told the AP that it's ironic that people lack nutritious foods in an area with the "best topsoil in the world."

"We could be a wonderful breadbasket. We would not need to import foreign produce," Batman was quoted as saying. "In fact, with a quick-freeze plant, we could feed healthy food to a waiting market, especially in urban areas. Can you imagine a Delta line of organic vegetables? It is a marketer's delight."

Filed Under: Food Politics
Tags: farmers markets, food deserts, greenwood mississippi, mississippi delta, wal-mart

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

7-28-2010 @12:15PM Anthonie said... That's what happens when you live in the middle of nowhere. They have to travel so far to the grocery store, because its not economically feasible to have more grocery stores in a sparsely populated area. Its up to the residents in these small towns to create a farmer's market or a small independent grocery store to serve the needs of their residents. There is nothing to "fight" for, they just need to do some thing for themselves and find solutions to there problems.
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7-29-2010 @8:38PM Diane said... It's ALL cotton farms there. So Monsanto is getting rich. This area has been poor for years, and much of the population is older and unable to work the land in the way that would be required.

Seeing as how Spielberg is there filming a movie right now, perhaps the Hollywood types could bring some attention to an area that's "ripe" for some younger people to move to the area and start some veggie farms.

There are many more complexities in any area than simply "the residents need to take care of it". If you understood the dynamics of this area, you would see that it's not quite as black and white as that, no pun intended.

You're on the right track; localization of food supplies is a much more secure way of growing food. Unfortunately, the US has pushed the centralization of food supply, making it even more precarious, and we've all bought into it. But localization requires many more people working the land instead of making a fortune sitting in a cubicle pushing paper.

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