May 2: Oakland’s Fight for Food Justice talk at Oakland Museum (free)

[Guest guest]

May 2: Oakland's Fight for Food Justice

Moderated by Chef Robert Dorsey (of the new café at the Oakland Museum of

Califonia, Blue Oak), this conversation will highlight the struggle for food

access in Oakland and introduce local leaders providing healthy and sustainable

food to urban communities. Panelists include: Brahm Ahmadi, People's Community

Market; Barbara Finnin, City Slicker Farms; Eric Holt-Giménez, Food First; and

Keba Konte, Kijiji Grows. The panel will be followed by a tour of OMCA's grounds

with Oakland-based Landscape Architect Walter Hood. The event is free, runs from

10am - 12 pm, and is part of the museum's opening celebration weekend.

Location:

Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St, Oakland, CA USA

http://www.foodfirst.org/node/2898

 

Background info at http://oaklandnorth.net/few-food-choices/ :

Anyone who has shopped for food in a poor urban neighborhood, in Oakland or

elsewhere, knows how it goes: Twenty varieties of malt liquor, potato chips, and

frozen burritos and one bruised-up, waxy apple. Maybe a half-peeled onion. It's

so common that it's almost a fact of life in America. Unhealthy food is as

intrinsic to poor communities of color as are midnight gunshots and Newport

cigarette billboard ads.

It is easier to stay drunk than it is to eat, says East Oakland resident Gregory

Higgins when asked about the food choices in his community.

In Oakland, this fact is most evident when comparing the flatlands to the hills,

two regions divided by the I-580 corridor and income, with mostly poor people of

color living in the flatlands.These disparities in food access—sometimes

referred to as " food apartheid " by community advocates— are the result of

complex policy decisions and economic development trends, not just the fact that

some can simply afford better food than others.

Shopping and eating healthy requires access to choices. But in Oakland, poor

residents, especially in the flatlands, are hardly ever given the choice.

In the flatlands, where the median household income is $32,000, there's an

average of one supermarket per 93,126 residents, according to a 2009 report by

the Hope Collaborative, an Oakland-based organization focusing on environmental

health and food policy issues. The same report found that in the Oakland Hills,

where the median household income is over $58,000, there's an average of one

supermarket per 13,778 residents.