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Food Justice & Food Access: A Literary Review

  • adivamittal9
  • Jul 26
  • 3 min read

Background

During the mid-20th century, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and private underwriters codified institutional disinvestment through redlining, using explicit maps that marked Black, brown, and immigrant neighborhoods as "hazardous" risks to choke out capital (outlined in red). This was expanded as Robert Moses’s highway expansions went directly through places like the South Bronx, which isolated communities into high-pollution corridors choked by freight traffic and heavy industry. Furthermore, the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) flooded Mexican agricultural markets with heavily subsidized U.S. corn. This completely decimated independent agrarian economies in indiginous communities like Oaxaca, and effectively forced generations of small-scale indigenous farmers off their sovereign lands and pushing them to migrate to the United States.

In the South Bronx, these dual forces are especially apparent. Cut off from the massive food wealth of the nearby Hunts Point wholesale market, the community has long faced structural food deprivation. In response, the family behind the Oaxacan restaurant La Morada partnered with the Bronx Land Trust and the design nonprofit Territorial Empathy to launch H.earth. By reviving the historic Bruckner Mott Haven Community Garden (which sits literally tucked beneath an elevated highway) they are actively seeking to reclaim the space wasted by poor urban planning.



Introduction of the Literature

This review synthesizes frontline interviews, community archives, and localized agricultural data to analyze how food networks can transition from crisis management to permanent survival. Today, we examine Karen Washington’s seminal critique of institutional disinvestment, a New School case study documenting the grassroots relief infrastructure of La Morada in NYC, and Devita Davison’s TEDx talk on the scalable economic frameworks of urban farming in Detroit.


Literature, read for yourself!:

My Thoughts

The South Bronx and Karen Washington literature show the vital role of grassroots activism and action. However, true mutual aid models are grounds for serious questioning regarding fiscal durability in the long term. These initiatives are ideal during crisis, as exemplified by the La Morada family in response to COVID-19, but they rely heavily on volunteer labor and temporary philanthropy. As Angeles notes in Archives in Common, "grants and the school year also have cycles...grants end." For an urban food system to achieve sustainability, it is imperative is possesses the economic resilience that can outlast charity cycles or compassion spikes during crisis. What happens when the situation doesn't have as much gravitas in the public eye anymore?

The New School article documents the incredible relief provided by La Morada. Yet, at the same time, it also notes the vulnerability of relying on temporary state programs like the USDA's Farmers to Families Food Box program, which ended all of a sudden. Karen Washington offers a path forward using market-driven solutions by calling for direct capital incorporation in her Ted Talk.She emphasized that low-income areas require investment, homeownership, and financial literacy to thrive.

The Detroit text provides a layout for this capital-centric approach. More specifically, the city's Grown in Detroit cooperative brings together 70 small-scale farmers who pool resources and sell their produce in markets. Most notably the farmers keep 100 percent of their proceeds.

This model is a beautiful example of bridging social equity with the ideal operational efficiency. It lowers barriers for excluded residents while building efficient local supply chains. To eradicate what Washington calls " the food apartheid" society's goal must shift from managing poverty to building economic self-determination. Ultimately, we must help farmers turn into self-sustaining market competitors who generate the real revenue to reinvest in their community.

 
 
 

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