Alachua County needs local farms, distribution systems for food security

Anna Prizzia
·4 min read
For food security, we need to produce our food locally and have the infrastructure to gather it, process it and move it from place to place.
For food security, we need to produce our food locally and have the infrastructure to gather it, process it and move it from place to place.

When we think about food security, sometimes we think of beautiful ranches and farms extending across our rural areas. Sometimes we think of grocery shelves lined with an astonishing variety of colorful boxes, cans and fresh foods. Both farms and food retailers are important parts of our food system.

How often do we consider "the man behind the curtain" — all the people and steps between the farm and the store? For food security, we need to produce our food locally and have the infrastructure to gather it, process it and move it from place to place.

Our global food system has developed a very efficient process for this. Still, the fragility of this system was felt across our country and our community during the COVID-19 pandemic when supply chains shut down.

Again and again, we have seen the global food system fail when it comes to providing fair pricing to producers, protecting workers, prioritizing people's and the environment's health, and ensuring food safety. By investing in local agriculture and needs for post-harvest handling, aggregation, processing and distribution, we can increase jobs and local food access. By building this infrastructure locally, we can also ensure it lives up to our values for environmental and economic sustainability, humane animal treatment and social justice.

Melissa DeSa, center, the community programs director at Working Food, talks with some local farmers about some to the unique varieties of collards being grown at the University of Florida Field and Fork Garden as part of the Heirloom Collard Project in Gainesville in 2020.
Melissa DeSa, center, the community programs director at Working Food, talks with some local farmers about some to the unique varieties of collards being grown at the University of Florida Field and Fork Garden as part of the Heirloom Collard Project in Gainesville in 2020.

There is a not-so-funny joke in the agricultural world, "What is the last crop a farmer plants? Answer: houses.” Unfortunately, it is too often true. Our farms and ranchlands in Alachua County are under threat. In response, we need to assist our farmers and ranchers in stewarding their land and resources to retain our county’s character and ensure our food security.

Many of us take access to fresh, healthy food for granted, but nearly 14% of Alachua County residents struggle to put food on the table. According to Feeding America, that is 20% higher than the national average.

While the primary way to address this is with living wages and better jobs, food access is also a significant challenge. There is a lack of grocery stores and markets in our rural and low-income areas. Individuals who already work hard to provide for their families have the additional burden of balancing transportation, time and cost with getting nutritious food on the table.

Lest I communicate that the news on food is all doom and gloom, I'm happy to report on some positive steps. Alachua County is beginning a comprehensive inventory of our farmland so we can develop policies and programs to support farms and identify areas where we need to prioritize farmland protection.

This data, along with a renewal of our Wild Spaces, Public Places sales tax, will allow us to work with our agricultural community to purchase easements so farms are not converted to development. It will also help us work with producers to explore how they can not only get paid for the products they yield, but also for making good decisions about managing water, soil, biodiversity and carbon.

Ramon Angeles organizes some of the vegetable items from his Angeles' Farm at his booth during the Grove Street Farmers Market in Gainesville in 2020.
Ramon Angeles organizes some of the vegetable items from his Angeles' Farm at his booth during the Grove Street Farmers Market in Gainesville in 2020.

The ecosystem services we get from sustainable land management on our farms are as valuable to our future as the crops they grow. Additionally, our county is working on several other efforts to increase food security:

• A new farmers market at the Health Department on Wednesdays from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. is increasing access and accepts SNAP benefits

• Work is being done on a healthy market network program that will collaborate with our producers to offer distributed access to fresh food in areas with low access

• We are developing an interactive map to allow our community to lookup local farms, emergency food assistance and food retailers while also giving us the ability to identify gaps in our food system.

• We are developing plans for local meat processing to reduce the bottleneck for our small ranchers to meet market demand

There is also good news nationwide. In 2017, the number of U.S. producers increased by nearly 7%, female producers increased by almost 27%, and young farmers and small farm numbers also increased. As a county, if we want food security, we need to encourage this next generation of ranchers and farmers by collaborating with IFAS and groups like the National Young Farmers Coalition to offer resources, training and links to land for young and beginning producers.

We must also focus on empowering women and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) farmers by confronting the historic injustice intrinsic to our food system and re-orienting agriculture toward equitable outcomes for all people.

Anna Prizzia is an Alachua County commissioner.

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This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Anna Prizzia: Alachua County needs local farms for food security