Washington D.C. area neighborhoods considered "food deserts" will soon have access to fresh fruits and vegetables via a converted school bus "Mobile Market" courtesy of a local non-profit group comprised of nine restaurants. The Neighborhood Restaurant Group's market on wheels will bring healthy food options to communities where a majority of the people living there are at or below the poverty line.

Residents in poor neighborhoods have historically lacked access to fresh fruits and vegetables. To make matters worse, they tend to have the highest percentage of fast-food restaurants, making healthful eating a challenge. 

Now, a new study reveals that bacteria, mold and yeast levels on fresh produce may be higher in low socioeconomic areas. 

Researchers at Drexel University in Philadelphia compared bacteria, yeast and mold levels on identical products sold in six area neighborhoods, three of which had the city’s highest poverty levels. Among the poorest groups, consumers were often forced to depend on small markets that offered less variety in fruits and vegetables. 

The researchers found that ready-to-eat salads and strawberries sold in stores in the poorer neighborhoods had significantly higher counts of microorganisms, yeasts and molds. Cucumbers had higher yeast and mold levels, while watermelon contained more bacteria.

The Science of Rot 

“Food deteriorates when there is microbial growth,” says study coauthor Jennifer Quinlan, PhD, a Drexel professor of nutrition and biology, whose study will be published in next month’s American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 

“Bacterial count is used to determine the quality of the produce, and it was poorer quality—closer to being spoiled,” she says. “Three of the things that had a higher bacteria count—strawberries, ready-to-go salad and fresh-cut watermelon—have been associated with foodborne illnesses.” 

Inferior produce discourages residents from adding fruits and vegetables to their diets, and smaller neighborhood stores may lack the infrastructure to handle produce safely, Dr. Quinlan notes. 

“The food may be of poorer quality to begin with,” she says. “Then, it may be transported to the stores and not be refrigerated properly. 

“Large supermarkets have entire units focused on food safety, refrigeration and sanitation, while a small facility with only one or two people may not have the resources.”

Basic Safety Steps 

Don’t buy fresh-cut produce unless it’s refrigerated at the point of sale. 

In addition, shoppers should thoroughly wash produce, advises Shelley Feist, executive director of the Partnership for Food Safety Education in Arlington, VA. 

“Whole fresh produce should be rinsed under running tap water just before eating, and produce should be kept separate from meat, poultry, raw eggs and fish to avoid cross-contamination,” she says. 

For Your Organic Bookshelf: Ordinary Poverty: A Little Food and Cold Storage

The culprits seem to be physical inactivity, sweetened beverage consumption and skipping breakfast, according to the researchers.

“The observed differences across older versus younger adolescents are consistent with the greater autonomy that comes with increasing age,” the authors write. “Adolescents aged 15 to 17 years versus those aged 12 to 14 years have more opportunities to purchase their own food and determine their own leisure time pursuits and also have more discretionary income with which to act on their preferences. These results suggest that efforts to reduce health disparities in the United States require monitoring of population health, so that emergent disparities and their underlying causes can be detected and addressed at early stages of their development.”

In India, a farm woman pauses to take a drink of water. (FAO photo)

Understanding global farm economics is an important part of organic living. At the dawn of the third millennium, roughly 75% of the world’s 852 million men and women suffering from hunger are found in rural areas and depend on agriculture for survival. Most are landless farmers or have such tiny or unproductive plots of land that they cannot feed their families.

For many of these poor farmers, new development opportunities in rural areas would allow more equitable access to basic land and water resources, while offering an escape from hunger and poverty, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Next week’s International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD), to be held March 7–10 in Brazil, will focus on these problems.

“We have just 10 years to reach 2015—the target date set by the international community to reduce by half the number of hungry people in the world,” says ICARRD Executive Secretary Parviz Koohafkan. “Since the very poorest are landless farmers everywhere, it will not be possible to achieve the Millennium Development Goals unless we find sustainable solutions to the challenge existing in the world's rural areas. It is an appointment we cannot afford to miss.”

Convinced that agrarian reform must be tailored to meet the needs of individual countries—and that there is no magic formula for resolving global land problems—conference organizers aim to foster alliances among governments, small farmers’ organizations, international institutions, donors and civil society to help the world’s poorest people gain better access to basic productive resources.

The conference will explore the following issues and conclude with a final declaration and action plan:

• Policies and experiences that have improved resource access by the poorest people
• Local natural resource planning and management capabilities
• New development opportunities to strengthen rural communities
• Combining concepts like agrarian reform, social justice and sustainable development
• The primary role of food sovereignty and its contribution to more equitable resource access