WEBVTT 00:00:02.000 --> 00:00:05.000 [Genna Campain] Hello everyone, my name is Genna Campain. 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:08.000 I am an undergraduate student at UTD 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:12.000 and today I'm going to be talking to you about food deserts in Dallas. 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:15.000 So just a quick overview: 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:19.000 First, I'll define food deserts and the problems that are faced 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:22.000 by Dallas residents who are currently living in food deserts. 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:25.000 Then, I'll discuss the implications of food deserts. 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:30.000 Then, I will identify the Sustainable Development Goals that are related to food deserts. 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:36.000 As you know, the focus of Digital Earth Week is looking at different topics 00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:38.000 that relate to the Sustainable Development Goals. 00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:43.000 This will give you an idea of why we should start 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:45.000 to resolve the issues of food deserts. 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:49.000 Then I will explore the current policies and community projects 00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:54.000 that are in place that aim to resolve the problem. 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:57.000 So first, what are food deserts? 00:00:57.000 --> 00:01:02.000 The USDA definition is they are areas with low income populations 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:07.000 that also are more than a mile away from the nearest grocery store. 00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:10.000 So basically this means that residents of food deserts 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:16.000 are more likely to not have access to a car or to easy transportation, 00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:21.000 and then they also cannot access grocery stores easily 00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:27.000 because most people are not able to go walk a mile to the grocery store 00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:30.000 and bring all of their groceries back on foot. 00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:35.000 And so this ends up that people living in food deserts 00:01:35.000 --> 00:01:39.000 have very limited healthy, fresh, or affordable food options 00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:42.000 because they tend to have to get their food 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:46.000 from restaurants or from gas stations or from corner stores. 00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:54.000 As you can see from these pictures and experience with these types of stores, 00:01:54.000 --> 00:01:56.000 a lot of time they don't have the healthiest food 00:01:56.000 --> 00:01:58.000 or they don't have produce. 00:01:58.000 --> 00:02:00.000 So it can end up being a big problem. 00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:08.000 In Dallas, there are food deserts spread throughout the city, 00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:12.000 but an area that's really been focused on lately is Southeast Dallas, 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:18.000 because there tend to be a lot of low-income minority groups in Southeast Dallas. 00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:27.000 So that's the focus of a lot of policy coming out of the Dallas City Council 00:02:27.000 --> 00:02:30.000 and coming out of other organizations. 00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:35.000 So the problem in Dallas specifically is that 00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:39.000 many neighborhoods in Southeast Dallas are food deserts as you just saw in that map. 00:02:39.000 --> 00:02:43.000 And as I said, these neighborhoods also include 00:02:43.000 --> 00:02:47.000 low-income and minority populations at much higher rates 00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:49.000 than are living elsewhere in the city. 00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:54.000 And then they also have higher rates of diabetes and heart disease 00:02:54.000 --> 00:02:56.000 for mortality from those diseases. 00:02:56.000 --> 00:03:02.500 And then this is commonly because food desert residents 00:03:02.500 --> 00:03:05.000 have less access to healthy foods. 00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:12.000 So this is just to give you a clear idea 00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:15.000 of what exactly constitutes a healthy diet. 00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:19.000 This is the USDA Public Health Recommendation. 00:03:19.000 --> 00:03:27.000 So basically all of these foods as you can see ... are very ... 00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:30.000 It's very produce-heavy, it's focused on whole grains, 00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:34.000 unprocessed foods, as much as possible. 00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:37.500 And as you probably have experienced at a gas station, 00:03:37.500 --> 00:03:40.000 most of these foods are not sold there, 00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:45.000 so it's very hard to eat as is recommended for a healthy diet 00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:49.000 if you are living in a food desert and cannot access a grocery store. 00:03:49.000 --> 00:03:56.500 The first Sustainable Development Goal that food deserts policy should target 00:03:56.500 --> 00:03:58.000 is Good Health and Well-Being, 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:02.000 because healthy food is essential for a healthy lifestyle. 00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:06.000 People who cannot access grocery stores are less able, 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:09.000 and therefore less likely, to make healthy eating choices. 00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:15.000 This means that we cannot reach our Good Health and Well-Being goal 00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:18.000 if we don't focus on giving people access 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:21.000 to the healthy foods they need for a healthy diet. 00:04:23.000 --> 00:04:27.000 The 2nd Sustainable Development Goal that this relates to is Reduced Inequalities. 00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:32.000 Food Deserts cause unequal access to healthy food 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:33.000 and the benefits of a nutritious diet. 00:04:33.000 --> 00:04:37.000 They mean that people who live in certain areas of the city 00:04:37.000 --> 00:04:41.000 or people who have low income within those areas 00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:46.000 are not able to access healthy food, and therefore eat a healthy diet. 00:04:46.000 --> 00:04:50.000 And this means those people are more likely to have 00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:53.500 obesity-related diseases such as diabetes or heart disease. 00:04:53.500 --> 00:04:58.000 And these diseases can be a significant financial burden, 00:04:58.000 --> 00:05:02.000 so then you're taking a population that already tends to be low income 00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:06.000 and adding in a lot of health problems, that can be very expensive. 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:11.000 That just tends to perpetuate inequality instead of reducing it. 00:05:13.000 --> 00:05:18.000 Dallas has taken a lot of approaches to addressing the food desert problem. 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:24.000 Food deserts tend to be a very complicated issue to deal with. 00:05:24.000 --> 00:05:30.000 The more local approaches you can have, probably the better. 00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:34.000 First they've looked at grocery store recruitment, 00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:38.000 basically giving stores money or tax breaks 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:42.000 to come into areas that don't have grocery stores, 00:05:42.000 --> 00:05:47.000 and this is had some success, hasn't been overly successful 00:05:47.000 --> 00:05:53.000 because food deserts tend to be very underdeveloped in terms of other retail, 00:05:53.000 --> 00:05:58.000 so a lot of grocery stores are very hesitant to open stores. 00:05:58.000 --> 00:06:04.000 And then the second option is supporting community gardens and farmers markets. 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:07.500 If you've ever been to the Dallas Farmers Market 00:06:07.500 --> 00:06:12.000 or been to the community garden in Deep Ellum, 00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:15.000 they're doing well. A lot of people show up. 00:06:15.000 --> 00:06:17.000 The only problem is it's very limited 00:06:17.000 --> 00:06:21.000 to people who can either work in the community garden 00:06:21.000 --> 00:06:24.000 or can afford food from the Farmers Market. 00:06:24.000 --> 00:06:30.000 These are a good community measure for trying to resolve the problem, 00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:35.000 but there are definitely some larger societal issues 00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:41.000 that we'll need to address along with providing these local options for healthy food. 00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:50.000 The city helps local food producers receive funding from federal programs. 00:06:50.000 --> 00:06:56.000 So this incentivizes people to produce food locally and keep it local. 00:06:56.000 --> 00:06:59.000 And it's trying to make it to where 00:06:59.000 --> 00:07:03.000 we don't have to rely on big grocery stores to get produce. 00:07:03.000 --> 00:07:08.000 Instead we can get produce from local producers. 00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:14.000 One alternative solution that other groups have explored are mobile grocery stores. 00:07:14.000 --> 00:07:18.000 Catholic Charities Dallas and the North Texas Food Bank 00:07:18.000 --> 00:07:22.000 have just started a program where they offer mobile grocery options 00:07:22.000 --> 00:07:24.000 to residents of Dallas food deserts, 00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:27.000 which would look like what you see in the bottom picture. 00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:32.000 And then there was a project going on for a while at UNT Dallas 00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:34.500 where they were working on converting a DART bus 00:07:34.500 --> 00:07:36.000 into a mobile grocery store. 00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:39.000 So if this could be done on a large scale, 00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:43.000 that might be a good option, and these have been implemented 00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:46.000 in other major cities with food desert issues, like Chicago, 00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:49.000 and they've seen some success. 00:07:49.000 --> 00:07:55.000 So that could be one option for giving people more access to healthy food. 00:07:55.000 --> 00:08:00.000 The second option is just commercial urban agriculture. 00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:03.000 So instead of necessarily community gardens, 00:08:03.000 --> 00:08:09.500 there are privately owned farms that grow food in Southeast Dallas 00:08:09.500 --> 00:08:12.000 and sell the food there. 00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:14.000 Big Tex Urban Farms is a big one. 00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:17.000 If you've been to the State Fair, you might have seen them. 00:08:17.000 --> 00:08:19.000 They grow food for South Dallas residents 00:08:19.000 --> 00:08:24.000 and then Bonton Farms also grows produce and animal products 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:27.000 and they make them available to South Dallas residents. 00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:32.000 So that's all I have. 00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:37.000 Thank you for coming to Digital Earth Weekend and supporting Sustainability. 00:08:37.000 --> 00:08:42.000 If you are interested in learning more about food deserts, 00:08:42.000 --> 00:08:44.000 there are lots of great resources on the web. 00:08:47.000 --> 00:08:49.000 Thanks for listening.