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Food desert

The New Mexico Mom Growing Political Power From A Community Garden

March 11, 2025 Gwen Frisbie-Fulton, Resilience. , , ,
Alamogordo is a working-class town. Because of its proximity to three military bases, lots of veterans live here. Like many places in New Mexico, housing costs have skyrocketed and rent is taking up a bigger portion of locals’ paychecks, making family’s food purchases—and particularly the quality of food—dwindle. As a result, 16.5% of Otero County’s population is food insecure, higher than both the state and national averages. In the county, 19% of residents live below the poverty line, including 28% of those under age 18 and 13% of those 65 or older. Food is often the first thing a family skimps on when facing tough budgets; you can’t pay half the light bill, but you can cut back on groceries.

Atlanta Turns 7-Acre Vacant Lot Into Largest Free Food Forest In The Country

February 2, 2020 By Dr. Stuart Jeanne Bramhall, The Most Revolutionary Act. , , ,
Instead of developing it into townhouses, the City of Atlanta recently voted to transform a vacant, old, overgrown pecan farm into a food forest. The 7-acre public park will feature fruit-producing trees, shrubs and vines along walking trails, a community vegetable garden and restored native forest and stream-side areas by 2020. The vegetable garden has already been planted alongside preexisting walnut and pecan trees. More than 100 fruit trees have also been planted including figs, apples, plums and peaches.

Small Town Refused Walmart When Last Grocery Store Closed

January 8, 2017 Melissa Hellman, www.yesmagazine.org , , ,
By Melissa Hellman for Yes! Magazine. For two months in 2012, longtime Iola, Kansas, resident Mary Ross trudged through the sweltering heat, waving gnats from her view as she walked door to door with a petition. It was the hottest summer since moving there with her family about 30 years ago, but Ross was determined to gather signatures requesting a grocery store be established in the small rural town of fewer than 6,000 people. Iola had lost its last independent grocery store four years earlier, shortly after the Wal-mart Supercenter—with its own expansive aisles—came to town and drove out all of the competition. “I live in a small town. That was my choice,” she says. But since Iola’s three smaller grocery stores went out of business, she has to drive 8 to 20 miles to find healthy food choices and the specific ingredients for her home-cooked meals.