Representatives of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Delta Regional Authority (DRA) and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (USDA) joined members of ASEEDS to create a long-term plan for “food justice.”
According to Romona Taylor Williams, who is the project lead of Achieving Sustainability through Education and Economic Development Solutions (ASEEDS), described true food justice as when a community has access to nutritious foods that aren’t saturated with chemicals.
“It is important that this community has the same resources available to it” as the communities that surround it, Romona said. She gave Grenada as an example of the type of food economy that she would like to see in Duck Hill.
Williams said the goals of ASEEDS and its partners were many-sided. Having healthy food available may relieve health problems in the typical ways—reducing obesity and malnutrition—but having healthy food sources in closer range can also help the environment, which in turn helps human health.
Williams visualized a future community with fewer respiratory issues due to the outputs from vehicles that are driving dozens of miles for groceries.
Ebony Walden, a facilitator on the technical assistance team for Local Food Local Places (LFLP), said the group wanted to spend Thursday and Friday “providing a framework” and instilling “best practices.” Even after the federal agency representatives have returned to their offices, Duck Hill should be equipped to move forward, she said.
Jason Esvie, who works as a principal planner, said he hoped that the workshop would “engage and empower the community,” just as it set out to do. Esvie said that in the nearly 35 workshops he’s done throughout the country, he’s learned that “the biggest benefit is coming together and figuring out how to move forward.”
Duck Hill is one of 13 communities selected as a recipient of the Local Food, Local Places technical assistance grant. Eighty communities total were competing for the spot.
Williams thanked Congressman Bennie Thompson and other elected officials who had given their support to these kinds of initiatives. Al White was also recognized for his work on these projects.
Esvie said the goal is to help rural communities with issues related to poverty, infrastructure, lack of resources, access to healthcare and jobs.
Williams reminded the crowd that “poor people don’t want to be poor.” The question is “what can we do to alleviate that poverty?” She also warned that the Mississippi Delta needed all of its counties to be economically stable if the region truly desires to move forward. It is not enough if only a few Delta counties are thriving, she said.
Alan Steinbeck of 3TP Ventures said that small communities needed to be intentional about how they used resources. As an urban planner and community developer, Steinbeck specializes in the economic and community development of towns just like Duck Hill all over the U.S. He suggested that even if the town could not attract national retailers, Duck Hill could try starting their own locally owned grocery stores.
The conference was just a small part of the broader efforts of ASEEDS and LFLP. There were three conference calls leading up to the meetings and there will be three more now that the conference has ended. Action items developed at last week’s workshops could potentially receive funding for implementation from the DRA.
