Farm Fresh Choice Brings Organic Nutrition to West Berkeley

Farm Fresh Choice Brings
Organic Nutrition to West Berkeley

By Liam O’Donoghue

Stevie just moved to California from Louisiana a few weeks ago, and it is his first day at a new job. His teacher at Berkeley Alternative High had told him about Farm Fresh Choice, a group that brings fruits and vegetables from the Farmers’ Market downtown to afterschool programs in low income neighborhoods; she said they needed help. It is November, so there is a chill in the air, and the sun is starting to go down even though it’s only 4 pm, but he likes being outside and he could use the extra money.

The supervisor, Carina, is telling him all about the tables full of cold season produce that he and the other worker, Gerardo, just unloaded from the van. She tells them how to identify persimmons and Asian pears and cilantro, how to weigh it, how much to charge for it, even how to cook it. As he bags up a bunch of bok choy for one of the handful of eager customers clustered outside the BAHIA (Bay Area Hispano Institute for Advancement) school at the corner of 8th and Virginia in West Berkeley, Carina stacks paletts of fresh eggs and tells him what Farm Fresh Choice is all about.

“We’re not a business,” she says. “We just want to get these vegetables to the people. We’ll usually stay until everything’s gone, but that’s not a problem, because at the end, we can start giving discounts.”

Stevie adds the bok choy to the rest of the groceries on a calculator. The elderly woman across the table searches her purse, but comes up 75 cents short. “That’s ok, Fran can just pay us the rest next week,” Carina says and strikes up a conversation with the next shopper in line. Stevie smiles and hands over the bag.

In the early ‘80s, a loose collection of farmers’ markets started popping up in Berkeley school yards. These were mostly small farmers leading a new movement towards organic, ecologically-sustainable practices and they were facing a lot of pressure to sell their land to big agribusiness firms. Things were shaky at first, but customers quickly took to the better quality of food coming from these organic farms, and the idea of building direct relationships between local consumers and regional producers caught on. Over the past 20 years, organic farming has grown from a niche market to a multi-billion dollar industry and farmers' markets thrive from coast to coast. Now, during the prime harvest season, Berkeley’s farmers’ markets can attract up to 40 vendors and crowds of 2500. But until Farm Fresh Choice was established with a state grant secured by members of the Berkeley Food Council three years ago, few of these benefits were reaching Berkeley’s communities of color.

Like many low-income areas, well-stocked grocery stores are lacking in West Berkeley, forcing many residents to rely on corner shops and liquor stores for their sustenance. Also, fresh, organic produce, primarily stocked at more high-end grocers is typically costlier than mass-produced canned or frozen food. The founders of Farm Fresh Choice made it a priority to address both of these obstacles preventing less-affluent folks from eating healthy by bringing the food straight to the community. They now have three markets set up at various after-school programs and subsidize the food through grants in order to sell the groceries at rock-bottom discounts. FFC even accepts food stamps and EBT cards.

According to Beatrice Leyva-Cutler, the BAHIA school’s executive director, the community response has been overwhelmingly positive, with 75 regular members gathering at the mural-covered courtyard outside of her school every week, rain or shine, to stock up. Noting the current childhood obesity epidemic and increased numbers of type 2 diabetes, especially in the Latino and African-American communities, Beatrice also praised the educational benefits of promoting FFC’s health conscious mission among her students. “I think more schools should have access to these types of programs instead of relying on chips and soda,” she said. “We try to plant the seed early that it’s important what you put in your body, so our kids know about the effects of too much sugar or caffeine.”

But the education doesn’t stop at nutritional facts and cooking tips. Every few months Carina and the other FFC workers bring families from West Berkeley to local farms owned by people like Juan Salinas and Maria Inez to build the urban-rural connection necessary to promote sustainable farming. “All these farms are within 3 hours of Berkeley,” Carina said, and handed Gerardo the last bag of fresh apples from the van, “and a lot of the FFC member families, like Gerardo’s, who still have relatives who are farmers down in Mexico, have an agricultural heritage. So bringing people from West Berkeley out to the farms is a way to connect the cultures and show people where their food is really coming from, so they can appreciate it more.”