The South Bronx and the Urban Food
Systems Conundrum
The Case for a Food Systems Curriculum
The Urban Food Systems Challenge
While retail availability of wholesome and fresh food is fairly
widespread in New York City, large swaths of the boroughs are
underserved by traditional supermarkets and green grocers. At the
same time, food wholesaling and manufacturing are increasingly
clustered in some of the self-same neighborhoods that have been
classified as “food deserts” by the Department of City Planning. So
while the wholesale food sector continues to expand in the South
Bronx and places like it, consumer access to the very food prepared,
packaged, and wholesaled there has not followed suit. These
circumstances present both an abiding irony and a complex
challenge for urban communities
The Urban Food Opportunity for Hostos:
Proposed Pathways
• Become a leader in workforce development for the NYC
food industry
• Develop expertise and intellectual leadership in urban food
systems
• Closely align institutional objectives with community
revitalization goals in the areas of food access and equity
• Connect urban food systems curriculum to health care
reform’s emphasis on prevention of diet-mediated disease
Timeliness and Context
•The Hunts Point Terminal Market Cooperative opened in 1967 and is
currently negotiating with City and State Authorities for a new $ 400 million
home inside the Food Distribution Center
• The Terminal Market was joined by the Coop Market (meat & dairy
wholesalers) in 1974 and the Fulton Fishmarket in 2003, making Hunts Point
the world’s largest food distribution center
The debate over the planned relocation of an on-line grocery delivery
service to the Harlem River Yards in Port Morris has emerged as a classic
policy struggle between the borough’s boosters of commercial development
and its proponents of social equity and has also underscored the great and
growing role of the food sector in The Bronx
•
Timeliness and Context, Cont’d
•Ongoing public health scholarship on the prevalence of diet-mediated
disease in underserved communities lends urgency to the imperative of
diversifying the local food economy and ensuring equitable access to fresh
and wholesome food
• Rare policy alignment among City, State, and Federal decision-makers
bolsters case-making by food equity advocates about the centrality of
incentivizing grocers and supermarket operators to locate in underserved
areas
Excerpted Interviews with Borough
Stakeholders on Opportunities for Hostos
in the Bronx Food Vertical
The recommendations below are derived from conversations with Mario Bodden,
Morrisania Revitalization Corporation; Kelly Moltzen, Institute for Family Health; Angela
Fernandez, Office of Congressman Jose E. Serrano; Jessica Clemente, Nos Quedamos; and
Heidi Hynes, La Canasta & The Mary Mitchell Center; and George Maroulis, General
Manager, The New Fulton Fishmarket.
• Hostos should develop very practical food systems curriculum based loosely on NYU’s
Food Studies Department (Moltzen)
• Hostos should create healthy bodega training and food handling certification initiatives
for bodega operators—a “Bodegueros’ Institute” (Bodden)
• Hostos should design and implement incentives program for Hostos students and staff to
shop at “healthy bodegas” run by graduates of training program (Moltzen)
• Hostos should provide training for “Greencart” operators and storage for NYC greencarts
(Hynes)
• Hostos should develop culinary arts workforce development center/industrial (Bodden)
Excerpted Interviews, Cont’d
• Hostos should develop six month “model bodega” exhibit in association with the National
Bodega Federation at Longwood Gallery (Moltzen)
• Hostos should launch entrepreneurship & healthy food training program for restaurateurs,
in conjunction with the Restaurant Opportunities Center (Fernandez)
• Hostos should engage students and staff in an “Adopt a Bodega” project through the NYC
Department of Health (Moltzen)
• Hostos should provide training for Bronx residents to launch and operate “Community
Supported Agriculture” or CSA programs (Moltzen)
• Hostos should advise housing developers with ground floor commercial space on leveraging
retail food activities to improve public health outcomes (Clemente)
• Hostos should partner with the Fulton Fishmarket on workforce development projects to
prepare workers for skilled positions in the Fishmarket, such as fish cutter, and to improve
and diversify the skill sets of current employees (Maroulis)
• Hostos students can provide the energy and new perspectives Fishmarket wholesalers need
to push them “into the 21st Century (Maroulis)
Moving Towards an Integrated Food Systems Strategy: Proposed Nearterm Community Benefit Initiatives
•
Allocate space for a seasonal farmer’s market on Hostos campus; ensure that
farmer’s market is WIC & food stamp-enabled
•
Establish partnerships with Bronx-based buyers cooperatives such as La Canasta and
Corbin Hill Farm CSA to increase year-round access to wholesome food for Hostos
students, staff, and neighbors
•
Raise institutional profile in sector by building partnerships with food access and
food equity organizations and by hosting conferences and special events focused on
food policy
•
Review procurement practices and guidelines with the aim of encouraging local
sourcing of wholesome and healthy foods and produce for food services and vending
machines
Moving Towards an Integrated Food Systems Strategy:
Proposed Credit Curriculum Initiatives
• Implement a Food Studies curriculum to provide training and certification in the
culinary arts as well as liberal arts coursework on challenges of food equity and food
access in urban communities
• Develop and equip test kitchen and culinary training center
• Integrate community nutrition coursework within the Food Studies curriculum
• Integrate public health training and certification programs in nutrition within the
Food Studies curriculum, in an anticipation of Accountable Care Act’s emphasis on
preventive approach to diet-mediated disease
• Design coursework around “Re-Envisioning the Bodega”, with Hostos Food Studies
students designing a model space in conjunction with architecture firm and
determining inventory with assistance from Hostos nutritionists and other experts
in the field
Moving Towards an Integrated Food Systems Strategy:
Proposed Continuing Ed Initiatives
• Partner with New Fulton Fishmarket on training program for fish
cutting, logistics, and food handling
• Establish a “Bodegueros’ Institute” for training and certification of
small grocers in food handling, produce marketing and
merchandizing, and the promotion of healthy eating
• Customize food handling, logistics, and food safety training for
other businesses in the food vertical
Higher Ed, Food Systems and Community Wellness:
Recommendations for Connecting Food and Public Health
• The Accountable Care Act, with its emphasis on prevention of dietmediated disease, can and should inform curricular approaches to Food
Systems studies
• Hostos should expand Community Health Worker (CHW) training and
certification program and incorporate a specialization in community
nutrition
• The college should develop and enhance partnerships with
Bronx Lebanon and other institutions expected to drive demand
for additional CHWs
• The college should strengthen relationship with Montefiore
Medical Center, which is pursuing a capitation approach to
borough-based care and which will require additional CHW’s for
full implementation
• Explore opportunities for expanding dietitian training program in
anticipation of better-resourced prevention strategies
Higher Ed, Food Systems and Community Wellness:
Recommendations for Connecting Food and Public
Health, Cont’d
Long-term opportunities for connecting food and public health at Hostos include:
• Establishing new Wellness Center on campus in partnership with Bronx-based
medical provider
• Additional funding for new FQHC’s is anticipated under ACA
• Wellness Center practices can model ACA’s emphasis on disease
prevention through lifestyle changes and improved diet
• Wellness Center can provide outstanding internship and fellowship
opportunities for Hostos-trained CHWs and other public health workers intraining
• Establish Public Health Training Center
• Called for under ACA, this new program supports training of public health
providers to advance preventative approaches to disease