Food Insecurity Intervention: Athens, Georgia

Food security, which is the term describing reliable access to enough affordable, nutritious food options, is often a result of an array of factors, including poverty, affordable housing, and education. Among the most prominent factors is the access to transportation, or lack thereof. In low-income areas, residents often rely on public transit to visit restaurants or grocery stores. If bus or train routes are poorly planned, don’t run often, or are expensive, residents are unable to count on them. In such situations, they often turn to corner stores or fast food out of convenience, sacrificing freshness and nutritional value. This, combined with a lack of education on the importance of nutrition, creates a dangerous cycle which can perpetuate dangers like diabetes and obesity. Food insecurity is a global issue, but the Athens-Clarke County area is heavily affected due to the high rates of poverty— 2018 data suggests that the Athens-Clarke County poverty rate is 28.35%, more than double the rate for the state of Georgia. Culture in the United States (US), particularly the south, has normalized the frequent consumption of fast food and snacks from gas stations. Due to the prevalence of farms and small food businesses in Athens, I strongly believe that the crisis is solvable with the right amount of action from political, economic, and community angles.

The intervention that I propose is aimed to address the transportation aspect of food insecurity. In semi-rural areas like Athens, where farms are in close proximity to the city, many locals enjoy getting their fresh produce from weekly farmer’s markets, which is a mutually beneficial arrangement because growers get to cut out the middleman and sell directly to the consumer. My proposal is to create a traveling farmer’s market called the Farmers Market Caravan (FMC). It would consist of farmers who agree to spend one day of every two weeks driving to afflicted neighborhoods and offering fresh fruits and vegetables to residents, available for purchase at reasonable prices that are mindful of the circumstances. They load their trucks up with goods and signage, just as they do for normal markets, but instead of spreading their fruits and vegetables across tables and selling from the same location for the day, they line their vehicles up, open the trunks, and sell on a residential street for two-hour periods. Then, they collectively pack up and travel to the next area of the food desert, parking and vending again. By the end, they will have visited five locations. This would take place twice a month, each time over the course of one long day. This would be an economic opportunity for the sellers as well as a massively convenient nutritional opportunity for buyers in neighborhoods on the predetermined driving route. The FMC would be sponsored by the government of Georgia, with tax write-off incentives for participating sellers. The funding would come from the state government, but would be extremely minimal; there would be a need for security, advertising, and management. The sellers would provide the goods, the transportation, and the labor. The resources required are minimal, since farmers often have large vehicles already to transport their goods. The main resources required are promotional materials to raise awareness about the FMC. The Athens Downtown Development Authority could partner with the growers and help raise awareness through schools, explaining nutrition to children and providing them with basic material that they can bring home to their families. Potential downsides would be disruption to certain areas, since pedestrians would be in and around residential roads, as well as backlash from neighborhoods that may feel like they are entitled to qualification for the program.

There are multiple ways through which it could be construed that human rights are infringed. First, this intervention could be seen as favoring the qualifying neighborhoods, while violating the rights of the neighborhoods that are not involved. The right in question is the right to equity. Another possible critical perspective is that this initiative would infringe on the right of free market capitalism to solve its own problem, the problem being accessibility to food. A business could identify the need in the area and satisfy it by opening stores and restaurants. It is important to note that the US largely subscribes to much of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (in the US, the right to health is not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution). This is stated explicitly on US embassy sites. The UN describes the idea that “ Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food…”. Nutrition is an integral part of well-being, both physical and mental, and food deserts take away necessary tools that people need to achieve these to a high standard. The existence of food deserts in state-controlled land is an infringement of this right, and it may be deemed up to the state to tackle the subsequent issues.

The US could be best characterized as a soft liberalist state, where individual rights are largely favored but, under certain circumstances, these can be dismissed in favor of the community. The US often makes public health decisions on the state level instead of federally, and Georgia, a southern state with a republican governor, may be even less likely to infringe individual liberties (while still exemplifying soft liberalism). Governor Brian Kemp is known nation-wide for a very public battle to dismiss the COVID-19 mask mandate during the late summer of 2020. One example of this is the REACH for Wellness program, which works to eliminate health disparities among minority groups by offering free, community-based services. These include physical activity programs and nutrition education classes. The results were undeniably positive: the percentage of adults who are not physically active decreased from 32.6% in 2002 to 30.6% in 2004, for example. This program could be deemed necessary because of strong disparities (mentioned is high smoking rate in the target population), but the state theory of Georgia would dictate that this intervention would only be implicated if extremely necessary. This could be seen as a breach of fairness, considering services that are normally expensive proceed to become available to a certain group free of charge.

This intervention is possible, given the historical evidence and tendencies of Georgia. States that embody soft liberalism can often be caught trying to squeeze issues under the Harm Principle, meaning they can coerce a member of the community into action if their behavior can harm others or if it threatens the preservation of the state. This principle allows certain states to justify extreme action in spite of a doctrine that discourages heavy intervention. Georgia has exemplified this with the States Supporting Familiar Faces (SSFF) Initiative. This intervention aims to improve public safety by mandating that people with mental illness, who are trapped in the cycle of criminal activity and jail, receive adequate treatment and support through local counseling and education. The argument is that their rights are infringed because there is no option of refusal, but since these people are often deemed harmful to others, the resources forced upon them are theoretically necessary for the preservation of the state.

The example for my own suggested intervention is decidedly less extreme than the aforementioned intervention, but, as previously discussed, there are still grounds for a perspective that suggests rights are being infringed. The grounds are still weak enough, and the results of the intervention positive enough, for the Farmers Market Caravan to be declared a positive addition to the vulnerable community of Athens, Georgia.

Works Cited

Callahan, Brenna, and Emily Button. “Georgia Launches States Supporting Familiar Faces Initiative to Improve Outcomes for People Who Have Frequent Contact with Health and Justice Systems.” CSG Justice Center, 18 Aug. 2022, https://csgjusticecenter.org/2022/07/28/georgia-launches-states-supporting-familiar-faces-initiative-to-improve-outcomes-for-people-who-have-frequent-contact-with-health-and-justice-systems/.

Destro, Robert. “United States Remains Committed to Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” U.S. Embassy and Consulates in Brazil, 2019, https://br.usembassy.gov/united-states-remains-committed-to-universal-declaration-of-human-rights/.

“Examples of Successful Community-Based Public Health Interventions (State-by-State) .” Trust for America's Health, www.healthyamericans.org.

“Poverty Data: One Athens.” Poverty Data | One Athens, 2018, https://oneathens.org/poverty-data.

“Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” United Nations, United Nations, 2019, https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights.