October 7, 2006

Organic Wave By-passes the Mission’s Poor

By Liz Fox
Special to the Neighborhood Newswire

A couple of years ago grocer Josue Ramirez bought a box of organic tomatoes to sell at his Mission store. Then he watched them sit, without a single sale. He lowered the price. Nature threatened to decompose their red flesh. He lowered the price again.  Finally, when the organic tomatoes cost the same as their conventional brethren, customers bought them.  “Selling it cheap was better than chucking it,” Ramirez said.

While he doesn’t remember how much the experiment cost his business, Rancho Grande, Ramirez said he’s sure he sold the organic produce for less money than he paid for them.   And he learned his lesson:  “If you (buy organics) you won’t sell anything,” he said.

While organic products have become a part of the mainstream, offered by stores as low-brow as Wal-Mart – who’s massive buying buyer enables them to drive down the price -- and as high-class as Whole Foods, many Mission residents don’t participate in the $15 billion nation-wide industry.  Advocates and public health officials worry that for low income families getting enough fresh produce in their diets is challenging enough, never mind the added high cost of organics.

“For right now, we're asking people in general to eat more fruits and vegetables to meet dietary guidelines,” said George Manalo-LeClair, Director of Legislation for the non-profit California Food Policy Advocates.

When stretching scarce dollars at the grocery store, the choice for many is simple, Manalo-LeClair said:  vegetables usually lose.  Penny-wise consumers may choose a box of macaroni and cheese that costs less than a dollar instead of a comparably priced head of broccoli.  The boxed pasta feels more like a full meal, even though the broccoli may have a higher nutritional value.   “We need to make the math work better for families on a tight budget,” he said.
 
Last month Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill that will provide families with more purchasing power.  Under the new law low income families who use their government-issued food-assistance cards to buy fresh produce will receive additional credit.  “The next step (is), as families are able to better afford organic fruits and vegetables, we’ll encourage them to do so,” Manalo-LeClair said.

Money isn’t the only barrier to buying fresh produce, much less organics.  Integrating fruits and vegetables into family meals can present challenges for working parents – even for those who aren’t just scraping by.  Deborah Gallegos, a 25-year-old college student whose parents both work, said her childhood dinners consisted of “a cup of noodles and things that were fast and easy to prepare.”
It wasn’t until Gallegos’ family members began falling ill – with diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol - that she started to heed warnings that sugar and greasy food could cause health problems.  “It goes beyond my family,” said Gallegos, who studies nutrition education at San Francisco State University. “I know it's affecting a lot of communities.”  Gallegos volunteers at Alemany Farm, an organic community garden located in the Mission, through which she hopes to teach her peers about healthy food choices. 

For now, organic produce remains a rare sight along 24th Street.  “When the customers are Latino, they don’t buy organics,” said Ramon Roman, a clerk at the California Food Market, a small grocery on 24th Street. “Because their salaries don’t allow for it.”

That doesn’t surprise Laura Brainin-Rodriguez, a nutritionist for the San Francisco Department of Public Health who has surveyed Mission District residents about their produce consumption.  “Especially when people are trying to be thrifty, anything that would increase the price of produce would reduce the intake of produce,” she said.

Brainin-Rodriguez’s research indicates that Latinos tend to eat the same amount of fruits and vegetables they did in their home countries, which is generally more than American-born San Franciscans.  And Mission residents have some of the best access to fresh produce in the City.  But organic products simply aren’t in demand.

“People want to get food on the table,” she said.  “Getting the most for their food value is more important than insuring that their food is pesticide free.”

One Mission-based organization, PODER SF, serves as a drop-off location for an organic community-supported agriculture (CSA) program, in which farmers by-pass middlemen and sell directly to urban consumers.   But organizer Oscar Grande says it’s been hard to maintain interest over the project’s two years.  The original 30 members have dwindled to 12.

Grande said he believes Mission District residents understand the benefits of community-supported agriculture and organic production.  “They totally get it,” Grande said. “But it was like, ‘yeah, but it’s expensive.’”

The CSA boxes distributed by PODER SF provide a plentiful array of locally grown collard greens, cucumbers, eggplants, tomatoes and fruit.  But at $20 a box, it’s still a strain for most of the families with whom Grande works.

With tight purse-strings, “you got to choose,” he said. “Are you going to spend that extra dollar on that organic apple, or are you going to save that buck for rent or school clothes or medical costs?”