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 Southside Neighborhoods Strive for Food Self-Sufficiency. By Gregory McNamee IF YOU LIVE in the cluster of neighborhoods bordering I-10 and Kino Boulevard on Tucson's near southside, you have two choices when it comes to buying a sack of carrots or a carton of eggs: You can pay inflated prices at a convenience store, or you can drive several miles to the nearest full-size supermarket. Southside activists have long tried to attract grocery and other retail outlets into ethnically mixed, economically depressed neighborhoods like South Park, Western Hills, Las Vistas and Pueblo Gardens. They argue that the people who live in them not only need services, but also can afford to sustain retailers who chance moving into the area. "The people here spend money on food just like anyone else," says Bonnie Bazata, community-based education coordinator at Pueblo Gardens Elementary School. John Laswick of the City of Tucson's Office of Special Projects agrees. "The people in those neighborhoods want and need a food market. A good-sized chunk of the city is very poorly served by retailers--which is typical of poor neighborhoods across the country."
The SFPN project is supported by a $205,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture through a program meant to enhance "food security"--that is, the ability of urban neighborhoods to feed themselves and, in the case of poor neighborhoods, to increase both food availability and food-related income. The state of Arizona has added $25,000 to the grant for the purchase of tools, rototillers and other supplies. So far, says SFPN project coordinator Varga Garland, the four neighborhoods along the Kino Boulevard corridor have greeted the garden program enthusiastically. "People from all over Tucson are helping," she says, "and we're getting some interesting ideas. Some juvenile probation officers came to a workshop so that they'll know how to talk with their clients about how to get involved. And there's a teacher at Sunnyside High who's convinced the administration to offer P. E. credit to kids who work in the garden there. He says they'll be getting enough exercise to qualify." Each community is responsible for determining what its gardens will grow. "At Pueblo Gardens we're going to have a garden that's half for the kids to do their science investigations, and half for the community to grow whatever it wants," says Bazata. "We're thinking about having rows of crops that represent the different ethnic groups that make up our neighborhoods, so that we'll have a Mexican American garden, an African American garden, an Asian American garden, an Anglo American garden." Residents of Pueblo Gardens involved in planning the garden wanted more than food crops, though. Says Garland, "The community asked for a rose garden, too, on top of corn and yerba buena and Chinese herbs. That means just a little more work, and maybe a few more challenges--like where to round up lots and lots of steer manure to feed the flowers." WHATEVER THE CROPS grown, coordinators expect the community gardens will yield enough produce to sustain a regular farmer's market. Operating on alternate Saturdays, for the time being, the market will be located at the Tucson Parks and Recreation Quince Douglas Center, 1101 E. Silverlake Road. "That's the plan, anyway," Garland says. "The site is a precursor, a place that will show the economic possibilities of the southside. We're still looking to develop a community marketplace that's open for business every day--a place where things other than produce can be sold, like tortillas and tamales, sweet-potato pie and barbecue, all kinds of things." Some activists are concerned that city regulations may interfere with neighborhood residents' ability to sell their goods on city property, in this case the park. But, says Tucson City Councilman Steve Leal, whose district incorporates the near southside, "Fourth Avenue is city property, and they sell things during the street fairs. Events at Kennedy and Randolph Park charge for food. People sell cappuccinos in front of the library downtown. I don't think the city will make it an issue." The farmer's market is expected to open in the first week of March. Regardless of its success, the issue remains whether stores like Albertson's and Safeway will see the wisdom of bringing services into the near southside, the site of much new industrial and residential construction. "U.S. Homes is developing a 40-acre property right across the street from the Quince Douglas site," John Laswick notes. "We don't know whether they'll encourage retail development, too. Most developers figure a gas station with a food mart is good enough." But, he adds, continued neighborhood activism, along with the success of the community-gardens project, should go a long way to bring in those retailers. "Solutions have to come out of the community," he notes. "You can't just wave a magic wand and make a shopping center appear. What we can do is listen to the community, conduct market analyses, and show retailers that even though these aren't wealthy neighborhoods they spend enough to support businesses. We're starting with the farmer's market on a small scale, and hopefully we'll build up critical mass with the community garden and market. After that, we may get the stores." In the meanwhile, the gardens are beginning to produce food crops, and to draw in dozens of southside residents. "We're seeing this not just as a place where we'll grow food and vegetables," says Bonnie Bazata, "but where we can help our community grow."
Adds Varga Garland, "I guess we're showing that when human
beings come together with chicken wire and horse manure and soil,
the result is a community that can really prosper."
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Those activists hope to attract retailers through a roundabout
plan that, whether it works or not, should result in the neighborhoods'
being better fed. Working with a coalition of neighborhood associations
and civic and social-service agencies--among them the Community
Food Bank, the Tucson Audubon Society, Habitat for Humanity and
the Primavera Foundation--the Southside Food Production Network
is helping to develop a series of small gardens whose produce
will be sold in a southside farmer's market. Six gardens are now
under way. Four are on the near southside; one is on the far southside;
and one is in the community of Cascabel, north of Benson in the
San Pedro River valley.
