Highlights of a new project report, “Food Access in West Tallahatchie: A Community Partnership Working to Improve Food Futures,” outline how to improve access to healthy foods in western Tallahatchie County.
Practical recommendations highlighted in the report are the result of a yearlong partnership among West Tallahatchie community members, the Emmett Till Interpretive Center and University of Michigan students.
“The Emmett Till Interpretive Center is happy to support this important food sustainability project with the University of Michigan,” said Patrick Weems, center project coordinator. “We see our role as not only telling past stories from Tallahatchie County but also helping incubate new stories that the entire community can be proud of.”
Members involved in the project addressed the complex challenges of limited access or ability to acquire enough nutritionally adequate and safe food. A serious public health problem, about one in five Mississippi households and one in four Tallahatchie residents are food insecure.
Leaders from the Emmett Till Interpretive Center, West Tallahatchie residents and regional nonprofit organizations worked with the University of Michigan student team. Building on information shared by community members during interviews and feedback from several community-wide workshops, the team developed a report designed to improve access to fresh fruits and vegetables.
The report outlines four possible options for the West Tallahatchie community to consider: “Business as Usual,” “One Stop Shop,” “Growing Tallahatchie” and “Missed Opportunities.” The project team selected the “Growing Tallahatchie” scenario as the best option for community members to increase access to food and support the local economy, simply by purchasing fresh produce grown within the county.
Key strategies outlined in the “Growing Tallahatchie” scenario include supporting farmers’ markets, mobile markets, healthy corner stores and farming programs.
Members of the food security team were University of Michigan graduate students Anna Bengtson, Kathleen Carroll, Sarah Ladin, Lee Taylor-Penn and Grace van Velden represent the fields of public health, law, business, natural resources and the environment, public policy and urban planning.
The project was made possible by the financial support of the University of Michigan’s Dow Sustainability Fellowship Program, the guidance of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center and the creative vision of the West Tallahatchie community.
To see the full report, “Food Access in West Tallahatchie: A Community Partnership Working to Improve Food Futures,” visit sustainability.umich.edu/media/projects/FoodSecurity_Dow-Masters-2016.pdf
To see the report summary, “Shaping the Future of Food in the Mississippi Delta,” visit sustainability.umich.edu/media/files/dow/DowTallahatchie-final.pdf
