After Decades of Living in a Food Desert, Locals are Building a $2mn Co-op They Own*

stuartbramhall:

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Brilliant example of community organizers opting out of corporate control and running their communities themselves.

Originally posted on Hwaairfan's Blog:

After Decades of Living in a Food Desert, Locals are Building a $2mn Co-op They Own*

For nearly 20 years, the residents of this mostly African American Greensboro community had nowhere to shop for food. They tried to attract a big-box grocery store; when that didn’t work, they started their own.

By Liz Pleasant

Guilford County, North Carolina, has 24 food deserts—high-poverty neighbourhoods where at least one-third of the residents live a mile or more from a grocery store. Seventeen of those food deserts are in the city of Greensboro. According to a 2014 report from North Carolina’s Committee on Food Desert Zones, people living in these neighbourhoods are more likely to suffer from obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and more.

“The consequences of food deserts could be enormous for public health, the economy, national security and more,” the report said.

The neighbourhood of Northeast Greensboro is one of those food…

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