It’s time to burst the bubble of the rural-urban divide: When it comes to competing against forces of gentrification and big agribusiness in the name of food equity, small farmers and urban farms have a lot in common. Here’s how two agricultural entrepreneurs are working toward common ground in the name of a healthier food supply.

In the working-class neighborhood of Pinehurst in Columbia, South Carolina, small-town attractions like parks, baseball fields, HBCU colleges, and parades are plentiful. So were grocery stores: Pinehurst was once home to a Piggly Wiggly, and a Sav-A-Lot, among others. Then in 2019, they suddenly all closed without warning.

April Jones, a Pinehurst resident originally from Akron, Ohio, was immediately inspired to take action. Jones credits her Ohio childhood — playing outside and harvesting the corn, tomatoes, and cherries from her grandparents’ farm — with giving her a holistic way of looking at and connecting with the Earth. Having read the 2017 book Fast Food Genocide by Joel Fuhrman, M.D., she was primed to think about how the ills in society are related to food: “If you have high rates of ADHD, check your food supply; if you have high crime, look at your [food] access points and how they correlate to food outcome[s],” Jones recalls.

“If my community doesn’t have access,” she says, “I wanted to create it.”

Food voids left by the loss of a local grocery store or a favorite roadside stand are difficult to fill. Farmers markets are part of our country’s lifeblood (there are 8,600 registered in the farmers market directory in the U.S. alone), and they are also vital to people living in food deserts, residential areas with few to no options for affordable, healthy foods and produce. Urban farms and rural roadside stands alike work hard to feed their communities, which is no small task for small farmers trying to compete with the seemingly unstoppable financial and political clout of big agribusiness. These food sources also serve an important secondary purpose: building community.

“Where we invest our money is where our hearts lie: It’s the soul of our country, community, and values system,” Jones says.

Read the full article about sustainable agriculture from Grist.