Funds awarded to address lack of food access for Birmingham residents
Birmingham, AL – The City of Birmingham plans to invest critical funding into supporting research and resources around food access. The City was recently awarded $298,736 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Urban Agriculture and Innovation Production (UAIP) Competitive Grants Program. This was a part of a $14.2 million investment across 27 states to support urban agriculture and innovative production. In addition, $1 million of the city’s American Recovery Plan Act (ARPA) funds was recently approved to be designated for healthy food initiatives.
“Eliminating barriers to healthy food access is a priority,” said Birmingham Mayor Randall L. Woodfin. “With this funding we hope to invest in local, minority food producers to put healthy food on the tables of our residents.”
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The challenge: Nearly 70% of Birmingham residents live in neighborhoods that lack adequate access to quality, affordable fresh foods. Inadequate healthy food access is also a critical driver of rising obesity and diet-related disease in Birmingham.
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How the funding can help: Funds aim to help remove barriers to food access, advance equity, and build capacity through strategic investments in Birmingham’s local food system.
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Next steps: Critical data is needed to properly provide strategy around sourcing food programs. A series of studies will take place to help identity gaps and opportunities around food access needs. They include a needs assessment, an urban agriculture market feasibility study, and an agricultural land use suitability analysis.
“Once we are armed with vital information, we can be strategic and thoughtful about how to grow and improve our food system,” Mayor Woodfin said. “Healthy food makes for healthy families, healthy neighborhoods and a healthy city.”
The following is a map of many of Birmingham’s grocery stores, community gardens, meat markets, food cooperatives and more: bit.ly/3PIgWts
