Food Deserts: Owen Lynch Of Restorative Farms On How They Are Helping To Address The Problem of People Having Limited Access to Healthy & Affordable Food Options
An Interview With Martita Mestey
Invest in training local farmers through paid vocational programs — build programs that facilitate a career not a certificate. In the community where we grow there are too many certificate or work-ready programs without the likelihood of actual employment. Workforce development that leads to meaningful employment. One of our future urban farmer (FUFs) graduated and now works as a hydroponic farmer and trainer for a partner urban farm. Another FUF is now the lead farmer for a local homeless shelter. Another is the contract farmer for a small Dallas start-up making Ethiopian sauces.
In many parts of the United States, there is a crisis caused by people having limited access to healthy & affordable food options. This in turn is creating a host of health and social problems. What exactly is a food desert? What causes a food desert? What are the secondary and tertiary problems that are created by a food desert? How can this problem be solved? Who are the leaders helping to address this crisis?
In this interview series, called “Food Deserts: How We Are Helping To Address The Problem of People Having Limited Access to Healthy & Affordable Food Options” we are talking to business leaders and non-profit leaders who can share the initiatives they are leading to address and solve the problem of food deserts.
As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Owen Lynch.
Owen Lynch is an associate professor in Corporate Communication and Public Affairs in the Meadows School of the Arts at SMU in Dallas. He is also Director of the nonprofit Restorative Farms, which leans into a “community food system” where food production, processing, distribution, and consumption are integrated to enhance a community’s environmental, economic, social, and nutritional health.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path? Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
I am struggling with “the most” criteria in this question.
So, let me change it to remarkable. It was a day before Christmas this last year. I had an early morning meeting with a Dallas parole officer. My goal was to help get my colleague and Restorative Farms partner Tyrone Day out of jail. Tyrone was put back in jail for a minor parole violation (not registering his address properly) even though he was released as innocent and was in the process of being fully exonerated as innocent after being falsely convicted and serving 26 years in prison. As frustrated as I am at the situation, I can’t imagine Terry, Tyrone’s wife, and Tyrone’s frustration. Terry, was clearly just exhausted and exasperated, “I just don’t want him to spend Christmas in jail.” I promised Terry that I and the other co-founders (Doric Earle and Brad Boa) of Restorative Farms would start emailing and writing everyone we could to help.
I then drove to far North Dallas to give a power-point lunch presentation at the new headquarters of one of the largest companies in world who had relocated to North Texas. As they say…“everything is bigger in Texas” and the new office complex in scope, size and design did not disappoint. After the presentation, I met with the companies’ social investment and the environment sustainability team and we discussed the opportunity for collaboration between Restorative Farm and their company.
Then I left and drove to Dallas’s most affluent community where my university, SMU, is safely nestled and taught my afternoon class. If I remember correctly, it was on social exchange theory. Afterwards, I talked to a few students in my office, offering feedback on their research projects or advising them on their academic path. During my office hours I received a 911 text message from one of my employees at the farm — they needed some support. I went to the grocery store, bought some food for them, and drove down to South Dallas. I sat with him, shared some food and encouraged him to stay focused and not risk his sobriety. We discussed at his age how he could ill afford to be jobless, homeless or worse go back to prison again.
I left South Dallas and called my wife on the way home. When she asked me how my day was, I thought — pretty normal! On reflection, I realized how strange my life and career had become — in one day, I traversed universes. I have become accustomed to crossing these vast divides within the socio-economic space — going from one extreme to the other of affluence and access to poverty and exclusion in minutes. In any day I am expected to be an advocate, an academic, a sponsor, an advisor, a salesman, a presenter, a professor, a farmer, entrepreneur, a fundraiser, a support system and sometimes a last hope. I am extremely fortunate.
Are you able to identify a “tipping point” in your career when you started to see success? Did you start doing anything different? Are there takeaways or lessons that others can learn from that?
Receiving tenure at a prestigious university, SMU in Dallas, was my tipping point. I received job security for life and more importantly time needed and a platform to advocate and take on purposeful work that I was being called to do. I’m free to invest my time and research into issues and problems that are urgent and necessary, but require long-term, collaborative and systematic solutions. I believe that this is what tenure should be for- to provide the time and space to take on the hard seemingly intractable problems. Tenure is an earned privilege and is rare in today’s market. I recognized the most important gift tenure can provide.
Upon opening the letter that informed me I had received tenure I remember being overwhelmed. I had been working towards this goal for 12 years. Now what? I knew that my scope (in impact, time, and engagement) of Participatory Action Research [PAR] could expand. This PAR strives to co-design and understand an issue with community members affected by it and then implement research-based solutions to address problems in and with the communities.
Question was where and how should I engage deeper? I prayed on “what am I supposed to do with the privilege of tenure?” The next day one of my students asked me if I ever heard of a “food desert”. Intrigued and then outraged, my new goal appeared — help communities build equitable local food.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person to whom you are grateful who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
The person I would have to thank would be my Mum. She was and is a fierce advocate. I had severe dyslexia, and I grew up in England in a school system that did not have much tolerance, and certainly no accommodations for atypical learning students. I was somewhat cast aside. I had what my testing psychologist called a “tormenting combination”, a high intelligence coupled with severe dyslexia. He wasn’t wrong, my early school experience was a nightmare of boredom, frustration, and disappointment. Yet my mother would not have it.
Very early she found a special reading specialist, Ms. Baldwin, who started me on the long process of teaching me how to learn to read and write using site memory of thousands of words. This was a daily afterschool challenge and I tried to resist, but my Mum did not break. I struggled early on, I never turned in an assignment that reflected what I was capable of, but strangely I never doubted my intelligence. I was very confident that I would excel as school got harder.
I don’t believe in manifesting your destiny, but I do believe in the drive to be successful and the fortitude to apply oneself starts with a strong self-efficacy (the belief in one’s capabilities) coupled with environmental stability to sustain focus. I have come to appreciate the source of my unwavering efficacy, which based on my starting point verged on hubris, did not come from myself- it was forged by my Mum.
I believe, and why I invest in under-resourced communities, that there is so much wasted talent and opportunity that can be given the tools, knowledge and investment to build and sustain the self-efficacy needed to reach prosperity.
You are a successful leader. Which three-character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
A good sense of humor — certainly I don’t take myself that seriously. A good sense of humor gives you a thick skin and sustains optimism.
Perseverance — One of our partners has a little toy bull he carries around to remind him sometimes we have to just put your head down and keep pushing.
Observational skills — especially in how best to leverage and encourage the strength of others.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
I like this quote because it emphasizes the importance of teamwork, community, assessing skills and assets while putting these all together to achieve something. I also like it because it emphasizes to “go” whether you go fast or together. If you want to get something done — at some point we need to stop talking and get walking- and if you can get others to join you. I just believe systemic problems require systemic solutions you’ll need a network of collaborators and a good team.
Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about Food Deserts. I know this is intuitive to you, but it will be helpful to expressly articulate this for our readers. Can you please tell us what exactly a food desert is? Does it mean there are places in the US where you can’t buy food?
A food desert is often a resource desert (a job desert, healthcare desert, transport and infrastructure desert and so on…). An urban food desert, defined by the USDA as an urban area, at least 1 square mile, that is absent of fresh produce and healthy food outlets. Dallas has one of the nation’s largest food deserts, nearly its whole southern sector is without a grocery store or fresh market.
A food desert can be plotted on a map using GIS software searching — population density and healthy food access. If you see a city’s food desert map — you most likely find it overlays perfectly with the historical (1930s) redlining of communities. A food desert is therefore typically an area that has been highly and systematically disinvested for many years. What it also means is that people who live in a food desert must leave their community to not only grocery shop but to work and spend their money- making the broader regional or cities economy grow stronger while draining the food desert community even further.
It is possible to find food within the food desert but by definition no healthy or fresh food. It can be an environment rich in unhealthy food- fast food and highly processed food. This is why some people refer to food deserts as “food swamps”. We have kids come to the farm who do not know tomatoes or cucumbers grew on plants.
Personally, I and many people I work with in South Dallas dislike the term “food desert” because it defines a neighborhood by what it lacks and it overlooks or disregards the community and all the assets that can be leveraged for growth.
Can you help explain a few of the social consequences that arise from food deserts? What are the secondary and tertiary problems that are created by a food desert?
Let’s start with one that is ironic- obesity. This is because foodways (habits and diets) are established by what local food is available to you, especially as a child. Not just diabetes but there are many chronic diseases related to prolonged lack of access to healthy food and consistent health care. Almost 90% of Dallas school kids report being food insecure and qualify for free lunch, yet child obesity effects 3 of 5 students in Dallas schools. When school is in session it is often the only stable source of food (albeit highly processed and unhealthy food) a student has. I do think that the schools are trying to do the best they can with the funding they receive. We need to invest in food as medicine — healthier food for schools and food programs like WIC or SNAP.
I can safely say that no one enjoys that their community is a food desert. Yet people raise their families in and build community despite it being so. When people need to leave their community to buy food, or to get a job, or to receive health care, what this means is many of the people grow weary of the struggle. As a result, many, who have the economic means choose to leave these neighborhoods. Leaving the communities further drained.
As a result, the neighborhood becomes isolated pockets of urban poverty. A food desert is a proxy measure of this phenomenon. The communities become further Isolated from the growth of the region around them and are in fact drained by them. North Texas is one of the economic success stories in America and yet half of Dallas has not benefited from this growth and they fear gentrification because where can they go if it comes and pushes them out. Despite its wealth, Dallas has the highest child poverty rate and is the least economically inclusive for a city over a million people.
As a desert area becomes more entrenched and isolated — they become more impoverished and have less access to resources and finance to leverage any local growth. The community Restorative Farms grows in (like many urban food deserts) is also one of the highest incarcerated zip codes in Texas. Not necessarily the highest crime rate, but the highest imprisoned rate (certainly highest incarceration of minor offences). When young people are put in jail at an early age it follows and limits them for life. The mass-incarceration cycle affects their families, career opportunities and puts a further drain and stress on these isolated communities.
Where did this crisis come from? Can you briefly explain to our readers what brought us to this place?
This is not a simple question, but there’s really two major factors which I will cover very briefly (but not do full justice to) below.
The first was the continued effects of historical redlining. The FHA in the late 1930s (the Fair Housing Association) began determining which neighborhoods could and should not be invested in- declaring some “sound” versus others “hazardous” to loan to. The criteria for a “hazardous” zone were those populated by African Americans (in segregated parts of town). It was argued that the property’s values would decline in value over the period of holding. Prior to redlining very few banks would loan in segregated areas of the city and this coupled with new redlining legislation that lasted into the late 60s exacerbated the lack of investment in these communities. The Fed is still examining the long-term effects of redlining and recognizes its terrible legacy effect on communities. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell in 2022 argued the long-lasting negative effects based on communities due to racial discrimination needs to be studied and addressed.
In reality, you have whole communities that were excluded from direct business loans, mortgages or home improvement loans, or using their mortgage to secure a loan to start a business or send their children to college. Home values stagnated and further decreased after Brown vs. Board of Education and many families chose to leave these communities. Outside investors came in and bought up many of these houses and empty shops for cash and are still holding them as long-term investments — not improving them so that values and taxes on these properties stay low- causing more decline and lack of economic power to encourage local investment.
Now we have communities with few grocery stores or shopping centers and investors are reluctant to be the first movers. As a result, a food desert is not just a food desert it is a resource desert — and an urban food desert is most often a community of long-term isolated poverty, also called by the Fed “poverty islands”. This island status is maintained and deepens while across the highways, train tracks or whatever barrier was created to keep communities separated, the surrounding city thrives.
The second reason is perhaps not as deliberate in its design, it’s really the efficiency of the industrial food system. A city like Dallas, emerged after the railroad. They didn’t rely on local food production or local rural farms to support its growth — rather they brought it in. The fresh food is bought in using the railroads and the highway systems that fed the birth of this very modern city.
Ironically the majority of the warehouses that house this food, that is then repackaged and sent to grocery stores all over Dallas, are situated in South Dallas. The South Dallas food desert becomes the way station for the food that leaves it for greener pastures. There are market opportunities for local growers in a city like Dallas, but especially in South Dallas. Local growers (rural or urban) cannot compete with mono-cropped, industrialized food system with large government subsidies and cheap migrant labor. The result is there are no markets — no grocery stores or fresh farmers markets in the community. Even though food desert household spend the highest percentage of their paycheck on food, they don’t have local options to buy it.
Can you describe to our readers how your work is making an impact to address this crisis? Can you share some of the initiatives you are leading to help correct this issue?
First, I and my partners were asked by community organizations and individuals to help create solutions for local growers or community gardens. After a prolonged community participatory research process, coupled with an examination of what worked and did not around the country in food desert communities- I was not optimistic that my team could help.
For example, a John Hopkins study found that over 80% of community gardens fail within the first 2 years, while most did not produce one crop. A vast majority of urban farms and community garden’s output revenue is far less than their input cost of the soil and seedlings. One example is most buying 4” starter plants from places like Home Depot at $4.50 while the harvest they get from it is only worth $2. These types of ventures raise awareness, provide education and build community but often are not designed to grow food at a large scale.
We concluded we need a pragmatic, market based systemic solution to grow food at enough scale to create jobs and help feed the community. My co-founders (Brad Boa, Tyrone Day and Doric Earle) founded Restorative Farms. We started with a seedling farm to bring down starter plants cost to $0.50 and buying soil, fertilizer, pots etc. at scale to reduce costs and pass them on to the local agrisystem. We knew what was needed was a systems-based solution- oriented organization dedicated to creating a self-sustaining, climate-conscious, profitable, community-centric connected series of farms and people dedicated to:
1. Providing healthy, medical grade, affordable produce to those who live in food deserts;
2. Boost the local economy by creating income opportunities for the community growers and producers that come from the sales of their production;
3. Providing community members with training, work, entrepreneurial, and leadership experience, empowering them to collaboratively break the cycle of poverty and resource depletion in their communities. To recruit and train formally incarcerated community members to provide a career pathway for them.
Can you share something about your work that makes you most proud? Is there a particular story or incident that you found most uplifting?
We send out every week, to our neighbors in the South Dallas food desert, over 150 CSAs (Community Support Agriculture packages) with over 12 items from our farm and local farms. Each CSA contains over 50 servings of fresh food valued at over $70. Our South Dallas clients pay a subsidized rate of $10 unless they feel they can pay more. Every week I am proud. What makes me delighted is that some of the city’s best chefs come and get our leftovers. It’s the best quality produce in Dallas and we grow it at Restorative Farm’s Hatcher Station Farm location.
What makes me even more proud is we did this- the whole Restorative Farm’s team from the trainee seedling farmer to the farm team lead. What we do not grow we aggregate from other local farms and pay their farmers market prices, giving multiple farms a week the market access and fair value to stay in business.
As for a story: We had an event on the farm this week. I was able to witness one of our farmers, a man who was previously incarcerated and sleeping on the street, give a lesson to master gardeners on how to grow like a professional. It was a joy to watch a person whose restorative journey I witnessed be on full display. He was clearly proud of his work, knowledge and ended his presentation with; “Restorative Farms is part of me, its mission is my mission.”
In your opinion, what should other business and civic leaders do to further address these problems? Can you please share your “5 Things That Need To Be Done To Address The Problem of People Having Limited Access to Healthy & Affordable Food Options”?
• Invest in training local farmers through paid vocational programs — build programs that facilitate a career not a certificate. In the community where we grow there are too many certificate or work-ready programs without the likelihood of actual employment. Workforce development that leads to meaningful employment. One of our future urban farmer (FUFs) graduated and now works as a hydroponic farmer and trainer for a partner urban farm. Another FUF is now the lead farmer for a local homeless shelter. Another is the contract farmer for a small Dallas start-up making Ethiopian sauces.
• Invest in system approach and production.
• Place farms in neighborhoods.
• Invest in both ancient and modern grow systems.
• Create local food hubs in communities that need them.
Are there other leaders or organizations who have done good work to address food deserts? Can you tell us what they have done? What specifically impresses you about their work? Perhaps we can reach out to them to include them in this series.
Mrs. Wanda Wesson, founded and runs a GLB: Good Life Balance, program for Cornerstone Church in the South Dallas Community. Mrs. Wesson brings a cohort of mothers, either they themselves or a family member has been diagnosed with a chronic health issue due to diet. Her program is 20 weeks long and provides: educational and social support, healthy cooking lessons, and a weekly fresh food basket that feeds their entire family. They measure weight loss and other core health metrics and have had incredible success. The real success is the community the cohort forms, texting recipes and support to each other. Many of whom continue the program and weekly baskets (from Restorative Farms) for themselves after graduating the GLB program.
Richard Miles — Founder of Miles of Freedom. He supports families of the incarcerated while their love ones are in jail. His program also supports the re-entry and employment of those incarcerated. Part of his support system is to also run food distribution program to the families.
Ms. Karen Milham — Austin Street Center is the homeless shelter of last resort (when homeless clients have nowhere else to go). Karen runs many programs at the shelter and they feed over 300 a day at the shelter. Part of her program is a large community garden or small farm. It is exceptional, for its record of consistency in producing food and providing programing for ASC clients. Austin Street Garden has produced a wide variety of product every week for 10 months a year since the opening in 2017. This record and value of it’s product means that Austin Street Garden is defined by the USDA as a productive small farm!
If you had the power to influence legislation, are there laws that you would like to see introduced that might help you in your work?
Water & Land -If you take an empty lot in food desert community (especially problematic abandoned property- city has a list of them) turn them into vibrant growing plots. The city landbank should be open (with neighbors permission) to turn empty lots into farms. Water is essential and expensive in urban settings- getting water meters connected (expedite service without a certificate of occupancy). It can take up to 2 years to get water on a lot. Perhaps also reduce the water bill if the food being grown is feeding an underserved community. 0r create a community agriculture rate.
Green buck vouchers- If you are a city or state government — other cities have created voucher programs to support farm operations that: grow &/or train farmers in an under-resourced community and you sell (at farm stands, local markets or deliver CSAs to homes) in food desert communities. If a community member is buying fresh produce a voucher can be used to match their purchase — in this way they can receive $30 of product while spending only $15. This will help the farmers and community members. The farmer can be rewarded for the food, resilience, and community restoration they bring.
Food as Medicine — Support and expand Medicare and community health care plans so doctors can prescribe healthy fresh food as preventative treatment to chronic diseases related to diet. Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.
Create community food hubs — act as a central market that local urban and rural farmers can sell their products to be sorted, cold stored, packaged, processed (i.t. turn lettuces into mixed pre-chopped and clean salads, or ugly tomatoes into a sauce) and distributed to local market efficiently. Make it easy for large buyers to have access to local fresh food from the many local farms.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Know who grows your food.
Buy and ask for local fresh food. It is far more nutrient-dense, doesn’t have the carbon miles (1500 an average plate) and supports the local economy. Ask at restaurants, workplaces, and school cafeterias where does the produce come from (how local) and support local growers.
University students (the Northeastern especially) have done a wonderful job in demanding local and better food and have supported the resurgence of local food near their schools. Larger demand will create more consistent, higher quality and lower cost produce.
Farmers markets have high transaction cost for farmers — try and support CSA programs (weekly seasonal veggie boxes delivered or picked up). Support buy one give one programs so everyone has access. By cutting out the middle level — direct to farm sales maximizes revenue to the farmer and value to buyer.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
Marc Cuban. He clearly loves Dallas. I could use his support and advice. I am really impressed with his disruption of the pharmaceutical supply chain. The industrial food system is in need of a disruptive force to supply local healthy food as medicine.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Follow us on www.restorativefarms.org, Restorative Farms on Facebook and LinkedIn, #urbanagriculture, and Restorative Farms on Instagram. Email me at olynch@smu.edu.
This was very meaningful, thank you so much, and we wish you only continued success.
Food Deserts: Owen Lynch Of Restorative Farms On How They Are Helping To Address The Problem of… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.