Column by Jack Ryan, Enterprise Journal
Mississippi Today recently published a detailed story about failed efforts to steer surplus food to hungry people in the state. While the story largely focuses on money provided by Nancy New, who is awaiting trial on embezzlement charges involving Department of Human Services money, a different element of the story is just as interesting.
This element is about two businessmen who decided several years ago to help Mississippi farmers get more of their food to grocery stores and restaurants in the state.
Jeff Good, who owns three restaurants in the Jackson area; and David Watkins Jr., who had been involved in work to revitalize Farish Street, set up Soul City Hospitality LLC in 2014.
Good told Mississippi Today that when Watkins returned to his home state after working for a think tank in California, he started asking questions.
“Watkins couldn’t understand the paradox of Mississippi’s food systems: Why businesses like Good’s restaurant, located in an agriculture state, didn’t sell more local food,” the story said. “Why a state known for having some of the richest soil also has some of the most hunger and worst nutrition.”
Those are good questions — and they have several logical answers. But first, Soul City leased a warehouse at the old farmer’s market in Jackson. It received $415,000 from two grants, borrowed $700,000 for renovations, and in 2017 the Up in Farms Food Hub opened.
It lasted one season. It turned out that many farmers couldn’t deliver the quantity of food they expected, either because of bad weather or a lack of farmhands. A lack of cold storage caused food at the hub to spoil. They also dealt with worm infestations.
This inconsistency made it difficult to sell the homegrown food to restaurants and grocery stores, which rely on regular deliveries.
“So what we learned is there’s a reason nobody does it. Because it’s really hard,” Good told Mississippi Today.
Another factor is that while there’s a lot of agriculture going on in Mississippi, big chunks of it — cotton farming and raising corn or soybeans for cattle feed, to name two — do not involve producing food for people to eat.
The story is a good example of the economics of “industrial agriculture,” if you wish to call it that. Giant food producers have wrung all the excess costs out of their operations, to the point that they can ship products to a market from a distance and often win on price.
Very few small farmers — exactly the people that Soul City was trying to help — can be that efficient. And if they can’t be consistent with their deliveries, they’ll lose sales to the bigger players.
The question is still legitimate: Why can’t more Mississippi farmers supply restaurants and groceries in the state? Until someone solves many problems, the best place to buy food produced in this state may be at those small, charming farmer’s markets.
