‘Farm on Wheels’ Heads to City ‘Food Deserts’

In Richmond, Virginia, Mark Lilly is taking local food to the people

By Lorie Johnson
CBN News Medical Reporter
August 18, 2010

Excerpt:

After Lilly collects the food from his various local farmers, he turns around and travels back to the city: the inner city. His roving farmers market makes stops in so-called “food deserts,” urban areas where thousands of people who don’t have transportation live more than a mile from a grocery store.

In such areas, people have little choice but to settle for whatever unhealthy processed food is available at the corner convenience store, next to the cigarettes and lottery tickets.

Lilly pulls his bus over in any given neighborhood and advertises his vine-picked wares the old fashioned way.

“Y’all need some fresh vegetables?” he calls out. “We got a whole bus load right here.”

Customers are thrilled to have delicious, locally-grown, fresh food delivered right to their doors.

“I think it’s a blessing for certain people – basically for everybody because everybody don’t have a ride and this is more healthy,” local resident Jasmine Chin said, with her hands full of fresh tomatoes.

Ricky Lambert is happy to have the mobile farmer’s market make a stop in his neighborhood.

“It’s best to eat some stuff from the earth, you know, it’s nice – especially the tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage, cucumbers, watermelon, cantaloupe. It’s good to have all that stuff,” he said.

See the complete story here.