Food & Community: Mapping Food Access, Food Justice, & Food Sovereignty in Harrisonburg, Virginia

Environmental racism and food injustices are overlapping forms of institutional racism. Systemic disparities are ingrained and many of our social and civic structures were built on injustice. These injustices continue to persist in social and environmental institutions, including our food systems. This map displays the distribution of food retailers, food pantries, and public meals with the percentage of African-American residents in each US Census Block.

While global food production has reached record highs, producing more food than necessary to feed Earth’s population, more than 800 million people went undernourished in 2017— including 37 million in the US, or around 11% of the country. While global production is ample, food distribution and access are unjust. This predicament holds true in Harrisonburg, the greater US, and the Earth as a whole.

Students enrolled in Mapping Justice, taught by Dr. Case Watkins at James Madison University in Fall 2019, researched, designed, and constructed a StoryMap analyzing food access, food justice, and food sovereignty in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Check out this amazing project here.

The Northeast Neighborhood is one of six areas in Harrisonburg identified as Food Equity Zones (FEZ). FEZs are areas in Harrisonburg where food access and food security are most acute. Beth Schermerhorn and Eric Bendfeldt of the Virginia Cooperative Extension developed food equity zones as areas with two or more of the following factors: medium to dense housing, relatively lower per capita income, located more than half a mile away from a grocery store, limited sidewalks, and limited gardening land.

Research Team: