When the Flint farmers market moved downtown, closer to public transportation, more low-income customers started shopping there for all their grocery needs, a new study finds.
G.L. Kohuth/Courtesy of Michigan State University
Making farmers markets more accessible to Americans in food deserts can boost the number of low-income customers who regularly shop there, and may even offer more promise for improving diets than bringing in traditional grocers. That’s according to researchers who looked at what happened when the farmers market in Flint, Mich. — much of which qualifies as a food desert — moved downtown.
Availability of nutritious foods is of particular relevance in Flint, where the city’s water system is now infamously contaminated with lead and other toxins. Public health officials there are spreading the word that consuming fruits and vegeta…