High School senior Jacob Brodsky tackles food inaccessibility with urban agriculture survey

Despite initiatives to increase food accessibility in Evanston, some residents still lack access to affordable, fresh food.

By Katrina Pham
The Daily Northwestern
April 14, 2021

Excerpt:

Evanston Township High School senior Jacob Brodsky is surveying residents on the implementation of urban agriculture throughout the city.

Brodsky said the survey will inform a proposal he plans to make to city officials detailing how to expand access to healthy foods in Evanston. According to data collected in 2015 by the U.S.

Department of Agriculture, residents in four of the 18 census tracts in the 1st, 5th, 7th and 8th Wards in Evanston have to travel more than half a mile to get to a supermarket.

Ald. Robin Rue Simmons (5th) said inaccessibility to healthy food negatively impacts residents’ health.

“Residents are maintaining their diets based on food access that we have here in the neighborhoods, which is packaged goods,” Rue Simmons said. “There’s definitely an impact on our overall health due to nutrition.”

Brodsky’s survey, something he created for an independent study class at school, asks residents for their feelings toward increasing urban agriculture. It asks for potential benefits, challenges that may arise and how food should be distributed. Brodsky said he hopes to use the feedback to offer city officials recommendations on using urban agriculture to increase fresh food accessibility in Evanston.

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