DETROIT (AP) — The state, local governments and community groups are ramping up efforts to make fresh, healthy produce more widely available — especially in urban areas — with a mix of programs targeting shoppers and sellers alike.
This spring, Detroit launched a new effort to improve its grocery stores. And a food bank that serves tens of thousands of families in western Michigan and the Upper Peninsula is among agencies expanding fresh food delivery.
Not getting enough fresh fruits and vegetables is seen as public health issue, especially in cities like Detroit where the obesity rate is among the nation's highest. Across the state, people are finding creative ways to respond.
"The movement around fresh food ... is an expansive movement that includes all kinds of people," said Ismael Ahmed, director of the state's Department of Human Services, which coordinates food assistance for about 1.8 million people in Michigan. "We believe there are multiple strategies to get this done."
The state and the nonprofit Fair Food Network, for example, collaborated on a pilot project to allow food assistance recipients who spend $10 on fresh fruits and vegetables to get $20 worth of food. Longer term, Ahmed said, the state would like to encourage the development of mid-sized supermarkets in underserved areas to help provide better produce.
This month, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing was joined by the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. and others to announce the Green Grocer Project, which is envisioned as a three-year, $32 million effort to help improve the quality of grocery stores. The aim is not just to improve food choices for Detroit shoppers, but to strengthen neighborhoods.
"If a grocery store isn't a community anchor, I don't know what is," said Sarah Fleming, program manager for the Green Grocer Project.
For food banks, perishable food — including fresh fruits and vegetables — is the hardest to distribute, said John Arnold, executive director of Feeding America West Michigan, which serves more than 1,300 agencies such as food pantries, homeless shelters and soup kitchens that distribute food in 40 counties.
Since 1998, the nonprofit food clearinghouse has pioneered the use of mobile food pantries in what essentially are converted beverage distribution trucks to carry perishable food to drop-off points. This year, it got its first refrigerated truck under a partnership with the Kraft Foods Foundation.
"We expect to handle more than 25 million pounds of food this year," Arnold said. "About half of that will be perishable."
The state's Project Fresh program allows food stamp recipients to spend coupons for fresh produce at farmers' markets. Kirsten G. Simmons, executive director of the Michigan Food Policy Council, said that by the end of this year food assistance recipients will be able to spend their benefits at a quarter of such markets.
June 1, 2010
TOKYO (Kyodo) — Japan and China agreed Monday to a range of cooperative measures between the two countries to ensure the safety of foods and other products.
The agreement was signed in a ceremony attended by Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, after more than two years of anxiety brewing over Chinese-made food and products triggered by a tainted-dumpling case that sickened 10 people in Japan.
In a memorandum, both sides specifically agreed to enable each other's authorities to inspect manufacturing facilities for food and such products as toys for small children traded between the countries.
The dumpling poisoning case occurred in late 2007 through early 2008, leading to the launch of regular ministerial-level talks aimed at discussing food safety.
The signing of the memorandum followed the first session of such a bilateral initiative, where commitment to food safety issues was reaffirmed by officials from both sides, including Japanese Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Akira Nagatsuma and Wang Yong, minister of China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.
Nagatsuma said at Monday's session that Japan hopes to "deepen cooperation in the area of food safety" as trade relations between the Asian neighbors "have grown even closer."
Wang responded by proposing more frequent exchanges of information between the authorities concerned, according to officials familiar with the discussions at the session.
At the meeting, the two sides worked out an action plan envisaging efforts by Beijing for enhanced supervision of Chinese food producers over safety standards. Tokyo has expressed concerns about residual pesticide often detected in Chinese green onions in excess of safety levels set by Japanese authorities as well as medicines that have been discovered in Chinese-made processed food products.
Both sides also agreed to meet on an annual basis and decided to hold a working-level meeting in June in China.
