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Sarah Riegel
Professor Jan Rieman
UWRT 1103
October 27, 2014
Research Proposal
Local food is something I have always wanted to support, but have not completely done
so due to affordability. In the last year, my attention has been drawn to food deserts. The
question for me was always, How can people in food deserts or below the poverty line afford to
eat healthily? My decision to make my broad topic locally grown food was an impulsive one.
However, as I started to explore various sources, most of my interest was in how the Go Local
movement affected community identity. My primary focus at first was on farmers markets, but
has since expanded to include community gardens and other grassroots initiatives. From this I
have developed my inquiry question: Are locally grown food initiatives a viable solution to
hunger in our community, and how does this affect community identity?
This is a question of increasing importance, especially for Charlotte and its surrounding
areas. There were 72,793 Mecklenburg County residents living in food deserts in 2010. This
continues to be a problem, particularly as food deserts tend to contain more low income citizens.
Food deserts have been linked to unhealthy eating and obesity. Furthermore, because of
Charlottes diversity and spatial spread, building a community identity is both difficult and vital.
I have already discovered that there are various grassroots or community service
organizations dedicated to solving Charlottes food desert crisis. Some of these seem to build
community involvement and interaction between socioeconomic classes. Concerning farmers
markets, I have found that few farmers markets in Mecklenburg County and surrounding areas

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accept SNAP or EBT. There is some overlap of food deserts and farmers market location,
possibly due to times of operation not including certain seasons. Various community gardens are
located in Mecklenburg County, though there is concern that these are an unfeasible solution to
unhealthy eating in food deserts because of too high demand.
Moving forward, I would like to focus on nonprofit organizations, farmers markets, and
community gardens. My primary research will likely include interviewing people involved in the
Community Garden at UNC Charlotte because of greater access to an on-campus resource. I
would also like to interview people involved in farmers markets, community gardens, and
nonprofit organizations dedicated to providing those in food deserts with more accessible healthy
food options. In particular, I plan to contact some of the community gardens in the area to
determine price and availability. I would like to survey people in Charlotte as to where they
typically shop and how far away that is from their home; however, I feel this will be least
practical.
The secondary sources I plan to pursue include news articles about and for the Charlotte
area, as this is my location of focus. I also hope to find publications from scholarly journals for
initiatives in healthy eating for those in food deserts. Many of these publications are case studies
that could indicate how well certain initiatives worked, and are composed by experts in their
field. I plan to look into websites and publications, beyond advertising, for information on
nonprofit organizations, farmers markets, and community gardens. It will most likely be
necessary to review government policies and campaigns and public service organizations to
understand the extent to which grassroots campaigns are viable solutions to unhealthy eating
caused by food deserts.

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