By Richard Bucey

So-called Health Bucks are coming to a farmers market near you, thanks to a northwest Bronx councilman.

“Come on, who’s excited about Health Bucks!?!” exclaimed Councilman Ritchie Torres, flanked by children and supporters at the Poe Park Greenmarket.

On Tuesday morning Torres officially announced further funding in the 15th Council District for Health Bucks, an initiative through the city Health Department that serving as a supplement to the EBT Food Stamps program aimed at helping the poor afford fresh fruits and vegetables. Poe Park farmers Markets is one of the busier markets in the Bronx.

With Health Bucks, for every $5 in food stamps spent at a farmers market, a buyer gets $2 extra at the farmers market, increasing the spending power by 40%. Torres gave the initiative an extra boost by earmarking $10,000 of discretionary funding towards the program.

“The Bronx is often considered to be a food desert with a serious lack of healthy options,” said Dr. Nelson Eng, a local physician who spoke at the event. For the Bronx, the local farmers market serves as an oasis quenching the thirst of the barren food desert.

This drought of healthy options is reflected in the Bronx’s high obesity statistics and Torres’ remarks, likening the nutrition epidemic to a “natural disaster” that has led to “the loss of millions of dollars, and thousands of lives.”

“We have epidemic rates of obesity and diabetes, and we should respond with the same sense of urgency, and the same mobilization of resources that we would a natural disaster,” urged Torres, the lone legislator implementing the Health Bucks program throughout the Bronx.

In the last several years, farmers markets have gained popularity in the Bronx, where many families load up bags of onions, parsley, or husks of corn. Much of the work stemmed from organizers like Mary Mitchell, head of the Mary Mitchell Family and Youth Center who advocated for more specialized markets in poorer sections of the Bronx.

“When I talked to the powers that be to try to get farmers markets in the Bronx they said that it was impossible because poor people didn’t shop at farmers markets,” said Mitchell. “But I think we’ve proved them wrong.”

Mitchell has since pushed for more markets to open seasonally in the Bronx, hoping to close the gap between access to freshly grown greens.

“Everyone rich or poor deserves access to fresh, local, healthy, and affordable foods, it’s a human right,” said Mitchell.

The Poe Park Greenmarket was indeed teeming with eager shoppers, with upstate New York and New Jersey vendors selling everything from squash to collard greens. The scents of parsley and sage filled the air along with a sense of optimism.

Despite the fact that the Bronx is the least nutritious borough sinking in a food desert, the bustle of the farmers market indicated a real demand for more nutritious options in the Bronx.

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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.