Mobile Markets to Food Deserts

Mobile Markets Bring Affordable Produce To Low-Income Neighborhoods
By Kristin Gourlay • Sep 11, 2015

A new initiative of the Rhode Island Public Health Institute at Brown University aims to bring more fresh fruits and vegetables into low income neighborhoods.
Food on the Move markets will make stops throughout September in Providence, Pawtucket, Central Falls, Wakefield, Westerly, and Peacedale.
Credit Rhode Island Public Health Institute

The initiative, called "Food on the Move," will create a mobile farmer’s market, sending trucks full of fresh produce into low income, urban neighborhoods and housing complexes throughout Rhode Island. There, shoppers who receive food stamps, or SNAP benefits, can buy two dollars’ worth of produce for every one SNAP dollar. That’s thanks to a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The program builds on the “Fresh to You” mobile market program launched by Brown University researchers in 2009 to address the lack of access to healthy, affordable food in low income areas.

Now the markets will include more local and more culturally relevant produce, like yucca and plantains.