As a child growing up in Virginia, when asked to describe our hometown, my classmates and I would say the cows outnumbered people almost three to one, and they still do today. The rolling hills leading up to the Blue Ridge Mountains on one side and the increasing sprawl of Washington, DC, on the other are dotted with cattle, red barns, and apple orchards, although today many of the orchards are gone and instead vineyards cover the hills. It is not uncommon to see a tractor on the main highway, and a majority of the full-time residents who do not make the hour-plus commute into northern Virginia are employed in some form of agricultural work. Homegrown food was not a rarity for my family. Both of my grandfathers planted large gardens as long as their health allowed and were frequently dropping off baskets of corn, tomatoes, and the always present zucchini at our back door. Despite growing up surrounded by agriculture, it was not until I was an adult and moved to the first of several college towns that I have called home in recent years that I was able experience a farmers’ market for the first time.

It was here that I experienced produce that tasted better than anything I had bought in a store and saw the prices on the same types of canned goods that my grandmother had always kept lined on shelves in her pantry when I was a child. Over time, I frequented a farm stand where farmers were able to sell their produce, which was open every day of the week. Gradually I got to know the farmers and the staff of the farm stand, but it was not until the farm stand closed, from lack of consistent business, that people began to recognize how much they had relied on it. The farm stand was located in the middle of the city, and although the houses surrounding the store cost around a million dollars, just a couple blocks away property values plummeted and the violent crime rate skyrocketed. This area of the city was and continues to be one of the largest food deserts within the city limits, with nearly every grocery store having closed in the span of less than two years, which left only the farm stand as a source of fresh produce for the surrounding neighborhoods.