Fresh for the Southside

The farmers market and Presbyterian team up to increase access to quality, local eats in Santa Fe’s food desert

The Santa Fe Farmers Market’s Mercado Del Sur kicks off July 2 at its new location in the lower level parking lot at the Presbyterian Santa Fe Medical Center. Tuesdays from 3-6 pm through September, the parking lot will pop with vendors selling colorful fresh fruits and vegetables. Patrons can pick from bundles of turnips, boxes of peppers, bags of potatoes and more grown by local farmers.

The Santa Fe Farmers Market partnership with the medical center is new this year. Debbie Burns, general manager of the markets, hopes the new spot will bring more traffic to the Southside location and alert more area residents to the upcoming months-long run.

The partnership exists in part to offer a wider range of services to Southside residents, many of whom don’t have easy access to fresh vegetables or the income to afford them on a regular basis.

“They have a wellness program and they’re very interested in helping the communities get access to fresh food and local products,” Burns says. “That’s their main interest.”

There’s also been discussion of a partnership between the medical center and local nonprofit Cooking With Kids, which would offer free classes at the same time as the Tuesday market. “Kids would have access to getting the food that they’re preparing. They get a recipe and then they can come shop for it. This is all very new. It’s going to be developing,” Burns says.

Some of the vendors might also provide cooking demos, according to Presbyterian Santa Fe Medical Center CEO Helen Brooks.

“We will open our kitchen to them and hopefully as the partnership grows we can look at some of those things,” Brooks tells SFR. She also hopes partnering with the Mercado Del Sur provides more access, visibility and parking for residents. There’s a bus stop at the front of the hospital.

In order to financially help the lower-income Southside residents buy healthy food, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) will be at the market each week to disburse funds so people will be more incentivized to spend their money there. The Tuesday morning and afternoon markets are the only ones where people can collect their WIC checks, though they can be spent at all of the market locations.

Like at all of the other market locations, people who shop at Del Sur can double their EBT dollars with their electronic benefits card. That turns $50 into $100 at the market.

The Mobile County Health Van might make occasional appearance at the Del Sur market, taking blood pressure readings for shoppers, though that’s not guaranteed, Burns says.

What she is expecting is more produce this year.

“This year is so different than last year because we were in a drought last year,” Burns says. “This year is just the opposite. Our vendors are producing more food and have more to bring to the market.”

For the Southside of Santa Fe, availability of more food at the Del Sur farmers market and the means to afford it is a once-a-week opportunity for a community that continues to struggle with food insecurity and sits in a food desert.

About 45,000 Hispanic or Latino people live in Santa Fe, according to the American Community Survey, most of them concentrated in the southern part of the city. Nineteen percent of Hispanic people live in poverty, 10 percent of whites live in poverty, and 18 percent of Native people live in poverty in Santa Fe.

In New Mexico, self-reported obesity among Hispanic adults is at 30 to 35 percent, while white adults are at 20 to 25 percent for self-reported obesity.

For those trying to cook healthier meals for their family, the market on 4801 Beckner Road is an oasis.

According to the USDA’s food desert atlas, starting at the Agua Fria Community Park heading south and ending at Mutt Nelson Road, east to Frontage Road and west to Cerrillos Road is a food desert, meaning residents are more than one mile from the nearest grocery store.

From Airport Road heading south and ending at Mutt Nelson Road, more than 100 housing units do not have a vehicle and are more than half a mile from the nearest supermarket.

“We really feel that access to fresh food and support for local farmers is all about health and well-being and it’s part of the vision for the Santa Fe medical center. It goes along with our walking trail and healing gardens,” Brooks tells SFR. “We just started a program where free food is provided to children in the cafeteria. … Really that strong sense of community and food is a very big part of that. Tuesday afternoons are going to become special around here.”


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