Fresh Future Farm was established in 2014 to bring fresh food to the Chicora-Cherokee community—a neighborhood in North Charleston located between Spruill and Rivers Avenue, extending from McMillan Avenue to Jacksonville Road. The Chicora-Cherokee neighborhood is just one of 11 food deserts in North Charleston. A food desert is defined by the USDA as a zone without access to grocery stores within 1 mile in urban areas and within 10 miles in rural areas.
Fresh Future Farm uses the term “food apartheid” because food deserts are created intentionally through systemic injustice. Low-wealth communities have endured food apartheid for generations. Food apartheid is a system of segregation that divides those with access to an abundance of nutritious food and those who have been denied that access due to systemic injustice. The term was coined by food sovereignty leader Karen Washington to illuminate the root causes behind what the U.S. government calls “food deserts,” where limited access to affordable, healthy food is driven by systemic racism and leads to increased rates of chronic disease in Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color.
Fresh Future Farm is on a mission to grow the quality of life that our neighbors deserve, working with community members pushed to the margins, creating greenspaces that feed the body, mind, and soul. They aim to build economic systems that benefit the people, multiplying the movement to end food apartheid.