May 16
2025
I’Jaz Ja’ciel discusses food injustice on ‘What’s Next?’
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Investigative Post reporter I’Jaz Ja’ciel this week hosted a segment of Buffalo Toronto Public Media NPR’s What’s Next dedicated to food injustice. She sat down with Nnennna Ferguson, chair of the Buffalo Food Equity Network Advisory Board, to discuss food inequities in the Black community and how community-based solutions may help meet the needs of residents.
The episode originally aired Wednesday, May 14 to commemorate the third anniversary of the Tops Supermarket Massacre.
Ja’ciel and Ferguson discussed how the definition of food injustice has changed since the tragedy that saw the closure of the Jefferson Avenue grocer for a month, restricting food access for residents on neighboring streets.
Donate to support our nonprofit newsroom“Just exploring the conversation even, that food is a right and that there are so many inequities associated with it, that we must look at it from a justice and solidarity lens is, I think, a great starting point,” Ferguson said.
The conversation covered community-based solutions like urban gardening and food cooperatives and how organizations throughout the city are working to promote food equity. They also discussed the concept of food deserts — areas with limited access to affordable, healthy food — and food apartheid — which asserts such conditions result from systemic, often racialized, injustices.
“There are vast differences of access and resources in different neighborhoods … I moved one ZIP code this year from North Buffalo to Northeast Buffalo, but really the East Side still, and my grocery store access changed,” Ferguson said.
While the East Side has few large grocers, Ferguson noted that small-scale, independent markets have opened in recent years to help supply the needs of residents with limited food options.
But even when access isn’t an issue, affordability can be. The average median income for Buffalo’s Black households is $36,863 compared to the citywide median of $46,458, according to Census data. One tract in Broadway-Fillmore’s has a median income of $24,963.
“The idea that we don’t have large-scale retailers interested in our communities is because the model for food is capitalistic,” Ferguson said. “I think that that’s the root of it, is thinking that folks need to make a certain income bracket to be deserving of quality access, especially in regards to food.”
You can listen to the full episode here:
