Support for LAist comes from
Local and national news, NPR, things to do, food recommendations and guides to Los Angeles, Orange County and the Inland Empire
Stay Connected
Listen

Share This

How To LA

How The New Chinatown Farmers' Market Hopes To Feed The Area's Residents

Colorful bunches of vegetables like carrots, chard, corn and kale spread across a table and cardboard boxes with the words "organic farms" on it.
A produce stand at the LA River Farmers' Market near Chinatown
(
Evan Jacoby
/
LAist
)

Congress has cut federal funding for public media — a $3.4 million loss for LAist. We count on readers like you to protect our nonprofit newsroom. Become a monthly member and sustain local journalism.

Los Angeles' Chinatown is a food desert. Sure, there are restaurants, but this neighborhood has not had a full service grocery store since Ai Hoa market shut its doors in 2019. The mostly elderly, low-income residents often buy from food vendors on Broadway. Enter the L.A. River Farmers’ Market. It does not pretend to be THE solution, but it opened in May at L.A. State Historic Park, with the promise of bringing fresh produce to a community that currently lacks it.

Elise Dang is the manager of the market. They grew up just a few blocks away — their family still operates a legacy business in the neighborhood: a small Buddhist worship supply store on Broadway.

An Asian person who appears female with short hair, with bag worn across their body, stands in front of a multi-lingual sign at the LA River Farmers' Market
Elise Dang is manager at the LA River Farmers' Market, serving Chinatown
(
Evan Jacoby
)

“Chinatown is a very rapidly gentrifying area,” Dang says. “So getting involved with this farmer's market, I did not want to be one of the gentrifiers.”

Support for LAist comes from

That meant working closely with community organizations like the Chinatown Service Center.

One of their first joint projects was surveying nearby residents about what they wanted most from the market. The results of the survey were clear: people wanted affordable produce and they wanted it to be nearby.

Our community members, especially those of older age, had to travel out of the community to buy their groceries.
— Kerry Situ, director of programs for the Chinatown Service Center

“Our community members, especially those of older age, had to travel out of the community to buy their groceries,” says Kerry Situ, director of programs for the Chinatown Service Center.

Another reason the market is so crucial is that it lets residents use EBT to purchase their fresh fruits and veggies. In fact, it’s the only place in Chinatown where you can use EBT. That’s a big deal for seniors and low-income families in the neighborhood, which has some of the highest EBT use in L.A. County, according to SNAP participation maps. There's Market Match available, too. For $10 spent, the program will match it. In a few weeks, that amount will jump to $15.

How It Got Started

Support for LAist comes from

Recognizing the need for fresh food, California Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo, who represents the 51st District that includes Chinatown, collaborated with others to make the market a reality. She worked with State Sen. Maria Elena Durazo to raise $250,000 to launch the market. SEE-LA, the market operator, says those funds alone are enough to keep it going for five years.

But Dang stresses that the farmers market is just one step toward addressing the food desert problem in Chinatown — not a complete solution. “Ideally a brick-and-mortar store that's open seven days a week with regular hours is the solution to solving the food desert issue in Chinatown,” says Dang.

Other than the fact that it’s in a park, it looks like any other L.A. farmers market. There’s a cookie vendor, a coffee stand, a pupuseria. All sorts of people, young and old, pass from booth to booth, hauling fresh berries and carrots in reusable tote bags.

It looks outwardly like a success, if not a little under-crowded. But Dang says there’s one big thing that’s still missing: Asian produce.

“We really need to bring in more culturally relevant vendors, especially people local to Chinatown who want to participate in the market,” Dang says.

But it’s challenging.

Support for LAist comes from

They say one of the biggest hurdles is that a lot of the Asian specialty farms are in Northern California, and it can be hard to convince a small family farm to make the trek on a weekday. But “it’s definitely my goal for the immediate future," Dang says. One strategy they are working on is to tempt vendors with an opportunity to also sell at the larger Hollywood Farmers’ Market on Sunday, if specialty produce growers are willing to work at the Chinatown market as well.

Back at the Chinatown Service Center booth, Situ says she’s also working to find vendors who sell produce that Chinatown’s residents are used to cooking. But she reminds me: “This market is still a baby. We need time to make it work and build it up as something that can last for the community.”

If you go: The L.A. River Farmers Market is held every Thursday at the L.A. State Historic Park, from 3:00 to 7:30 pm.

As Editor-in-Chief of our newsroom, I’m extremely proud of the work our top-notch journalists are doing here at LAist. We’re doing more hard-hitting watchdog journalism than ever before — powerful reporting on the economy, elections, climate and the homelessness crisis that is making a difference in your lives. At the same time, it’s never been more difficult to maintain a paywall-free, independent news source that informs, inspires, and engages everyone.

Simply put, we cannot do this essential work without your help. Federal funding for public media has been clawed back by Congress and that means LAist has lost $3.4 million in federal funding over the next two years. So we’re asking for your help. LAist has been there for you and we’re asking you to be here for us.

We rely on donations from readers like you to stay independent, which keeps our nonprofit newsroom strong and accountable to you.

No matter where you stand on the political spectrum, press freedom is at the core of keeping our nation free and fair. And as the landscape of free press changes, LAist will remain a voice you know and trust, but the amount of reader support we receive will help determine how strong of a newsroom we are going forward to cover the important news from our community.

Please take action today to support your trusted source for local news with a donation that makes sense for your budget.

Thank you for your generous support and believing in independent news.

Chip in now to fund your local journalism
A row of graphics payment types: Visa, MasterCard, Apple Pay and PayPal, and  below a lock with Secure Payment text to the right
(
LAist
)

Trending on LAist