“Some children are so hungry,” says the manager of a local homeless shelter for children as we stand in the common room, “that they eat two or three meals right when they arrive.”
I find myself here — after walking through a hallway loud with white noise to protect the privacy of children talking with therapists in rooms abutting the hallway — because my wife and I started a nonprofit farm to grow food for local kids in need. We’re visiting shelters, schools, and rehab centers to learn if they have a desire for fresh produce — they all do — to learn what they desire, and to connect with the kids who will receive the food.
I speak to a teenager watching daytime television in the shelter’s kitchen area. She is my older daughter’s age and, like this daughter, ready for conversation. When I ask her what produce she might like, she answers, “Lettuce!”with such glad unhesitating conviction that she laughs at herself. “Okay, lettuce it is,” I reply. I’ve visited a number of places in the last many months but for some reason when this homeless teenager says “lettuce” like this, with such undefended joy, I nearly come undone. I contain myself and write “lettuce” in my notebook, as if I am a dad taking down food orders at his daughter’s slumber party.
But why? Why are my wife and I doing this? Isn’t there enough donated food already? To answer such a question, a sense of context would be helpful.
Despite Santa Barbara’s wealth, despite being known as the “American Riviera,” home to Hollywood stars, tech magnates, and British royalty, 21.1 percent of our county’s residents are “food insecure,” meaning they have limited, uncertain access to the food necessary for a healthy life. In light of our county’s affluence, this is a juggernaut of a statistic.
According to the Foodbank of Santa Barbara County, 1 in 3 households in Santa Barbara County faces food insecurity. Meanwhile, according to the Food Research and Action Center, 1 in 7 households in the U.S. faces food insecurity. And food insecurity in Santa Barbara County is worsening.
Despite its reputation for agricultural abundance, Santa Barbara County, according to a study in Environmental Science & Technology, exports 99 percent of its produce and imports more than 95 percent. This is another juggernaut. Our county exports produce all over the world and imports produce from all over the world, from countries as far as Chile, New Zealand, and China. Though our county ranks among the top one percent in the nation for agricultural production, reaching over $2 billion in sales in 2025, and though we grow a variety of crops, we import nearly all the produce we eat. And some Santa Barbara produce is sent to a warehouse hundreds of miles away in the Bay Area to be sent hundreds of miles back to our supermarkets to be dubbed “local.”
That a land of legendary abundance depends so heavily on elsewhere for food is, as one journalist put it, a “perverted norm.”
Adding salt to the wound, many locals, and local children, in our agricultural Eden eat poorly or go hungry.
Also, this norm undermines the freshness of the produce we eat, undermines taste (we often eat produce harvested when it’s unripe), and undermines nutrition (less fresh produce is less nutritious produce). And because of high “food miles,” this norm causes harm to this miraculous earth upon which we depend.
Further, this norm makes our county vulnerable to breakdowns in the various (and increasingly fragile) long-distance supply chains. Moreover, this norm makes it hard for many residents to connect with local farmers and therefore connect with the land. And without connection with the land, there will be no care for it.
And despite its reputation for generosity, Santa Barbara County often gives ultra-processed products of our excessively globalized food system — or the surplus of local crops — to those in need. While local charities are doing profoundly noble work, the food provided is not always ideal. The manager at a local sober-living house told me that much of the food his organization serves doesn’t make his clients happy and healthy but rather “sleepy and dull.” In the clean kitchen of this sober-living home, I noticed white Bimbo bread, sugary off-brand peanut butter, and wrinkly tangerines.
Much of the food given to those in need is high in sodium, sugar, and harmful chemicals. Often it is “calorically dense and nutritionally thin.” If, as Hippocrates said, food should be our medicine, then shouldn’t those most in need eat the good stuff? A striking percentage of our nation’s healthcare costs are linked to medical conditions related to food. According to Tufts University, “about 85 percent of all health care spending is related to the management of diet-related chronic diseases.” In other words, the shadow truth of Hippocrates’s wisdom is that food can be poison, too.
It’s my hope that our heartbroken awe over what burdens many local children have to carry will inspire us to provide for them differently. It’s my hope that we can provide more tasty, nutritious, local food — not chemical-laden processed food; and more fresh food — not wrinkled leftovers. Giving in this way honors these children — honors their health and dignity.
Teddy Macker is a writer and local farmer. He and his wife founded Whole Harvest Farm, a nonprofit farm in Carpinteria that sustainably grows farmers-market-quality produce for local children in need.
