BY CHARLOTTE MONA ROI
cmroi@go.olemiss.edu
A University of Mississippi Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College senior defended her honors thesis last week on the problem of food security in the Delta.
Mary Margaret Saulters grew up in the rural Delta town of Tchula, Miss., and spent the semester writing her honors thesis detailing the effects of food insecurity on the Mississippi Delta population.
In Saulters’ hometown the nearest grocery store is 20 miles away. Because of this, Tchula is classified as a food desert, which is a location where access to grocery stores and fresh food is limited.
“My stepdad was a physician in the area, so he would come home and talk about the health outcomes that resulted from that,” Saulters said.
Saulters cited inadequate knowledge, improper space, time and money as factors that lead many people, like the people from her hometown, to buy food at convenience stores.
“A lot of people were working on farms where they were growing cash crops — corn and soybeans and things like that — so they don’t have the time to go home and grow their own food,” Saulters said.
Saulters enrolled at Ole Miss as a biology major with the intention of following in her father’s and stepfather’s paths and becoming a doctor. Now, she plans to graduate with a biology and anthropology double major, and she described how her goals after have changed.
“When I was pre-med, my whole thing was I need to leave,” she said. “I need to get a job where I can get away and get out of the South and escape the problems of the South. But I think that it is important to highlight what is a problem and bring it back to help raise awareness.”
This fall, Saulters will enroll in the University of Missouri’s urban sociology graduate program, where she intends to learn more about the contributing factors for food deserts. She explained that the bulk of research being conducted on this topic is in western, urban areas unlike Tchula.
“There’s not a lot (of research concerning the Delta),” Saulters said. “The 11 counties that I wrote about in my thesis are in the top, top category of severe food deserts.”
As she continues her education in Missouri, Saulters wants to expand the base of knowledge about social food issues in the Delta.
According to Saulters, a positive outcome of increased awareness about food deserts in the Delta has been an increase of agricultural initiatives and farmers’ markets.
Additionally, Saulters has spent time working with a variety of other organizations to help the homeless and started a campus-based food bank.
Stephen Monroe, assistant dean of the College of Liberal Arts and director of College Corps, has seen Saulters develop as a student during her tenure at the university.
“We are so proud of Mary Margaret and her accomplishments,” Monroe said.
Monroe described Saulters’ work as that which exemplifies the ideals of the College Corps, a program run by the College of Liberal Arts that focuses on community involvement and the resolution of education-related issues in the Oxford-Lafayette area.
Saulters began working with the corps in 2011.
Charlotte Mona Roi contributed to this report.
