Food Desert

11 Key excerpts on "Food Desert"

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  Local Food Systems in Old Industrial Regions

  Concepts, Spatial Context, and Local Practices

  • Jay D. Gatrell, Paula S. Ross, Neil Reid(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Reisig and Hobbiss (2000: 138) define a Food Desert as an “area of relative exclusion where people experience physical and economic barriers to accessing healthy food.” Sparks et al. (2009) summarize the myriad definitions into one general idea: Food Deserts are urban areas in which residents lack reasonable, spatial access to fresh fruits and vegetables, foods from all the major food groups required for an adequate diet, and food items priced competitively compared to the same item in a higher income neighborhood. In 2008, the USDA defined a Food Desert as an “area in the United States with limited access to affordable and nutritious food, particularly such an area composed of predominantly lower income neighborhoods and communities” (USDA 2008). These concepts are easily understood, but when it comes to measurement or identification of actual Food Deserts, questions arise. What is access? What is affordable? Can entire geographic areas fit this description or is it more a matter of the abilities and perceptions of the residents? It gets more complicated. Shaw (2006) posits, for example, that there may be different kinds of Food Deserts. She proposes that there as many types of Food Deserts as there are factors (such as economic, sociological, geographical, or psychological factors), that explain why people can’t achieve a healthy diet. Similarly, McEntee and Agyeman (2010) cite three sets of factors that act as obstacles to food access: informational, geographic, and financial. Shaw also points out that when conducting mapping of food access, the results do not always align with residents’ perceptions

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  Food and Poverty

  Food Insecurity and Food Sovereignty among America's Poor

  • Leslie Hossfeld, E. Brooke Kelly, Julia Waity, Leslie Hossfeld, E. Brooke Kelly, Julia Waity(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Vanderbilt University Press

    (Publisher)

  We extend the study of Food Deserts from their roots in geography to sociology. Borrowing from subfields such as environmental sociology, food studies, social movements, stratification, and urban ecology, we emphasize food justice for understanding and alleviating inner-city hunger. Findings reveal multiple layers of injustice associated with Food Deserts, connecting not only with poverty and health but also ecology, education, work, and broader inequalities. Taken together these indicate important spatial inequality dimensions of food sovereignty and food justice and the challenge to what we call the “food opportunity structures” in meeting the needs of inner-city residents.

  The concept of “Food Desert” has arisen from policy efforts seeking to understand and alleviate hunger and improve nutrition. Geographers in the United Kingdom Department of Health’s Nutrition Task Force defined Food Deserts as “areas of relative exclusion where people experience physical and economic barriers to accessing healthy food” (as cited in Reisig and Hobbis 2000, 138). In parallel efforts the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has collaborated with the Health and Human Services and Treasury Departments to define a Food Desert as “a census tract with a substantial share of residents who live in low-income areas that have low levels of access to a grocery store or healthy, affordable food retail outlet” (US Department of Agriculture 2014). Food Deserts are dependent on “fringe stores” that provide few healthy options (Garry 2010), such as convenience stores, dollar stores, gas stations, liquor stores, or pharmacies. Full-service grocery stores on the other hand feature fresh and packaged food, including produce and full dairy and meat options alongside greater refrigerated offerings (Hurst 2010). Variations on these definitions exist, with discussion refining the meaning of Food Deserts and how to account for them (Shaw 2006). Diet and nutritional impacts from limited access to healthy food among low-income and discriminated-against groups is central to the Food Deserts discussion (Gordon et al. 2011; LeDoux and Vojnovic 2012)

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  Food Deserts and Food Insecurity in the UK

  Exploring Social Inequality

  • Dianna Smith, Claire Thompson(Authors)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  6 ). Thirty years later, there is still a tremendous level of discussion about the idea of poor access to food in certain areas of our towns and cities.

  Food Desert is a compelling and emotive phrase. It describes areas, usually in cities, where there was poor access, measured geographically, to healthy and affordable food. Notably, ‘affordable’ did not necessarily have a fixed financial boundary, as the cost of living and wages varied across different areas of the UK. Access was the first component of identifying possible Food Deserts, with two other factors of affordability and availability of healthy food the other considerations. Cost and availability will be discussed below, we will begin by exploring the measure of access and how this has changed over time.

  Access

  Access was typically described as 500m walking distance to a food store as this was the distance that could be easily walked in 6–7 minutes (cited in Furey, Strugnell, & McIleveen 2001). These distances were often measured using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) where a ‘buffer’ of 500m would be placed around a store, and areas that were outside of this boundary and in relatively low-income neighbourhoods (definitions varied; (7 , 8 )) were considered to have ‘poor access’ and, therefore, be a potential Food Desert.

  To have such a clear definition of distance or, at the very least, to define the access dimension of Food Deserts was an attractive prospect. We see similar distance-based measures in policy, such as the focus on access to greenspace to support population (physical and mental) health; here the distance of interest is 300m to an area of at least 2 hectares, referred to as the Accessible Natural Greenspace Standard (ANGSt) (9 ). This positivist approach is not without critics as there is a lack of nuance in the sharp boundary proposed (10 , 11 ) and a one size fits all approach. Very quickly researchers worked to at least acknowledge the limitations of this distance measure (10

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  Food Practices and Social Inequality

  Looking at Food Practices and Taste across the Class Divide

  • Jennifer Smith Maguire(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  Ecological perspectives on human development focus on how individuals’ well-being is a function of their interaction with their environment. Individuals are viewed as nested within a system of broader social and political environments that interact with each other in complex ways to influence human behavior. Individuals exist primarily within micro-systems like families and workplaces, situated within local communities (meso-systems), which, in turn, are part of a much wider social and political context (macro-system) (Bronfenbrenner 1979). Eating behaviors and their impact cannot be fully studied and understood without attention to their environmental, social, and political settings. As a daily matter, individuals make food choices that are governed by the availability of places to procure food, transportation to them (both part of the meso-system), and access to well-paying jobs with good benefits (part of the macro-system). In addition, a political context that hampers access to alternative resources such as food stamps also impacts food access. Prior studies have used this framework in understanding the complexity of food environments (Stokols 1992; Swinburn et al. 2004; Glanz et al. 2005; Kremers et al. 2006; Story et al. 2008; Story, Hamm, and Wallinga 2009; Sharkey, Horel, and Dean 2010).

  An ecological analysis of Food Deserts, food insecurity, and the impacts on health and well-being directs attention to intervention strategies that are responsive to the systemic nature of the problems identified. Health interventions that have focused on single factors rather than the interplay between factors have been largely unsuccessful (Schensul and Trickett 2009; Hawe, Shiell, and Riley 2009; Foster-Fishman and Behrens 2007).

  Literature Review

  Definition of Food Deserts

  Food Deserts are broadly defined as areas where access to healthy and affordable food is limited (United States Department of Agriculture 2015). Studies on Food Deserts have often used geographic information systems (GIS) to map number of fresh food outlets per capita, square mile, or average distance to fresh food outlets (Van Hoesen, Bunkley, and Currier 2013; Apparicio, Cloutier, and Shearmur 2007; Kaufman 1999; Drewnowski 2004; Blanchard and Matthews 2007; Liese et al. 2007; McEntee and Agyeman 2010) However, rural Food Deserts have been more challenging to operationalize (Sharkey and Horel 2008; Ball, Timperio, and Crawford 2006; van der Horst et al. 2006; Drewnowski 2004; McEntee and Agyeman 2010; Schafft, Jensen, and Hinrichs 2009). In addition to GIS mapping, statistical analyses of location of food outlets, census data, qualitative analyses of food diaries, questionnaires, focus groups, and interviews have been employed in understanding Food Deserts (Freedman 2009; Smith and Morton 2009; Atkinson et al. 2007; Furey, Strugnell, and McIlveen 2001). Some studies identify rural Food Deserts as places where the distance from a supermarket is greater than 10 miles (ASPA 2015; Blanchard and Matthews 2007; McEntee and Agyeman 2010; Schafft, Jensen, and Hinrichs 2009). Yet others argue that the definition of Food Deserts must be less simplistic, taking into account a variety of food places, the nutritional value of the food located within areas and not just the existence of a food outlet, the possibility of trip-chaining (multi-purpose trips from locations other than home), as well as the issue of time (Van Hoesen, Bunkley, and Currier 2013; Sharkey, Horel, and Dean 2010; Hendrickson, Smith, and Eikenberry 2006; Hubley 2011; Sharkey 2009; Widener and Shannon 2014). Sharkey, Horel and Dean (2010) incorporated multiple types of food retailers and found, contrary to most Food Desert research, that those with highest deprivation had the most access to food outlets. For these reasons we believe that in-depth narratives can provide a clearer picture of individuals’ hardship in accessing food.

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  The $16 Taco

  Contested Geographies of Food, Ethnicity, and Gentrification

  • Pascale Joassart-Marcelli(Author)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • University of Washington Press

    (Publisher)

  42 Chapter 2 claimed that “it is time to address the disproportionately concentrated low-income communities and communities of color who face higher rates of food insecurity, reside in Food Deserts and have very little access to fresh fruits and vegetables.” 3 The popularity and wide use of the term is no doubt linked to its capacity to capture a complex phenomenon through simple indicators. For instance, the most common measure of urban Food Desert is defined by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) based on whether residents of low-income neighborhoods have a supermarket, supercenter, or large gro- cery store within a half-mile distance of their home. 4 Although technically difficult to compute, the concept is fairly easy to grasp, especially when displayed on colorful maps that highlight deficient areas. Yet the idea of Food Desert is problematic for a number of reasons. In addition to method- ological issues related to measuring access to food, there are deeper ques- tions associated with what access means and how it matters in the everyday lives of urban residents. There is also a concern that the common narrative of Food Desert masks the historical dynamics that caused such places to become devoid of large food retailers. 5 Although it has not been widely used, food activists and critical scholars have recently suggested that food apartheid might be a better term to describe the segregation processes underlying urban foodscapes. 6 The term draws attention to the political and economic factors that produce food deprivation and have been mostly ignored in the mainstream literature. This lacuna may encourage policy interventions that fail to address the inequities that have contributed to the marginaliza- tion of urban neighborhoods and the desertification of their foodscape.

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  The Consuming Geographies of Food

  Diet, Food Deserts and Obesity

  • Hillary J. Shaw(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  However, the election of New Labour in Britain in 1997 saw a renewed focus on urban deprivation. Another concern for the UK government was the rising obesity rate, up from 6 per cent of adults in 1980 to over a fifth by 2000. The term ‘Food Desert’ was born during a study of a socially deprived housing estate in west Glasgow by the Low Income Project Team (LIPT) in 1996; a local resident used the phrase to communicate their perception of the lack of good quality, reasonably priced food in the area (Cummins and Macintyre, 2002). The LIPT described Food Deserts as ‘areas of relative exclusion where people experience physical and economic barriers to accessing healthy food’ (Reisig and Hobbiss, 2000 : 138). The term was taken up by both policy-makers and the media, despite the lack of any precise definition for Food Deserts at the time. The Independent (11 June 1997) described Food Deserts as ‘Those areas of inner cities where cheap nutritious food is virtually unobtainable. Car-less residents, unable to reach out-of-town supermarkets, depend on the corner shop where prices are high, products are processed and fresh fruit and vegetables are poor or non-existent.’ The Observer (13 September 1998) stated that ‘Many poor housing estates were left as Food Deserts by the closure of local food shops and that in the few local food shops left, prices were up to 60 per cent more than in the supermarkets.’ The Guardian (17 March 1999) said, ‘On the poorer estates of Coventry, low cost, good quality, food is not available to the poorest

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  NEW RURAL GEOGRAPHIES IN EUROPE : actors, processes, policies

  • Annett Steinführer, Ulrike Grabski-Kieron, Annett Steinführer, Ulrike Grabski-Kieron(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • LIT Verlag

    (Publisher)

  Urban Studies 47 (7), 1415–1438. Food Desert approaches – from GIS-spaces to attitude patterns 171 Powell, L., Slater, S., Mirtcheva, D., Bao, Y. & Chaloupka, F. (2007). Food store availability and neighborhood characteristics in the United States. Preventive Medicine 44, 189–195. Russell, S. & Heidkamp, P. (2011). ‘Food Desertification’: the loss of a major su- permarket in New Haven, Connecticut. Applied Geography 31, 1197–1209. Sadler, R., Gilliland, J. & Arku, G. (2016). Theoretical issues in the ‘Food Desert’ debate and ways forward. GeoJournal 81, 443–455. Salomon, I. & Mokhtarian, P. (1998). What happens when mobility-inclined mar- ket segments face accessibility-enhancing policies? Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment 3 (3), 129–140. Schaloske, M. (2013). Dorfentwicklung vor neuen Herausforderungen – die wachsende Bedeutung engagierter Bürger. Flächenmanagement und Bodenord- nung 75 (2), 67–72. Schenk, T. (2016). Versorgungssicherung in Nordschweden am Beispiel des Le- bensmitteleinzelhandels. Geographische Rundschau 68 (6), 18–25. Six, B. (1975). Die Relation von Einstellung und Verhalten. Zeitschrift für Sozi- alpsychologie 6, 270–296. Smith, A. & Sparks, L. (2000). The role and function of the independent small shop: the situation in Scotland. Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Re- search 10 (2), 205–226. Steiner, A. & Atterton, J. (2015). Exploring the contribution of rural enterprises to local resilience. Journal of Rural Studies 40, 30–35. Steinröx, M. (2013). Ländlicher Raum bald ohne Nahversorgung? Neues Archiv für Niedersachsen (2), 108–120. Sullivan, P. & Savitt, R. (1997). Store patronage and lifestyle factors: implica- tions for rural grocery retailers. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management 25 (11), 351–364. Ver Ploeg, M., Dutko, P. & Breneman, V. (2015). Measuring food access and Food Deserts for policy purposes. Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy 37 (2), 205–225.

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  More Than Just Food

  Food Justice and Community Change

  • Garrett Broad(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • University of California Press

    (Publisher)

  33 Combining an interactive mapping platform with data from the national census and a geographic directory of grocery stores from across the country, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) was proud to intro-duce its new online Food Desert Locator in May of 2011. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack explained in the offi cial press release that the new tool would “help policy makers, community planners, researchers, and other pro-fessionals identify communities where public-private intervention can help make fresh, healthy, and affordable food more readily available to residents.” 1 The Food Desert Locator was emblematic of a broader push, picking up sig-nificant momentum over the course of the previous decade or more, to put healthy food access concerns onto the agenda of American citizens, activists, policymakers, and private businesses alike. The term Food Desert was explicitly mentioned by the US Congress in the Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008—known colloquially as the 2008 Farm Bill—when federal lawmakers allocated $500,000 to investigate existing problems and potential solutions related to places “with limited access to affordable and nutritious food, particularly such an area of predomi-nantly lower-income neighborhoods and communities.” 2 Shortly thereafter, First Lady Michelle Obama publicly stated that 23.5 million Americans, including 6.5 million children, resided within these Food Deserts. Her national Let’s Move initiative included combatting these community-based problems as central to her goal of ending childhood obesity. 3 A few years later, the Obama administration’s Healthy Food Financing Initiative—a $400 million, multiyear program operated jointly by the Departments of Treasury, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services—was rolled out with a stated aim of spurring food-related economic development in 2 Food Systems, Food Movements, Food Justice 34 • C H A P T E R 2 Food Deserts across urban and rural America.

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  Retail Inequality

  Reframing the Food Desert Debate

  • Kenneth H. Kolb(Author)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • University of California Press

    (Publisher)

  They cannot buy what they cannot see, purchase what they cannot afford, or shop where they cannot travel. In 66 C h a P t e R 3 a Food Desert, these everyday realities boil down to their perception of their food environment, their economic resources, and their transporta-tion options. I begin with perception because it was the backdrop for all their shop-ping choices. We might, for instance, deduce that people who chose to travel miles outside the bounds of their neighborhood to do their shop-ping were dissatisfied with the options closer to home. Those included peripheral retail stores that, to varying degrees, sold groceries. The USDA’s online Food Access Research Atlas (formerly known as the Food Desert Locator) ignores these operations because they are not full-size grocery stores. Around Southernside and West Greenville, these options mostly consisted of convenience and dollar stores. Compared to supermarkets, the quality, variety, and affordability of their healthy options were severely lacking. However, perception is subjective. What did the people who lived there think? Factors like money and transportation play an even larger role in the conversation around Food Deserts. Economic resources can increase the array of available options, and transportation can increase a shopper’s range. Consider that, for the truly poor, proximity to retail food options means little if they cannot afford anything in those shops and restaurants. And no matter how feasible bus routes look on paper, increasing their number and frequency does little for anyone with mobility constraints. But economic and transportation resources are not static. Add a spot of bad weather and the trip to the bus stop can seem farther than it looks. Add an unforeseen utility bill to the equation and a planned shop can fall apart: sometimes when it rains it pours.

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  Climate change and poverty : A new agenda for developed nations

  • (Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Policy Press

    (Publisher)

  These were noticed in the 1980s and early 1990s. With large supermarkets opening on the edges of cities (under the benevolent gaze of the Thatcher government), smaller retailers were often unable to compete with their aggressive marketing, one-stop convenience and loss-leading practices. Nor could emasculated local authorities do much to stem the tide. Food Deserts particularly aficted low- income communities that were less likely to have access to those superstores, or good quality retailers, both because of restricted transport (especially car ownership) and because there were fewer profts to be made for shops locating in their communities (Wrigley, 2002). The proliferation of local ‘convenience superstores’ since the late 1990s (for example, with mini-Tescos blanketing the country) has scattered oases across those deserts but not necessarily reduced the underlying problem, since they are dominated by processed food, and by capturing the market can keep prices at uncompetitive levels (Dowler et al, 2007, p 136). The debate about Food Deserts has subsided, if only because places difer and it is difcult to make straightforward generalisations (Macintyre et al, 2008): ‘The geography of food poverty cannot be simply drawn on a map’ (Hitchman et al, 2002, p 9). Nonetheless, it would be simplistic to deny a correlation between geography and access to, and choice of, food (Kneafsey et al, 2008, p 14; Caraher et al, 2010). And as Steel (2008: 147-52) observes, countries that have restricted and controlled supermarket expansion more efectively than the UK are less likely to experience Food Deserts and food poverty. A new climate for food Overall, then, few of the food practices across developed countries seem ready to deal with global warming. Take waste. Over 60 per cent of the waste produced by UK households is avoidable (Defra, 2012b, Chapter 5), while according to the European Commission, the European Union (EU) wastes 50 per cent of its edible food.

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  Rural Families and Reshaping Human Services

  • Jeanne Cook, Keith Alford, Jennifer Uhrich, Pat Conway, Jeanne Cook, Keith Alford, Jennifer Uhrich, Pat Conway, Jeanne F. Cook, Keith Alford, Jennifer Uhrich, Pat Conway(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  This study area is located in a rural, inland county in Washington that has a population of approximately 45,000 residents. It consists of 17 incorporated towns and eight unincorporated communities, each with fewer than 100 residents (see Figure 1). The county was experiencing each condition described above. The poverty level was approximately twice the national average; an increasing number of households were experiencing food insecurity and relying on food assistance from SNAP, food pantries, churches and granges, and family and friends. In the past, the economy was dominated by agriculture, but today it is dominated by manufacturing, service sector, and education industries (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). Similar to other areas across the United States, this county was also experiencing an increase in gas and food prices, further contributing to increasing food insecurity issues. Twelve of the 17 towns had a once-a-month food pantry funded by local, state, and federal assistance. Many of the towns were experiencing population and job opportunity declines and aging populations. As demographic changes contribute increases in aging populations in rural settings, pantry users in urban and rural settings present specific challenges to communities addressing food insecurity.

  FIGURE 1   Perry County map, pantry locations, and community Food Desert status.

  The county was also experiencing important changes in grocery retail. Five grocery stores closed between 2006 and 2009, leaving some towns without a grocery store altogether or only a small local grocer, moving some towns into the Food Desert status (U.S. Census Bureau, 2006, 2009). Towns were divided into one of three Food Desert statuses (low, high, or nonFood Desert). NonFood Desert towns had at least one regional or national supermarket, discount grocer, discount mass merchandiser, or a wholesale club with 10 or more employees (U.S. Census Bureau, 2009). Low-Food Desert towns had a small local grocer with one to nine employees; high-Food Desert towns had no food retailing (U.S. Census Bureau, 2009). This study explores how food-insecure households are acquiring food to combat hunger under the changing conditions in the rural setting.

  THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Food Deserts and Spatial Inequality

  The rural lifestyle can be quite different from an urban or suburban experience. For instance, population density differences affect the amount and variety of stores and other vital services, such as access to medical care and transportation (Bitto et al., 2003). One trend important to the food insecurity issue to investigate is changes to food retailers. Across the United States, the number of food retail stores is declining; however, the size of stores in terms of square footage and shelving space is increasing (Blanchard & Lyson, 2006; Blanchard et al., 2003; Gereffi & Christian, 2009; Kaufman, 1998, 2000). The result is fewer, although, larger stores in centralized locations (Blanchard & Lyson, 2006; Blanchard et al., 2003; Gereffi & Christian, 2009; Kaufman, 1998, 2000). For rural areas this industry change results in some communities only having access to a small local grocer or no access to any food retailing, or what has been labeled as “Food Deserts” (Bitto et al., 2003; Blanchard & Lyson, 2006; Schafft et al., 2009; Shaw, 2006).

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