Food Deserts

Being back in St. Louis over the weekend served as a stark reminder of another very important dimension of seeking food justice: ensuring that people have access to nutritious, healthy food.  In the area where I used to live around Saint Louis University, as in many other parts of St. Louis and other cities, the options for buying groceries are limited.  Fast food chains and convenience stores outnumber supermarkets by a considerable margin.  I didn’t have a car when I went to SLU, and the only option for groceries within walking distance was a Schnucks grocery store.  That Schnucks stocked more varieties of liquor than vegetables, and the greens that they did have looked like the rejected produce in a Whole Foods dumpster.  If you were to get in a car and drive about 15 minutes west of SLU’s midtown location, you could have your pick of fresh produce and quality meats and dairy from Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, or even the large mainstream chains like Target, Dierbergs, or Schnucks, which are better stocked in that area.

Photo by Spixey (Flickr CC)

2.3 million households in the U.S. live more than a mile away from a supermarket and lack access to transportation.  These “food deserts” are usually found in the inner city or in isolated rural areas.  In the city, limited food access is correlated with a high degree of income inequality and racial segregation.  Lack of transportation infrastructure also contributes to poor food access.  Living in a food desert compounds the effects of these injustices.  Several studies have demonstrated a link between obesity or high Body Mass Index and the relative prevalence of fast food restaurants and lack of grocery stores.

So what are possible solutions to the problem of food deserts?  Farmer’s markets and urban and community gardens can help fill the void as well as providing fresh, high-quality whole foods in areas replete with processed and packaged food products.  In areas that have grocery stores with inadequate offerings, community pressure must be brought to bear on the companies.  Supermarkets are reluctant to offer fresh, high-quality produce when they deem that the demand isn’t there.  This is a vicious cycle because the grocery stores’ limited offerings also shape consumer preferences, especially when children in these areas grow up without access to fresh, whole foods.  Community education that introduces the benefits of nutritious whole foods as well as educating people on how to prepare them can help create consumer-driven pressure on these stores to implement more just policies.

Check out the June 2009 Report to Congress on Access to Affordable and Nutritious Food: Measuring and Understanding Food Deserts and Their Consequences on the USDA website.