Food Desert Research Paper

The United States is generally viewed as a country of abundance with food plentifully available; however, throughout the United States there are cities and towns that lack access to healthful food sources. These areas are commonly referred to as food deserts. The USDA specifically defines food deserts as areas that are “low-income census tract where either a substantial number or share of residents have low access to a supermarket or large grocery store.”1 Therefore, areas that have multiple fast food restaurants or convenience stores but no grocery store may also fall into this category. Food deserts can appear in rural as well as urban areas with lack of market for a grocery store with fresh produce. Of the thirteen and a half million people

This is a problem particularly prevalent in rural areas that lack public transportation, residents who do not own a car may not be able to acquire transportation to the nearest grocer. Another factor considered is the dominance of few large grocery store companies in the market causing the decline of smaller local grocery stores. Often times these consolidated large grocery store chains do not see an incentive in moving to towns with smaller populations and lower economic value. Many of the areas that are considered food deserts then become dependent on food pantries. However, food pantries bring similar problems in resolving the problem of food deserts. In many cases, the local food pantry may be a far drive and residents do not have proper transportation to get there.2 Even if residents are able to go to food pantries, typically there is not a lot of fresh food due to the expenses of keeping fresh food refrigerated. Vandhana Ramadurai and colleagues focus-group study expresses incidences of these food disparities. Participants stated, “From the Food banks, you don’t get any fruits and vegetables. You can get beans and rice.”4 The lack of available fresh food has led

There are proposals for plans of action to address this pressing and complicated issue. Current initiatives being discussed in congress focus on creating programs that are economically feasible for larger-scale grocers to move to lesser economically desirable locations at federal level.3 These initiatives entail creating incentivized programs for large grocery companies as a possible solution to combat unequal access to healthy food options in urban and rural communities.3 However, instead the focus should instead shift to local businesses and convenience stores due to their ability to make changes without hurdling the complications of federal law. Providing incentives to local businesses and convenience stores to provide locally grown fruits and vegetables in their stores will yield greater access to fresh produce at an affordable cost to community members. These initiatives to support local food retailers would be achieved through subsidizing local grocers or providing tax relief to areas designated as food desert locations via GIS mapping software.1,3 This initiative brings back much-needed control to communities by promoting local agriculture and providing capital growth to these areas as well.4 Another possible solution in areas that are able to support