Access Matters

Food deserts are defined as places where low-income individuals or families live more than half a mile from a food retailer in an urban environment, and more than 10 miles from one in a rural setting. In Memphis, Tennessee, for example, a whopping 32 percent of the population falls into this category. In the United States overall, 17 percent of people live in food deserts.

In addition, some people live in food mirages, which are communities where healthy food is readily available, but low-income households are unable to afford it.

Systemic racism

Some activists and researchers use the term food apartheid, rather than the term food desert. Food desert doesn’t speak to the intentionality of policies that create limited access to food, says Malik Yakini, executive director of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network.

Food apartheid better describes the systemic racism that has led to a landscape where affluent communities have multiple food choices (often with a higher density of establishments selling fast food and junk food, relative to produce-abundant supermarkets or grocery stores, a.k.a. food swamps), while lower-income communities have limited choices overall. The Grocery Gap report found 89 different studies documenting uneven access to supermarkets in urban areas based on income, race, or both. Not only were stores in low-income communities of color less likely to have healthy foods, but, in addition, the foods were likely to be more expensive than in food swamps.

Subsidizing the wrong foods

With the introduction of the 1973 US Farm Bill, production of certain crops became subsidized by the United States government. These agricultural crops, including corn, soybeans, wheat, and rice, are often used to make items such as high-fructose corn syrup and oils used in unhealthy processed foods. A 2016 article published in the JAMA Internal Medicine journal found that people who ate more of these subsidized foods had a higher probability of cardiometabolic risk. Because subsidies keep the prices of these foods lower, they can be more accessible to those with less discretionary income than foods that fight disease.

Assistance for the better

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, allows low-income families to buy nutritious foods at certain stores. The kind of outlets where SNAP is accepted is expanding, including some co-ops, farmers’ markets, and non-traditional grocery outlets, which may increase access.

Food apartheid, food insecurity, and concern about access to healthy foods are not new issues. Some of the programs designed to help those in need haven’t necessarily made access easier, although progress is being made.