Food Deserts: Access in America

by Natasha Chart

categories: Community Development, Distribution, Food Prices, Health

Published June 25, 2009 @ 11:50PM PT

The USDA has finally released an eagerly awaited repord on food deserts in America. These conclusions are presented in the summary:

• Of all households in the United States, 2.3 million, or 2.2 percent, live more than a mile from a supermarket and do not have access to a vehicle. An additional 3.4 million households, or 3.2 percent of all households, live between one-half to 1 mile and do not have access to a vehicle.

• Area-based measures of access show that 23.5 million people live in low-income areas (areas where more than 40 percent of the population has income at or below 200 percent of Federal poverty thresholds) that are more than 1 mile from a supermarket or large grocery store. However, not all of these 23.5 million people have low income. If estimates are restricted to consider only low-income people in low-income areas, then 11.5 million people, or 4.1 percent of the total U.S. population, live in low-income areas more than 1 mile from a supermarket.

• Data on time use and travel mode show that people living in low-income areas with limited access spend significantly more time (19.5 minutes) traveling to a grocery store than the national average (15 minutes). However, 93 percent of those who live in low-income areas with limited access traveled to the grocery store in a vehicle they or another household member drove.

... Urban core areas with limited food access are characterized by higher levels of racial segregation and greater income inequality. In small-town and rural areas with limited food access, the lack of transportation infrastructure is the most defining characteristic.

... Supermarkets and large grocery stores have lower prices than smaller stores. A key concern for people who live in areas with limited access is that they rely on small grocery or convenience stores that may not carry all the foods needed for a healthy diet and that may offer these foods and other food at higher prices. This report examines whether prices of similar foods vary across retail outlet types and whether the prices actually paid by consumers vary across income levels. These analyses use proprietary household-level data that contain information on food items purchased by approximately 40,000 demographically representative households across the United States. Results from these analyses show that when consumers shop at convenience stores, prices paid for similar goods are, on average, higher than at supermarkets. ...

Ezra Klein and Jane Black note at the Washington Post, it seems to be more a problem of having access to lots of lousy food instead of limited access to good food. This isn't antithetical to the previous general understanding of food deserts.

As the 2007 book Food Fight by Daniel Imhoff notes, "Food deserts aren't strictly a rural phenomenon either. Many inner-city urban areas, particularly low income neighborhoods, have become "underserved markets," where it is often easier to find a fast food restaurant or a convenience store than a grocery store with a variety of more healthy options. According Adam Drenowski, professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington, people are gaining weight and getting sick because unhealthy food is cheaper and often more available than healthy food."

Imhoff further says that between 1985 and 2000, the cost of fresh fruits and vegetables increased by 38 percent, while the cost of soft drinks plunged by 23 percent and fats and oils dropped around 15 percent.

Klein is right to point out that a lot of time and money has been spent on making junk food tempting, and that it would make sense to spend public money making healthy food cheaper. However, public money has already been spent making junk food cheaper.

Corn for high fructose corn syrup is subsidized. Oilseeds are subsidized. This family's diet is subsidized. From a review of Food, Inc. at The Atlantic, by Corby Kummer:

... Kenner follows the beautifully spoken, trapped Orozco family, Mexican-Americans in California who know and want fresh food but have neither the time nor money to eat it. ... At a supermarket, their two young daughters excitedly weigh bosc pears but find they're too expensive to take home. So is the head of broccoli their father--a truck driver whose medicines for conditions resulting from bad diet cost the family hundreds of dollars a month--eyes but must also put back.

In a terrible updating of a scene by Millet of dinnertime grace, we see the family go to a drive-through on their way home and order four burgers. The expression of sick, silent guilt as the mother passes two burgers to her daughters in the back seat, and their glazed acceptance as they carefully unwrap and eat them, tells the story of the whole movie. ...

It isn't just that prices have risen though. Incomes have fallen:

“Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households.”

“Real median earnings of both men and women who worked full-time, year-round declined between 2005 and 2006 (1.1 percent and 1.2 percent, respectively). This is the third consecutive year that men and women experienced a decline in earnings.”

Those statistics are from the CIA World Factbook and the US Census Bureau, respectively. They hint at the range of intertwining problems that are the food distribution system in the United States. There isn't one problem we can put a single name to.

Though starting with making pears and brocolli as price-accessible as soda pop wouldn't hurt as a start to a solution.

(Photo credit: Phillie Casablanca on Flickr.)