Food Deserts And Food Deserts In Rural America

Some rural areas, in fact, are considered “food deserts”—areas with limited, if any, grocery stores.1 These food deserts are the collective result of several forces, including the growth in more populated areas of superstores (with a large variety of food products), an insufficient population base to support a wide array of local supermarkets (resulting in the loss or consolidation of these stores), and changes in food distribution channels, shifts that tend to favor larger food retailers at the expense of smaller food stores in rural areas. Filling the void in some parts of rural America are convenience stores and gas stations, which charge a premium for a limited range of food choices, often with low nutritional value.

Over the years many have studied about the exisene of “Food deserts”. The major concern about food deserets is that there may be insuffienct quanity and quality of food or systematically higher food prices in certain geographic areas. For example, Lewis, Sloane, et al. (2005) find that there are fewer healthy restaurant options in poor Los Angeles neighborhoods when compared to more affluent Los Angeles neighborhoods. Powell, Slater, et al. (2007), using national data, find that poor and minority neighborhoods have fewer chain supermarkets than do more affluent, whiter neighborhoods. Rose and Richards (2004) find that food stamp recipients who live closer to supermarkets consume more fruit and vegetables. White (2007) reviews numerous studies that examine whether food deserts exist in the United Kingdom (UK).

These studies have attracted the attention of policy makers. In the UK, a government commission issued a report a decade ago stating that food deserts were a problem, which in turn led to the introducti...

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...(e.g., existing distribution networks).

Although there is no universally accepted definition of “food deserts,” one way to approach the concept is to begin with access, or the degree to which individuals live within close proximity to a large supermarket or supercenter. Many perceive such food establishments as offering consumers a wider array of food choices at relatively lower costs.

Map 1 identifies those counties in which at least one-half of the population lives more than 10 miles from these large food stores, counties that we define as “low-access” places. The largest concentrations of low-access counties are in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain regions of the country. Low access is also prevalent in select areas of the Deep South and in the Appalachian region of Kentucky and West Virginia. All told, 803 counties are low access areas in the United States.