The United States Department of Agriculture defines food deserts as “areas in the U.S. where people have limited access to a variety of healthy and affordable food.” Food deserts usually occur in low-income areas with inadequate access to transportation.
According to a USDA report from 2019, 17.1 million people live more than a mile away from a large grocery store. That distance goes up to 20 miles in rural communities. The population in these areas tend to have more minorities compared to other regions with a similar income.
This isn’t surprising when you consider how this problem began. For decades, segregationist policies shaped American neighborhoods with redlining policies excluding African-American neighborhoods from financial development through actions such as loan and insurance denials.
This gave fast-food companies an opportunity for profit and exploitation and they installed themselves in these neighborhoods knowing they would be the only accessible food option. Without intervention, this vicious circle repeats itself.
You don’t have to go far to find a food desert. I spoke to residents in Overtown about this issue, and they voiced their frustration about corner stores being bought by external investors to be replaced by unhealthy food options.
There are ways to battle food deserts. I had the opportunity to volunteer with an organization called the Green Haven Project in Overtown. They turned a vacant parking lot into an urban farm that offers free produce to the community.
This is a great and sustainable solution. Children who help in the garden will be eager to eat from it. The next step is to teach community members to grow food in their backyards. Like the old adage says, “if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.”
Society should invest in and encourage small businesses to offer affordable healthy food options in vulnerable neighborhoods. Small and local healthy food businesses would help eliminate these food deserts while also lifting the community as a whole.
