Is the Food Desert Locator biased against small business?

Moms and pops left out?

Kathryn Edwards, Jun 06, 11.

The food deserts identified by the USDA’s Food Desert Locator aren’t necessarily void of food access in general, instead they simply don’t have a big box/chain store, according to grist.org.

As part of a comprehensive approach to decreasing hunger, food insecurity and obesity, the Obama administration released the online mapping site, following a 2009 USDA report (pdf) and the work of the Food Trust and the Healthy Food Financing Initiative from Pennsylvania, which has been proposed as a national model.

The Food Desert Locator counts 1 in every 10 census tracts nationwide as a “food desert” - meaning residents have more then 15 miles to travel to reach the nearest supermarket. Americans may worry unnecessarily or public servants and elected officials may mis-allocate resources to address the problem due to faulty metrics that do not account for alternatives to large firms that provide food access, according to grist.org.

One reason for the omission is that the USDA report found that prices at the large chain stores are ten percent lower then the private counterparts and thus make them more affordable and conducive to fighting hunger. Supporters of private shops are fighting back, saying:

The fatal flaw of the Obama strategy to reduce hunger, food insecurity, and obesity in America is that it risks bringing more big-box stores both to poor urban neighborhoods and to rural communities. It categorically ignores the fact that independently owned groceries, corner markets in ethnic neighborhoods, farmers markets, [Community Supported Agriculture, and roadside stands are the real sources of affordable food diversity in America. But in its 2009 report to Congress, the USDA conceded that “a complete assessment of these diverse food environments would be such an enormous task” that it decided not to survey independently owned food purveyors. Therefore, it decided to ignore their beneficial roles and focus on the grocery-store chains that now capture three-quarters of all current foods sales in the U.S.

Unfortunately, we will get what we measure. The $400 million that the Obama administration has set aside to create greater food access in these so-called food deserts will likely go to attracting full-service grocery franchises that heap upon our children megatons of empty calories like those in high-fructose corn syrup and corn oil—yes, the very products that emerge from Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack’s own great state of Iowa. But the profits made in those big-box stores will drain away from our neighborhoods and communities, bound for distant corporate headquarters, further impoverishing most food producers and consumers.

Gary Nabhan and Kelly Watters, of Grist, advocate a more comprehensive approach to rebuilding local food systems:

Instead, what we need is tangible support for rebuilding the rural and urban infrastructure that can enable more marketing of fresh, local foods by farmers, orchard keepers, and ranchers directly to neighboring consumers. The lack of a big-box store in our community may be an asset, not a disadvantage in keeping our children healthy and food secure. In Patagonia, we have a family-owned grocery, Red Mountain Foods, that uses its 900 square feet of indoor space and seasonal roadside displays to provide our 800 residents with a great diversity of nutritious whole foods, including both local and organic options.

On a recent story on KUHF on the burgeoning effort to address food deserts in the City of Houston, Houston Tomorrow’s Jay Blazek Crossley commented on using a comprehensive approach:

Jay Crossley is from Houston Tomorrow, a local non-profit. He’s encouraged by the city’s eagerness to tackle the food desert problem. He hopes officials will take a holistic approach though and focus not only on supermarkets but on planting more community gardens and establishing food co-ops.

“Every neighborhood should have fresh produce in its neighborhood, so that every Houstonian can walk to get fresh produce and walk back to the house and cook it.”