Food Justice in California part 2: Food Deserts/Food Apartheid
How difficult is it for you to travel to your nearest grocery store?
Or - is it easy, and just another errand you don’t think much about?
Depending on where you live, you might even have multiple options for buying groceries. California specifically, as the most agriculturally productive state in the nation, has thousands of stores to choose from.
Unfortunately, supermarket coverage in the state is not spread so evenly.
Many Californians - both rural and urban - live in neighborhoods that place them at a significant distance from the nearest grocery store. Through no fault of their own, many families and individuals find themselves living within these food deserts.
In their 2012 “Improving Food Access in California: Report to the California Legislature”, the USDA defined a food desert as an urban area in which residents live more than a mile from the nearest grocery store - for rural areas, this distance is more than 10 miles.
The term ‘food desert’ is supposed to evoke the idea that a particular area or neighborhood contains an extremely low concentration of grocery stores, especially when compared to other parts of the same city or county. When members of a community have little to no supermarket options, this severely limits their access to healthy food.
It’s worth noting that ‘food apartheid’ has also surfaced as a term to describe this situation; many in the food justice space feel that this term more accurately captures the intentional and often racialized nature of how city governments can heavily neglect certain communities.
Food deserts can be found all throughout California. The USDA notes that even if a given neighborhood does have grocery stores within it, it may still be considered a food desert if residents must cross significant barriers, like a highway, in order to access those stores.
According to a 2021 report by ABC 7 News, there are roughly 600 neighborhoods in California’s Bay Area alone that would be considered food deserts.
Even though the Bay Area is one of the few places in California with widespread access to a network of public transportation (BART), this has done little to improve food access for those living within these food deserts. In San Francisco and Oakland, supermarkets and BART trains lie closer to city centers - and most food deserts lie closer to the outskirts of cities/towns.
Similarly, a UC Davis research project examining food deserts in Sacramento seemed to also corroborate this fact (that more urbanized areas tend to have higher concentrations of grocery stores). This specific study’s findings also suggest that if a particular neighborhood has a higher minority (nonwhite) than majority (white) population, that neighborhood is much more likely to be in a food desert.
The darker areas represent populations with higher proportions of racial minorities compared to white people - while the lighter areas represent the opposite.
Down in Southern California, this pattern again repeats itself - but the issue of food access is even more apparent in major metros like Los Angeles county:
The blue areas represent “Low Income” neighborhoods, while the green and orange areas designate areas with “Low Access”. (Source)
In Los Angeles, it’s estimated that close to 400,000 households live in food deserts. As the most populous county in the country, the effects of food insecurity are more widely felt in LA due to the higher concentrations of people living within city limits.
To further compound the issue - many Angelenos (LA residents) also lack access to a personal vehicle, which is a major obstacle to overcome in such a heavily urbanized area. Though public transportation does exist in LA, it isn’t yet as robust as Northern California’s BART system - and also suffers from the same problem of doing little to equalize access to nutritious food.
Given that those experiencing food insecurity are at risk for several chronic health issues, the existence of so many food deserts across California represents a serious challenge to the well-being of millions of residents.
Since food deserts are a byproduct of several different oppressive systems (just like food swamps), a multi-pronged approach would be required to address the conditions of these neighborhoods.
Increased access to public transportation (including more efficient and direct routes), increased economic and educational investment in low-income areas, and more frequent and widespread farmer’s markets are just a few examples of solutions that could help to alleviate food insecurity for those living within food deserts.
Research also suggests that government programs, like WIC and SNAP, can also be somewhat effective in helping to minimize the impact of food insecurity - expanding these programs may prove beneficial in the fight to equalize food access.
Unfortunately, simply building more grocery stores within these neighborhoods wouldn’t completely solve this food access issue.
With grocery prices continuing to rise, accessing a supermarket would be fruitless if residents can’t afford to shop there. It’s for this reason that non-profit organizations like community centers, food banks, and food pantries have been increasingly serving as a key resource for obtaining fresh produce and prepared/shelf-stable food.
New state laws like SB1383 could also prove effective in helping to address this issue - when businesses donate food through food recovery organizations (like Replate!), they are directly ensuring that fresh food goes back into communities rather than landfills.
Food deserts shouldn’t exist – but as food policy researchers continue to bring these issues to the forefront, the increased visibility of such phenomena can only help us to better understand and more effectively address them!