Fixing Food Deserts

What is happening? Food deserts are defined here as “generally describes the nation’s thousands of low-income census tracts where an estimated 53.6 million people live outside an easy walk or drive to a full-service supermarket.”

Why is this important? Access to fresh, quality ingredients to cook is crucial for wellbeing . To address this, an urban farmer in Buffalo, NY is using $7 million to open a wellness center, with greenhouses and clinic space.  Faith-based development group obtained four vacant lots and announced plans to open a neighborhood grocery. Businesses and nonprofits are “plant[ing] vegetable gardens, subsidize fresh produce purchases and install health-screening stations.”

How will this be important? No U.S. city has solved food deserts. Researchers say it isn’t just solving access it is also solving for community ownership, improving public infrastructure for food access, like public transit and broadband networks. 300 U.S. Cities have created Food Councils to Solve this issue.

Rute Fifty | Advocates Look for New Ways to Fill City ‘Food Deserts’