Hunger In The Fields

[marmar]

from Civil Eats:



Hunger In The Fields

September 26th, 2011
By Gail Wadsworth and Lisa Kresge


Across the United States, farmworkers are having difficulty getting enough to eat. And they’re not alone: Rural communities as a whole are poorer and less able to feed themselves than their urban counterparts. In regions where our food is being grown, access to it is limited and the people who grow it are unable to afford it when it is available. Lack of transportation, fear, and other social issues increase farmworkers’ isolation and limit their food choices even more. The food security movement, working to increase access for communities at risk of hunger, tends to overlook rural people–and especially those who work in the fields.

Rural Food Deserts

Despite being regions of food production, many rural areas are food deserts, defined as particular geographic areas where there is insufficient quantity and quality of food, or where food prices are systematically higher than in other regions.

According to one source, over 800 counties in the U.S. are considered to have low food access with the largest concentration in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain regions. In a survey of 1,500 residents in four non-metro counties in Iowa, most lived 20 miles or more from a major food retailer. All of these counties had four or fewer grocery stores. About 10,000 farm workers live in Iowa year round. And while food insecurity rates for the state in 2002 were quite low (6.5 percent), 37 percent of households were in poverty and 21 percent of Hispanic households were food insecure.

Access to food is a critical factor in rural California as well. One study compiling data from county-level food assessments shows that a lack of fresh food options, few retail locations, and lack of transportation in rural areas all create barriers to accessing healthy foods. According to the same study, almost 60 percent of rural Californians live more than three miles from a grocery store and only nine percent live within a mile from one. When there is also a lack of transportation choices, food insecurity increases. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://civileats.com/2011/09/26/hunger-in-the-fields/

[Odin2005]

1. My hometown has become a rural food desert ever since the grocery store there closed.

If you need decent groceries you have to go to Fargo or subsist off what they have at the local convenience store.

[jwirr]

2. I would guess that some rural areas also have a food shortage

because the area plants and grows one specific crop and all other foods are brought in. We do not have a lot of farms that multi-crop anymore. When I was growing up our farm had beef cattle (a few to feed the family), chickens for meat and eggs, pigs, geese for meat and feathers, couple of turkeys for Thanksgiving, apple trees, raspberry bushes, rhubarb, and a absolutely full garden. More than we could eat but when the end of the season came it was shared with others.

Today the banksters and economic advisers who deal with farmers discourage diversity. Hopefully farmers will go back to the more sensible type of farming that helps everyone in the community.