Food Security: Local Responses to a Global Concern
By Theresa Kelly Gegen
Food security means at all times having both physical and economic access to sufficient food to meet dietary needs for a productive and healthy life, according to USAID (the United States Agency for International Development).
There are four dimensions to food security, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO):
- “Physical availability of food: Food availability addresses the “supply side” of food security and is determined by the level of food production, stock levels, and net trade.
- Economic and physical access to food: An adequate supply of food at the national or international level does not in itself guarantee household-level food security. Concerns about insufficient food access have resulted in a greater policy focus on incomes, expenditure, markets, and prices in achieving food security objectives.
- Food utilization: Utilization is commonly understood as the way the body makes the most of various nutrients in the food. Sufficient energy and nutrient intake by individuals are the result of good care and feeding practices, food preparation, diversity of the diet, and intra-household distribution of food. Combined with good biological utilization of food consumed, this determines the nutritional status of individuals.
- Stability of the other three dimensions over time: Even if your food intake is adequate today, you are still considered to be food insecure if you have inadequate access to food on a periodic basis, risking a deterioration of your nutritional status. Adverse weather conditions, political instability, or economic factors (unemployment, rising food prices) may have an impact on your food security status.”
All must be present to achieve food security. Note that in some conversations, the dimensions are expanded to include agency and sustainability, along with availability, access, utilization, and stability.
At the National Level
The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines food insecurity as “a lack of consistent access to enough food for every person in a household to live an active, healthy life.” Nine million children experience food insecurity in the United States. In the United States, the underlying causes of food insecurity include factors relevant to the dimensions: under- or un-employment, poverty, and inconsistent access to healthy food, and are interconnected.
What do you picture when you hear the phrase “food desert”?
The term “food desert” typically describes a geographic area in which access to affordable, healthy food options is restricted or nonexistent due to a lack of grocery stores, no grocery stores within convenient traveling distance, or both. The term originated in the 1990s and, although in common use, is increasingly considered misleading or unclear. For one thing, a desert is a “natural occurring ecosystem,” but an area of lack of access to food is an entirely different brand of “eco” system — an economic one — that determines where people shop when they have the means to do so. This second-guessing of the terminology comes with reassessing the data about food insecurity. Studies in the U.S. have shown that “Geographic access to food was generally not associated with the percentage of households that were food insecure.” As much as it is a location issue, it’s also a poverty issue.
That being said, in Illinois, the term “food desert” is codified in Illinois Public Act 100-0493, as “a location vapid of fresh fruit, vegetables, and other healthful whole foods, in part due to a lack of grocery stores, farmers’ markets, or healthy food providers.”
Areas with a lack of food access and affordability typically have small populations, lower levels of education, residents with lower incomes, and are areas with higher rates of unemployment. A 2021 report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation noted that such areas are identified by
- Lack of access to food, as measured by distance to a store or by the number of stores in an area.
- Household resources, including family income or vehicle availability.
- Neighborhood resources, such as the average income of the neighborhood and the availability of public transportation.
- Thus areas with lack of food access can be — and are — urban, suburban, or rural.
Federal assistance programs, such as the National School Lunch Program (NSLP); the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program; and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), address barriers to accessing healthy food and aim to reduce food insecurity.
Statewide Measures
Food security is intertwined with a wide range of educational topics (funding, equity, assessment, social-emotional learning) and issues beyond (the economy, climate change, poverty). This is true in Illinois, food insecurity spans all ages, demographics, and regions.
The 2024 Illinois state budget includes $20 million to create the Illinois Grocery Initiative to study food deserts and develop new or improved grocery stores for underserved areas.
The Illinois Food Deserts Report publishes, using data from the USDA Economic Research Service, census tracts and their level of access and distance to food. In 2019, 28% of Illinois census tracts, in 85 of Illinois’ 103 counties, were food deserts to the extent that they were low income and low access measured at a half mile for urban areas and 10 miles for rural areas.
In an urban area, there may be a lack of full-service grocery stores in under-resourced neighborhoods. In a suburban area, the underlying causes include transportation. Food deserts exist in rural areas, as well. Despite being surrounded by Illinois’ farmland, many small communities have seen grocery stores close.
Local Programs
Food security matters to communities.
Feeding Illinois, the state’s branch of Feeding America, works with an association of eight regional food bank networks. Each network operates using public and private funds to identify local needs and local resources to create programs and services to feed Illinois. Feeding Illinois works with 2,400 pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, and other programs in Illinois, organizing donations; providing transportation, storage, and delivery; and directly providing meals. Feeding America also supports backpack programs, school food pantry programs, and other local events for children.
Examples from across the state highlight the need and the response.
Throughout the state, local providers offer summer meal programs for children. The Northern Illinois Food Bank and Greater Chicago Food Depository, funded by the United States Department of Agriculture and administered by the Illinois State Board of Education, provide free and nutritious breakfasts, lunches, and snacks in the summer months, during which children don’t have school meal programs. New programs including mobile markets and community produce shares are popping up in the state, and initiatives are underway to match local vendors with those needing food. The Market at the Square in Urbana and the Champaign Farmer’s Market have a system in which people using SNAP benefits can exchange them for tokens to spend with eligible market vendors.
Farm Progress reported on efforts in the Scott County area, where three local grocery stores closed in the 2010s, and the nearest full-service options were 18 miles away in Jacksonville or 38 miles away in Jerseyville. Working with local farmers and the Illinois Institute of Rural Affairs (IIRA) at Western Illinois University, the community opened the Great Scott Community Market.
In June, the Rise Community Market opened in Cairo, “driven by the belief that everyone deserves access to affordable, high-quality food,” and ending a seven-year period in which the state’s most southern city had no grocery store. The co-op Market is funded through memberships, along with grants from the University of Illinois and many, many other contributors.
Similar programs are anticipated — and hoped for — in Rockford, Venice, East St. Louis, Nokomis, Peoria, and in Chicago neighborhoods. These programs not only ease the access burdens of those residing in food deserts, but they also provide employment opportunities and community meeting spaces.
Solving the concerns of food deserts matters for children, schools, and communities. According to activist Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund,
“The health and vitality of people living in many urban neighborhoods can differ from block to block depending on how near or far they are to a grocery store or supermarket that offers reasonably priced fresh fruits and vegetables that are low in calories and nutritionally dense. In many urban neighborhoods, it’s easier to buy a pint of liquor, a fried chicken wing, or a gun than a fresh tomato. The failure of supermarket chains to locate stores that offer fresh fruits and vegetables in inner-city communities — a form of food redlining — has had a profound impact on the nutrition, health, and well-being of families lacking cars or access to public transportation to get to well-stocked grocery stores.”
Bear in mind, that was written in 2010, drawing attention to a problem that persists in many forms today. The issue of food deserts is an ongoing concern. In 2021, the National Institutes of Health published “Food Insecurity and Child Development: A State-of-the-Art Review,” describing the “severity and persistence of food insecurity on child development” and concluding that household food insecurity impedes children from reaching their full “physical, cognitive, and psychosocial potential.” Other studies have shown profound public health impacts, such as chronic disease, obesity, and trauma and stress reactions, to children growing up food insecure.