Food Access - The Trouble with Food and Profits
by Tristan Quinn-Thibodeau
Supermarkets are disappearing from both urban and rural communities as grocery stores face limited profits because of rising urban rent and small rural populations. This has led to fewer, although larger supermarkets, and with rising gas prices, poor or non-existent public transportation, economic hardships, and few jobs in many communities, more and more Americans are unable to eat healthy food at home. However, this problem of food access is not new and has been a problem for low-income communities for quite some time. Rather than sudden rent increases, changing business models, or a slumping economy, people aren’t able to get food because our food system is governed by profit, which is to say, it is barely governed at all.
According to a Newsweek article from last year (“Junk Food County”) rural families are increasingly relying on convenience stores for groceries, and are purchasing the junk food found there instead of healthy foods. A particular example from the article of the difficulty of getting to a supermarket was of a woman in South Carolina who pushed a shopping cart six miles along the highway to get to the nearest grocery store because she didn’t have a car. Her story is not rare, and she is actually lucky that a supermarket is as close as it is. The national trend for retailers is to create superstores in central locations, requiring more travel to be able to get daily necessities.
Urban supermarkets face a different problem, as the competitive real estate market has driven rental prices up, making it difficult for supermarkets to be profitable. The New York Times ran an article on disappearing supermarkets in New York City, particularly in low-income neighborhoods with high rates of diet-related health problems, and said that there are only 550 “decently-sized supermarkets” remaining in New York City, a city of 8 million (“The Lost Supermarket: A Breed In Need of Replenishment”). And this is not isolated to New York City, as there are food deserts in Detroit, Philadelphia, Oakland, and other urban areas across the country. The result is the same as in rural communities: people without access to healthy food rely on cheap junk food available at corner stores or gas stations, and they develop health problems like diabetes or heart disease.
There are many parallels between food access and access of other social services. Low-income people are left without access to healthcare because they cannot afford insurance or their job does not provide adequate coverage. Similarly, low-income people in urban areas are experiencing a lack of access to housing due to gentrification and increased demand. Longtime residents of neighborhoods are forced to move because they cannot afford higher rents caused by increased demand and policies favorable to middle class housing. All of these problems of access are “exclusions” in various sectors of the economy and our society. Like food access, they are getting worse and affecting more and more Americans.
Ultimately, the problem of food access, and the other social exclusions mentioned, is because the food system is driven by corporate profit (rather than health, protecting agricultural traditions, or supporting local economies) and because food has become a commodity (rather than the integral and sacred part of culture it has historically been). The agribusinesses that produce food and the supermarket corporations who sell food are not concerned with providing a public good, and they do not need supermarkets in every town or neighborhood to make profits. Their global business model allows large food retailers to move to more profitable areas like the suburbs, buy in large quantities, and build ever larger stores that drive smaller grocery stores out of business, leaving Americans to rely on convenience stores and junk food. Instead of treating the food system as a necessary public good, it is governed by profit and speculation, prompting exploitation and exclusion. Not surprisingly, the United States has continually refused to sign international documents making food a right, though most Americans would agree that it is a right, or at least that people should have a store near them selling healthy food.
One potential solution to the problem can be found in Venezuela. Mission Mercal is a state-run supermarket company that offers subsidized groceries at stores in mostly low-income areas. Additionally, the Mercal program would ideally become self-sufficient by incorporating local produce and foods and cutting back on food imports, keeping wealth in a community or region. Using this model or a variant of it, city, state, or federal governments could create and subsidize supermarkets in poor areas where there aren’t any. While this model would be a drastic new change in policy for the United States, another more likely scenario is government support for food cooperatives and buying clubs, which can support areas where supermarkets won’t go. Additionally, zoning laws and planning committees can work to ensure that there are spaces for supermarkets in all areas. And finally, local agriculture and production of food is the future of food. The USDA Community Food Projects have proven remarkably successful and need to be replicated on a large scale. Food access is a problem because the availability of food is solely determined by profits. Grassroots political action and pressure is what is needed to make food access a right and to fix this broken system.
