May 09, 2011

USDA Introduces Online Tool for Locating 'Food Deserts' in USA
(CNS News)
The U.S. Agriculture Department on Monday introduced an online "Food Desert Locator," showing where in the United States residents have limited access to affordable and nutritious foods.

The Obama administration defines a food desert as a low-income census tract where either a substantial number or percentage of residents lacks easy access to a supermarket or large grocery store.

It is interesting that this article appears just a week after a Cato or Reason article raised the issue of "Separation of Grocery and State" as an example of the need for "Separation of School and State" - it appears that the current administration is intending to end the separation of grocery and state.

The map is VERY worth looking at, especially for your area and other areas you are familiar with.
It is a ridiculous example of using statistics to lie. Although not a major part of my practice, it is important to me to know what and where supermarkets are, and what their economic condition (and that of their area) is - and I know many of these census tracts in Colorado, Wyoming, and South Dakota.

The article says that USDA uses two criteria: (1) ""low income" tracts are defined as those where at least 20 percent of families have income at or below the federal poverty level, or where median family income for the tract is at or below 80 percent of the surrounding area's median family income." and (2) "Tracts qualify as "low access" if at least 500 persons or 33 percent of the population live more than a mile from a supermarket or large grocery store. For rural census tracts, the distance to a supermarket is set at more than 10 miles."

The article explains WHY these stupid definitions are used, also: "The definitions were developed by a working group comprised of staffers from the departments of Treasury, Health and Human Services, and USDA, ..." In other words, these were done by FedGov bureaucrats, probably almost all of them in DC or inside the Beltway, who don't have the foggiest idea how the rest of us live.

As a result, we have some of the following stupidity:

• One of the "Food Desert" census tracts in Cortez, CO, a city of about 10,000, has ONE (WalMart) of the THREE supermarkets in the city (and FIVE in the county) INSIDE the tract (which is only about two by three miles in size, if that) (the other two stores, Safeway and City Market (a Kroger) are on the other side of the main street of town from this tract).
• Two-thirds of Montezuma County (in which Cortez, CO is located) is a "food desert" although there are five supermarkets and at least 15 convenience stores in the County. Yet counties which require a 50-mile one-way drive to the nearest grocery store (often not in the county) are NOT food deserts.
• Another "Food Desert" is the south half of Ellsworth AFB, SD; I guess too many USAF enlisted "Dorm Rats" don't get paid enough, and obviously, the runways are too far from the Commissary and BX.
• Yet another "Food Desert" is the south half of Lawrence County, in the Black Hills of South Dakota, including some of the suburbs of Lead and Deadwood (famous for its gambling houses), but considered by any sane person to be rural. Lead and Deadwood, these days, are a bit lacking on supermarkets: the two cities share just one; but they have a dozen convenience stores and are within ten miles of three supermarkets in Sturgis (open even during Rally) and two or three in Spearfish.
• Astonishing me, two census tracts in Rapid City, SD, a wealthy city which has missed most of the current depression (so far) and has an incredible number of supermarkets (ten "major chain" stores and four minor chain stores, plus drugstores that might as well be supermarkets and something like 50 convenience stores), are "Food Deserts" - apparently because of income and the one-mile/ten-mile distance. Ironically, I think that one of the tracts includes a former supermarket which has been converted to the regional Food Bank: if it were still a grocery store, it wouldn't be a food desert?

But what we REALLY have to ask ourselves is WHY is the FedGov doing this? It isn't just to suck up to the First Lady, it is because the Food Sector is one of the next and SIGNIFICANT targets for MORE government control and "intervention." We have seen hundreds of stories in recent months about the coming "food crisis" and the need for "food security" and the tempo has been building. We are told that corn and soybean use for fuel is driving world food prices (forget inflation and petroleum food prices, of course), and that "greedy capitalists" are responsible, just as they were for failed medical care, failed banks, and failed everything-else.

We have been bombarded for decades about starving and undernourished children, not just in Africa and India, but in the US. And even THIS has become more pervasive. Obviously, the "farm lobby" will keep the USG from collectivizing farming and ranching (and that really isn't needed, since the corporations are the dominant players that they are: and there is not too much difference between the big multi-nationals and the FedGov anyway, these days. But the FedGov CAN go after the processors and middlemen. Is General Mills to become "Government Mills" and Pillsbury the next Chrysler? Are the Big Grocery chains, like Kroger, Nash-Finch, Safeway, and Wal-Mart, to be the next Big Tobacco and Big Pharma? Are we to see "rationalization" of the chains of food stores, as politically-connected stores take over from those who didn't support the right candidate(s), so that ranchers and farmers and miners and oil and gas people in rural and frontier areas will have to drive 150 miles instead of 50 miles to find a store that carries more than 1,000 lines? Or will we just have the food provision and service version of the Abominable Act (ObamaCare)? Especially when combined with proposals to tax (or ban) "bad foods" like sugary drinks and excessively salty snacks and empty-calorie foods? Yes, it sounds extreme, but didn't the Abominable Act sound that way even in 2001?