The Food Frontiers’ video highlights six projects implemented to improve access to healthy foods for various communities around the United States. After watching the video, my attention was drawn to similar shortages of healthy food in the community of Louisiana, where I come from. Many people are unable to access healthy foods in Louisiana. According to the research (Hunger in Louisiana | How Food Insecurity Affects Our Community, 2023), up to 683,110 people were facing hunger in Louisiana. Of these people, a total of 234,120 are children. Such figures translate to about 1 in 7 people in Louisiana unable to access healthy foods and 1 in 5 children facing hunger (Aridi, 2020). Healthy food costs remain high for a part of the population in Louisiana. Rose and O’Malley (2020) estimated that the average cost of a meal in Louisiana is $3.39. The report estimates that the Louisiana community needs an estimated $409,582,000 or more annually to effectively cater for the food needs of people facing hunger in the community.
Part of the food problem in Louisiana involves the low access to stores with fresh produce and other healthy food options and the high price they have to pay to get healthy foods. Jackson (2021) blames the high cost of healthy food on the physical design of the community, which increases the barriers to accessing healthy foods. For example, inadequate mobility options and low access to stores stocked with fresh produce and healthy foods are significant problems for Louisiana households (Chavez, 2022). The community has tried alleviating access to healthy foods through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). SNAP is a program run by Louisiana’s Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). It provides temporary assistance and supplemental money to help people from the community access healthy foods. According to Miller et al. (2021), 44.9% of households that receive SNAP benefits in Louisiana have children.
Improving food access in Louisiana will involve improving community design to improve access to stores with fresh produce. Increasing access or supply of fresh produce to the neighbourhoods will not only improve access but also play a role in reducing the high costs. For example, a neighbourhood such as North Baton Rouge needs improvements in the physical design to ensure improved walkability, biking and good public transportation to ensure improved mobility. Such improved mobility will ensure community members can access more options of mobility to access the scarcely distributed grocery stores and fresh food stands (Rose & O’Malley, 2020). Additionally, the Louisiana government needs to adopt codes permitting mobile food markets. Currently, mobile food markets are not permitted in Louisiana. Providing an opportunity to establish mobile food markets will benefit many underserved destinations in the community.
Finally, improving access to healthy foods in Louisiana could be expensive in the short term. However, it will have long-lasting benefits in improving access and lowering the cost of fresh produce. For example, the physical improvements to ensure improved mobility in Louisiana will demand investments from the government in community infrastructural developments. Notably, in Louisiana’s North Baton Rouge, walkability, biking and transportation improvements are long overdue and need government investment to help people access fresh food options. The programs permitting mobile food markets would need legislative interventions to ensure that laws disallowing such markets are repealed. Improving mobility and ensuring mobile fresh food market will improve access by ensuring the availability of fresh foods and lower the costs.
References
Aridi, S. (2020, April 10). Facing Food Insecurity on the Front Lines. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/neediest-cases/feeding-america-food-banks-coronavirus.html
Chavez , R. (2022, August 25). This New Orleans food bank opened to serve more people. inflation is forcing organizers to turn dozens away. PBS NewsHour. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/this-new-orleans-food-bank-opened-to-serve-more-people-now-inflation-is-forcing-them-to-turn-dozens-away
Hunger in Louisiana | How Food Insecurity Affects Our Community. (2023, May). Feeding Louisiana. https://www.feedinglouisiana.org/hunger-in-louisiana
Jackson, L. (2021, April 4). State of hunger: Tracking food insecurity in Louisiana. Center for Planning Excellence. https://www.cpex.org/blog/stateofhunger
Miller, K. R., Jones, C. M., McClave, S. A., Christian, V., Adamson, P., Neel, D. R., … & Benns, M. V. (2021). Food access, food insecurity, and gun violence: Examining a complex relationship. Current nutrition reports, 1-7.
Rose, D., & O’Malley, K. (2020). Food Access 3.0: Insights from Post-Katrina New Orleans on an evolving approach to food inequities. American Journal of Public Health, 110(10), 1495-1497.
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