• February 12, 2018. WAMU 88.5.
  Where Eating Healthy Means Trekking Out Of A Food Desert. There’s a clear connection between income and healthy eating: in general, the higher your income, the better you eat. But understanding the relationship hasn’t done much to solve the problem for thousands of Washingtonians without many options for fresh food. In D.C., the problem is not only one of income. It’s also about accessibility. Read more >
   
• February 11, 2018. Pittsburg Post-Gazette
  Turning food deserts into oases. If you’ve piled your shopping cart high with kale this past week at the local grocery store to make up for overindulging on Super Bowl Sunday, consider this: 40 million Americans live in places without ready access to healthy, affordable food. In communities where there are no supermarkets or other places to buy nutritious meals, residents often have no choice but to shop wherever they can that’s close by: the big-box store, the bodega down the street, the gas station. When’s the last time you saw a head of lettuce at a gas station? Read more >
   
• January 15, 2018. Wane.com.
  Bill aims to rid Indiana of food deserts. The United States Department of Agriculture says a food desert is a place where at least 500 people live more than one mile from a supermarket or large grocery store. That number bumps up to 10 miles for rural areas. After learning that, do you live in a food desert? You could be living in a food desert and not realize it. There are dozens across Indiana, according to the USDA. Read more >
   
• January 8, 2018. Fast Company.
  To End A Food Desert, These Community Members Opened Their Own Grocery.  A decade ago, there were more than 50 liquor stores in West Oakland and zero full-service grocery stores. But in 2009, community members launched Mandela Foods Cooperative, a health food store in the neighborhood with a small but Whole Foods-like produce section. Despite the high failure rates of new businesses–around 70% fail after 10 years–the store has survived. This year, it will expand into a new retail space more than twice as large. Read more >
   
• January 5, 2018. MarketPlace.
  The unexpected challenges of living in a food desert. You've probably heard the term food desert to describe a neighborhood where residents have little or no access to fresh and healthy food. Food deserts hit low-income communities hard, leaving their residents with few options and sometimes long distances to travel in search of healthy food. Read more >
   
• January 3, 2018. Denver Business Journal.
  Colorado Enterprise Fund makes biggest-ever commercial-project loan. The Colorado Enterprise Fund has made its largest commercial real estate loan in its history, saying the project provides food in a neighborhood that had lost its grocery store. The CEF is a nonprofit Denver-based Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) and makes micro and small business loans.
  Read more >
   
• December 31, 2017. New Orleans Business News.
  Robert Fresh Market opens in Marigny. Twelve years after Hurricane Katrina forced its closure, Robert Fresh Market reopened its Faubourg Marigny location Saturday (Dec. 30), the company announced on Facebook. The store, located at St. Claude and Elysian Fields avenues, will be open every day from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Read more >
   
• December 27, 2017. Public News Service.
  VA Grocery Investment Fund Would Target Neglected Communities. Supporters say a state grocery store investment fund to be considered by lawmakers would help Virginia communities without easy access to fresh food. The fund is designed to make investment capital cheaper and easier to get for companies that want to run grocery stores in what are known as food deserts – such as rural Surry County on the Virginia coast. Read more >
   
• December 2017. Food Tank Blog.
  Strengthening Food Sovereignty in Santee Sioux Nation. The Santee Sioux people largely lack access to healthy, culturally-appropriate foods that could help them combat health challenges, according to a new report by the Center for Rural Affairs. “Digging In: Supporting a Healthy, Sustainable Food Future in Santee Sioux Nation,” examines food access and cost, diet-related disease prevalence, and cultural food traditions in the Santee Sioux Reservation in northeast Nebraska. Read more >
   
• December 19, 2017. Trib Live.
  Uptick in Hill District health, food security followed grocery store's opening, study says. Hill District residents' health and food security appear to have improved since the long-awaited opening of a full-service supermarket, especially compared to other neighborhoods with similar demographics, according to a RAND Corporation study. Read more >
   
• December 6, 2017. Cleveland.com.
  New supermarket coalition aims to improve access to healthy food in Cuyahoga County. In the basement of the East Cleveland Public Library, a movement took shape Tuesday. Nearly 50 government and nonprofit workers and local residents came together for the first Health Improvement Partnership-Cuyahoga Consortium Supermarket Coalition meeting. Their goal: creating a community to help improve supermarket access in Cuyahoga County. Read more >
   
• December 6, 2017. MarketPlace.
  What happens when a town loses its only grocery store? The former grocery store in the village of Carrollton, Ohio, looks like your typical creepy abandoned building. It’s dark inside. It’s boarded up with moldy wood. Last January, residents of Carrollton — population 3,135 — showed up to find the doors locked and a sign attached that read, simply, “store closed.” It was the only dedicated grocery store in a county of nearly 28,000 people. Read more >
   
• December 5, 2017. Partnership with Native Americans.
  PBS Airs Documentary on Food Insecurity and Nutrition Tribal Communities. Healthy food choices are in abundance for most Americans. Fresh fruits and vegetables are just a short car ride away, if not within walking distance. But, for our Native American citizens, that is not always the case. Watch this short segment, now airing on PBS stations nationwide, to hear a Native American chef, a Pascua Yaqui Tribal member, and a PWNA staff member discuss what is being done to address the issue and how the Native American Food Movement is supporting a return to healthy, traditional diets in Indian Country. Read more >
   
• December 4, 2017. The Columbus Dispatch.
  Groceries again available in Vinton County. Vinton County is a food desert no more. An oasis has appeared in the Appalachian Ohio county in the form of Campbell’s Market, which celebrated its grand opening with a ribbon cutting Monday. Read more >
   
• November, 28, 2017. Shelter Force.
  Why Food-Oriented Development Is Easier to Implement. Transit-oriented development (TOD) has developed a track record for city-scale and regional development, based on the assumption that clustering mixed-use development around transit centers will reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions while promoting healthy lifestyles and socioeconomic integration. The effects of TOD have been mostly positive: TOD developments have reduced congestion and associated climate impacts, and spurred market-rate development, but they may also in some cases have accelerated gentrification and displacement of low-income communities. Further, TOD is capital-intensive and most feasible in regions with robust local tax bases and supportive policy environments. Read more > 
   
• November, 28, 2017. Art Place America Blog.
  Radical [Re]construction of Community: Food, Art, and Regenerative Placemaking on Chicago’s South Side. Over the past several years, Chicago has been highlighted in the media as a ‘tale of two cities’: one of them safe and prosperous, the other dangerous and poor—and both of them growing more so. Nowhere in Chicago are the crises more prevalent and the social exclusion and marginalization more profound than on the South and West Sides. Read more > 
   
• November 27, 2017. Fast Company.
  How Closing Grocery Stores Perpetuate Food Deserts Long After They’re Gone. An obscure clause in the deeds of departing grocery stores sometimes prevents new grocery stores from opening in their place, leaving neighborhoods without fresh produce for years to come. Read more > 
   
• November, 27, 2017. Art Plae America Blog.
  Food for Thought. The MESA Project in Las Cruces, NM and the Opa-locka Community Development Corporation’s THRIVE Campus project in Opa-locka, FL are both doing incredible work in their communities using food and agriculture to bridge cultural gaps, improve the local economy, cope with environmental and public heath crises, and more. Read more > 
   
• November 14, 2017. Star Tribune.
  North Minneapolis' Appetite for Change and other organizations win Bush Prize. A north Minneapolis group that uses food as a community development tool was among seven regional organizations awarded the 2017 Bush Prize for Community Innovation, the foundation announced Tuesday. Read more > 
   
• November 13, 2017. Greater Baton Rouge Business Report.
  Together Baton Rouge calls for food access funding ahead of budget debate. As the Metro Council prepares to take up Mayor Sharon Weston Broome’s proposed $918 million budget for next year, Together Baton Rouge is calling on the mayor to fund an initiative she backed on the campaign trail to increase food access in the parish’s many food deserts. Read more > 
   
• November 10, 2017. Next City.
  Veggie Bus Parks in Los Angeles Food Desert. An old school bus is operating once again in service of education — and the classroom is South Los Angeles. RELATED STORIES L.A. Food Truck Project Shows Trickiness of Healthy Eating What Urbanists Can Learn From Foodies For These Urban Farmers, the Harvest Is About More Than Healthy Eating Minneapolis Food Desert to Get Grocery Store Nonprofit Community Services Unlimited (CSU) last weekend unveiled its Veggie Bus project, along with breaking ground on the Paul Robeson Community Wellness Center. Read more > 
   
• November 10, 2017. Progressive Grocer.
  Top Women in Grocery Celebrates in Chicago. Progressive Grocer’s Top Women in Grocery gala, which took place Nov. 8 and 9 in Rosemont, Ill., celebrated the great strides of women in the food industry, with 248 honorees accepting individual awards for the accomplishments in the industry. More than 500 attendees helped the winners celebrate their achievements as they mixed and mingled with colleagues, friends and family from around the country. Read more > 
   
• November 9, 2017. CGTN America.
  Chicago’s south side fighting for better access to fresh produce. Huge areas across the south and south-west side of Chicago have been classified as food deserts, a region lacking fresh fruit, vegetables and other healthy foods. Instead, these low-income districts are often left with little more than fast-food outlets and liquor stores. Read more > 
   
• November 9, 2017. Richland Source. 
  SNAP-Ed addresses food insecurity with lessons on healthy eating, living. Gloria Taylor, 52, admits she struggles with impulse buying. While doing her monthly grocery shopping, she struggles to refrain from purchasing items she wants and doesn't need, including her favorites: Pepsi and Oreo Thins. Read more >
   
• November 7, 2017. Journal Sentinel. 
  Wisconsin Assembly approves giving Wisconsin food stamp users a discount on produce, healthy groceries. Some people who use food stamps would get a break on buying produce and other healthy groceries, under a bill the state Assembly overwhelmingly approved Tuesday. Read more >
   
• November 1, 2017. Next City.
  Harlem Small Business Group Got Ready for Whole Foods Opening 5 Years Ago. Amid surging development in Harlem, Nikoa Evans-Hendricks is on a mission to preserve the New York City neighborhood’s culture. “What makes Harlem Harlem, is the small-time feel in a big city that we have,” says Evans-Hendricks, who’s executive director of Harlem Park to Park (HP2P), a nine-year-old nonprofit network of more than 100 neighborhood entrepreneurs who live in Harlem or nearby. Read more >
   
• November 1, 2017. NBC 15. 
  Gov. Ivey announces grant program to provide healthy foods to state’s underserved areas. Alabama is a step closer to ensuring that everyone has access to healthy foods with the rollout of a grant program designed to help retailers open grocery businesses in underserved areas of the state, Gov. Kay Ivey announced. The Alabama Healthy Food Financing Act will enable retailers to obtain a grant of up to $50,000 to build or open a grocery store, market or other fresh-food outlet in communities where residents do not have immediate access to fresh and healthy foods. Read more >
   
• October 31, 2017. Family Farmed.
  Meet Our New Good Food Accelerator Fellows. Family Farmed is pleased to announce the lineup of entrepreneurs who will be participating in our 2017-18 Good Food Accelerator program. The fourth cohort since the Accelerator was launched in 2014, these nine exciting early-stage businesses were competitively selected from a pool of excellent applicants. Read more >
   
• October 27, 2017. WOSU Public Media.
  Vinton County, Long A Food Desert, Welcomes First Grocery Store In Years. As cashiers greet shoppers and carts squeak across the floors of Campbell’s Market, this Wednesday morning has the air of a celebration. It's opening day in McArthur. Read more >
   
• October 27, 2017. Health Affairs Blog.
  To Improve Health And Reduce Costs For Low-Income Seniors, Invest Upstream. As US policy makers debate approaches to curb health care expenditures and threaten cuts to safety-net programs, new research shows that greater access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is associated with significant health care savings for low-income seniors. Read more >
   
• October 27, 2017. Fair Farms Maryland.
  Action Alert & Video: Maryland Farms and Families Act. Maryland has the opportunity to move forward on a win-win program that directly invests in farmers throughout the state and helps low-income families purchase local and healthy fruits and vegetables. Read more >
   
• October 25, 2017. Topeka Capital-Journal.
  Marcus Scarborough: Local grocery stores provide a lesson in lending. Anita Hadley had a simple dream: She wanted to sell groceries to people she saw every day. She wanted to be part of their lives. After working many years for a large grocery chain, Anita is now district manager for two Save-A-Lot stores in Winfield and Wichita that are as dedicated to serving their communities as she is. Read more >
   
• October 19, 2017. High Plains/Midwest Ag Journal.
  Kansas State University to help new initiative improve healthy food access for Kansans. To help improve Kansans’ access to healthy food, the Kansas Health Foundation is launching the Kansas Healthy Food Initiative Nov. 6 in Wichita. Read more >
   
• October 19, 2017. Fast Company. 
  To Understand Food Deserts, We Need To Understand Food Systems. Mapping food deserts–areas where fresh, healthy food is hard to come by—is nothing new. In 2011, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released its Food Desert Locator, an interactive map of the entire country. Read more >
   
• October 17, 2017. Fox Denver News.
  Improving access to healthy food choices in parts of Denver a challenge. Improving the healthy food options in the metro area is a big issue to tackle, and it has big health impacts. Just ask Gary Pyle. He lives close to East Colfax Avenue in Aurora. Read more >
   
• October 16, 2017. SW News Media.
  SMSC donates $250K to improve Native American nutrition. The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, through its Seeds of Native Health philanthropic campaign to improve Native American nutrition, has given $250,000 in grant funds to support a program designed to improve health and nutrition in tribal communities. Read more >
   
• October 16, 2017. Addison County Independent.
  Doctors prescribing free vegetables; Bristol program aims at overall health. What if your doctor prescribed you asparagus instead of aspirin? A few weeks ago, Charlotte Sullivan visited the Mountain Health Center in Bristol for an appointment and walked out with a unique prescription — she had secured free vegetables for the next six weeks. Read more >
   
• October 16, 2017. UB News Center.
  UB, international partner launch first global database of food systems planning policies. A first-of-its-kind database developed and maintained at the University at Buffalo will help city, regional and statewide governments around the globe develop better food systems planning policies by drawing from legislation already crafted. Read more >
   
• October 14, 2017. The Boston Globe.
  Food stamps, quality concerns may keep low-income shoppers offline. A quick bus ride from her Roxbury home can bring Jocelyne Joseph closer to the familiar food of her native Haiti. Standing in the produce section of Tropical Foods supermarket, Joseph picks up a breadfruit, a bumpy, green, nutrient-rich staple of the Caribbean not always stocked by grocery store chains. Read more >
   
• October 10, 2017. NPR.
  Southeastern Ohio Food Desert Is About To Get A Grocery Store. Ohio is trying to bring fresh fruit and vegetables to underserved communities. One community in Southeastern Ohio is receiving some help, but it didn't come without a battle from community leaders. Read more >
   
• October 10, 2017. Michael & Susan Dell Foundation Blog.
  Healthy food access: A community’s effort to improve health. Ruby Wilson had shopped at the Kroger store on Terry Road for years. The store provided residents of South Jackson, Mississippi, a place to purchase fresh produce and pick up prescriptions from an in-house pharmacy. Standing at over 50,000 square feet, the store was the community’s retail anchor in an already struggling area that experienced shuttered stores, closed restaurants, and dilapidated apartments. Read more >
   
• October 5, 2017. Cleveland.com.
  As many as 450,000 people in the county live in food deserts; group wants to increase access to supermarkets. Until last December, the stretch of Euclid Avenue near Richmond Road in Euclid was plagued by a dying shopping center and not many options for healthy foods for local residents. But, with the opening of Simon's Supermarket in the Euclid Richmond Shopping Center Dec. 19, the former food desert took on new life, residents say. Read more >
   
• October 2, 2017. Alexandrine Press.
  Planning for Equitable Urban and Regional Food Systems. How does and can planning and design enhance the freedom and wellbeing of marginalized actors in the food system – low-income residents, people of colour, small-holder farmers, and refugees – the very people the alternative food movements purport to serve? That is the question of concern in this special issue in which authors from across the Global North and South explore the role of planning and design in communities’ food systems, while explicitly considering the imbalances in equity, justice, and power. Read more >

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