Food Security and Food Desertification: A West-Central Minnesota Case Study

Edwin Brands^1, , Argie Manolis², Danny Kenyon³, Lily Sugimura⁴ and Allison Koos⁵

¹Environmental Studies, University of Minnesota Morris, Morris USA

²Benson Center for Community Partnerships, University of Minnesota Morris, Morris USA

³Anthropology & Archaeology Department, Augustana University, Sioux Falls USA

⁴Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis USA

⁵Environmental Studies & Studio Art, University of Minnesota Morris, Morris USA

Cite this paper

Edwin Brands, Argie Manolis, Danny Kenyon, Lily Sugimura and Allison Koos. Food Security and Food Desertification: A West-Central Minnesota Case Study. Journal of Food Security. 2024; 12(1):1-12. doi: 10.12691/JFS-12-1-1

Abstract

This article reports the approach and main findings of a yearlong effort (2021-2022) to characterize food security within the context of Stevens County, MN (population 9,700), a rural county in West-Central Minnesota, USA. We used the USDA ERS Community Food Security Assessment Toolkit (with some modifications) for this assessment. In addition to collecting information about household food security, we deployed a survey for gathering information about food availability and accessibility as well as barriers to food access that residents may have been experiencing. Residents identified economic issues, mobility issues, and issues related to land access and seasonal gardening as barriers to food access. Approximately 9% of county residents’ incomes were below the federal poverty line; about 1/3 of respondents indicated at least some tendency toward experiencing food insecurity. More than half of the population lives over 1 mile (1.6 km) from the nearest grocery store, and approximately 30% of the population lives more than 2 miles (3km) from the nearest grocery store. In addition to the household survey, we also conducted a market basket survey focused on USDA Thrifty Food Plan item availability and cost at local grocery stores in spring 2022 and gathered information about local food production and availability. Based on this assessment, which also included local trends in grocery store closures and significant increases in visits to and food distributed by the local food pantry (or food shelf), county residents appear to have been experiencing food desertification: food was becoming more difficult for many county residents to access.

Keywords

food security, community assessment, food desertification, rural, minnesota

Copyright

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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