Bridging the Gap: Do Farmers’ Markets Help Alleviate Impacts of Food Deserts? Final Report

Executive Summary Background and Methodology Pressures of the globalized food system have left communities and individuals in precarious situations in which nutritious and accessible food is not a given; research has begun to suggest that relocalization efforts will not necessarily alleviate these trends without directed efforts to produce exchanges that enhance both food and farm security. Existing research in the area of food deserts and Community Food Security lacks significant empirical, spatially relevant support for developing a sound understanding on the variation of effectiveness of federal food assistance programs in relation to local food systems. This research begins to fill this void by first establishing the traditionally conceived food desert estimation for Washington State using grocery store location and census demographic data, followed by an expansion using farmers' markets. As food deserts are results of an interaction of concentrated poverty and low accessibility to healthful food sources, this report creates two metrics for food desert determination. For urban areas, good access is considered to be within a one kilometer walking distance. Meanwhile, the rural areas are assessed for the presence of food deserts based on a ten mile (16.1km) network distance needed to be travelled. Both the urban and rural considerations are conducted at the census tract level in which those tracts with poverty levels in excess of 20 percent and in excess of the distances identified are food deserts. This report first establishes the presence of food deserts, then provides an assessment of the variation in redemption rates and utilization of food assistance programs (e. Program [Senior FMNP]). SNAP data is obtained from a reduced sample of the 20 pilot markets located in Washington, while complete WIC and Senior FMNP data have been obtained for 2009 and 2010 from all approved farmers' markets. This research seeks to achieve the following objectives: ii • Quantify the utilization of food assistance programs by participants at farmers' markets. • Quantify the variability of utilization based on market location in relation to key demographic characteristics of those eligible for federal assistance. • Evaluate the evidence to suggest if farmers' markets site select in a similarly market-motivated fashion as other food outlets. • Evaluate whether farm security and food security are mutually achievable goals. This report contains descriptive summaries of 10 of the 13 urbanized areas (UA) of Washington in relation to their growing numbers of farmers' markets. The remaining three UAs had no …