Rural Areas Losing Grocery Stores
Last week, St. Louis Public Radio reported on U.S. Department of Agriculture research around the continuing decline of grocery stores in rural counties. The overall trend is consolidation into larger retail outlets, combined with a growing share of dollar store access points that often lack healthy food options. This is a trend that has lasted a generation, including a 6-year period with a 20% decline that ended in 2015.
Slate also covered news of the shifts in rural food retail landscape and the rise of one business in particular, Dollar General, in a podcast episode that aired in July 2021.
One policy impact of these shifts has been an increased focus on the intersection of transportation barriers and diet quality. While consolidation into fewer but larger locations for food access can mean increased convenience for some consumers, it can also move access points further away from those without easy transportation options. If consolidation happens in a format like Dollar General that is not a full service grocery option, that further exacerbates diet quality concerns. Within a health care policy context, transportation & food concerns also often appear for patients who have health conditions limiting mobility, including both chronic conditions and shorter term needs (such as immediately following a hospital stay). These trends also impact Vermont’s overall goal to support healthy aging at home.
In Vermont, the Farm to Plate Network recently launched a Food Security strategic planning process. Funds from Food Access and Health Care’s HRSA-NBRC grant will support a transportation focus within this plan, as this was the top challenge identified in our 2020-2021 strategic planning process. Additionally, recent changes to the Farm to Plate Network structure support bringing groups together to look at these types of complicated challenges in Communities of Practice. FAHC is helping convene the CSA and Health Care Community of Practice, which meets bi-weekly on Mondays in winter and spring. If you are interested in participating in these (or other) Farm-to-Plate projects, fill out their posted survey here.
For other resources on the intersection of food access, transportation, and health care, check out this 2021 Policy in Plainer Podcast episode and the links contained in the show notes.