What ‘Food Desert’ Means — and Why the Term Is Misleading

The Trump administration is taking greater control over who has access to food in this country. That’s bad news for those struggling to make ends meet: Several of President Trump’s new appointees have signaled their willingness to impose limits on food access programs, most significantly SNAP. While changes to SNAP policy would affect millions of people, the impact felt by those living in so-called “food deserts” could be compounded by a lack of ready access to food.

Food insecurity is not a simple issue, and a big part of the problem is the way we talk about it — including the term “food desert.” The term food desert is a “potent example of the power of language,” Erica Zurawski, a researcher who focuses on studying food, tells Sentient.

In a soon-to-be published paper, Zurawski lays out how the term is steeped in racist assumptions about development, ignores the sometimes diverse food landscapes of “food deserts” and places blame on the very people experiencing food insecurity. Policies that focus solely on food access often fail to achieve their goals, yet eliminating all food access programs — like SNAP — could have even more devastating results.

The History of the Term ‘Food Desert’

Residents of public housing in Scotland originally coined the term “food desert” to describe what it was like to live with limited access to resources. From there, data scientists quickly adopted the term, using mapping programs to delineate the areas that constituted food deserts.

In translating the term to have actual data implications however, “food desert” came to only mean areas devoid of grocery stores. While a lack of grocery stores in an area is an issue tied to a history of racist redlining in the U.S., focusing solely on this problem prevents deeper discussions around poverty and wages. If you move away from talking about poverty, Zurawski says, then you tend to stop talking about wages. Once that happens, Zurawski adds, “then socio-economic status drops out, and instead, you kind of just get this geographic terrain in distance to grocery stores.”

Still, policymakers favored the new definition of food deserts. It simplified the complex experiences of living in areas with lower food access, while also supporting the idea that market-based actions — like building more grocery stores — could solve the problem, Zurawski says.

Politicians from both sides of the aisle have at times focused on direct food access over these deeper and more complex systemic issues. Zurawski argues some of RFK Jr.’s proposals echo aspects of Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move Campaign, with initiatives like bringing salad bars to schools, for instance. These programs — and the messaging used to describe them — focus primarily on the idea that food deserts are, both implicitly and explicitly, nutritional wastelands, while ignoring the larger social and political causes of food insecurity. And, according to the research, these programs that mostly tackle the access part of the problem have ended up largely as failures.

False Assumptions Implied in ‘Food Desert’

Not only does the term “food desert” vastly oversimplify a complex issue and diverse lived experiences, but it also relies heavily on erroneous ideas about deserts, Zurawski argues in her forthcoming paper.

Contrary to popular belief, deserts are teeming with life — both human and animal. Relying on our assumptions about arid landscapes, the term “food desert” elicits the idea of an absence of food. That’s not always the case, writes Zurawski, who points out that localized sources of food like bodegas, backyard gardens and corner stores are written out of definitions of “food deserts.”

Writing off sources of food that aren’t big-box grocery stores plays into the idea that food deserts are in need of development in order to reduce food insecurity. It’s an idea that’s tied closely to colonialist perspectives viewing desert landscapes as in need of improvement through development — in order to maximize profitability.

All of these ideas tend to hinge on racist assumptions toward the residents of food deserts themselves as being personally responsible for their own food insecurity. Thanks to numerous policies aimed at increasing racial inequality, including redlining and other barriers to building generational wealth faced by Black and Indigenous Americans, majority Black neighborhoods are significantly less likely to have a grocery store than majority white neighborhoods.

Despite the racially targeted policies that have contributed to the racial disparities of where grocery stores are located, in sheer numbers, white people are the racial demographic most accessing SNAP benefits. However, when compared to U.S. demographics overall, historically disenfranchised communities disproportionately access the program.

Though there are plenty of criticisms of SNAP, the program does help provide food for families experiencing hunger and food insecurity. Yet under the Trump administration, the program could face significant changes, further jeopardizing food access across a number of communities.

What Could Policy Changes Mean for SNAP Recipients?

SNAP benefits are outlined in the Farm Bill, a typically bipartisan bill that sets out rules for numerous programs, including many relating to food security — like SNAP — as well as farm subsidies, crop insurance and rural development. Usually the legislation is renewed every five years, a process that was due to take place in 2023, but stalled in Congress.

One potential budget currently being considered by the Republican-controlled Congress would require the Agriculture Committee to cut the budget of their programs by some $230 billion over 10 years. Those cuts would almost certainly require changes to SNAP, either by restricting eligibility or reducing benefits. The House of Representatives passed the budget resolution on February 25.

Meanwhile, Congress is also considering extending the tax cuts enjoyed by the wealthiest Americans implemented under the last Trump Administration. Doing so would require some $1.5 trillion in slashed spending, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Nutrition programs, such as SNAP, account for 76 percent of funding from the 2018 Farm Bill. In 2023, SNAP benefits supported food access for 42.1 million people. Now, with new leadership in both the USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services, and a Farm Bill up for renewal, the future of food assistance programs remains unclear. What is clear is that some people are more at risk from changes to SNAP policy than others.

Late last month, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins issued a directive aimed at preventing undocumented immigrants from accessing SNAP payments. While according to the USDA’s website, “undocumented non-citizens are not and have never been eligible for SNAP,” the directive included few precise details to know for sure how it will be enacted.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will also play a role, as the controversial Secretary built his Make America Healthy Again movement off the back of his criticisms of processed foods. As a result, during his confirmation hearings and in interviews with media since, he’s indicated his support for policies limiting the food that SNAP benefits could be used to buy.

“I fear that the cuts to SNAP that the House GOP is proposing, also augmented by RFK’s proposal to cut processed foods or ultra -processed foods from SNAP benefits, really offers no safety net for folks who just need food,” Zurawski says.

The Bottom Line

Ultimately, food access isn’t a problem that can be siloed and addressed on its own, but instead requires a recognition of the interconnectedness of the range of issues that inform the food system. “Social issues are so deeply braided in kind of this web,” says Zurawski. “To talk about agriculture, to talk about labor, to talk about welfare, to talk about the environment and climate change is also to talk about food.”

For her part, Zurawski doubts the effectiveness of addressing food insecurity through policymaking, especially in the current political climate. Instead, she looks to community-based solutions like mutual aid efforts as a way of helping to offset increasingly gutted policies aimed at addressing food insecurity.