Planning for Community Food Access

Access to healthy, nutritious food is fundamental to well-being of communities, yet disparities in food access persist across Pennsylvania and the nation. Whether in rural communities or urban neighborhoods, barriers to obtaining affordable, quality food affect millions of households. These barriers are shaped by geography, economics, policy, and infrastructure. Understanding the complex landscape of our food systems is essential for local and regional policymakers who work to strengthen food security and health equity.

This article summarizes a presentation from Penn State's Land Use Webinar Series, which explored how food systems are defined, examined geographic and economic barriers such as food deserts and food swamps, and highlighted innovative resources and solutions being developed to strengthen community food access.

Defining Food Systems

Before addressing access barriers, we must first understand what a food system is. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) offers multiple definitions that capture different aspects of this complex landscape. The USDA's National Agriculture Library defines food systems simply as "everything from farm to table." While very comprehensive, this definition lacks specificity about the actors and processes involved. A more detailed definition from USDA describes local and regional food systems as "place-specific clusters of agricultural producers of all kinds, farmers, ranchers, fishers, along with consumers and institutions engaged in producing, processing, distributing, and selling foods." However, these agricultural and economic definitions are incomplete without considering the broader context. The Global Food Security Strategy adds a crucial dimension: food systems "are influenced by social, political, economic, and environmental contexts." This definition recognizes that food access is not just a matter of infrastructure or supply chains, but it is also shaped by interconnected decisions of all system actors.

Food Deserts: Geography and Access

One of the most visible challenges to equitable food access is the phenomenon known as "food deserts", which are geographic areas where residents face significant barriers to accessing healthy food. The USDA defines food deserts as census tracts that meet two criteria: low income and limited access to food retail. A census tract is a small, permanent subdivision of a county that typically contains between 1,000 and 8,000 people, averaging about 4,000. These geographic units allow researchers to examine food access disparities at a granular scale.

A census tract qualifies as a food desert if it meets the following criteria:

• Low-Income: A poverty rate of 20 percent or greater, OR a median family income at or below 80 percent of the statewide or metropolitan area median family income
• Low-Access: At least 500 people and/or at least 33 percent of the population live more than 1 mile away (urban) from a supermarket or large grocery store (10 miles in rural census tracts)

These thresholds reflect the compounding barriers that food-insecure households face: limited income to purchase food, combined with physical distance from full-service grocery stores. However, food deserts are not simply geographic designations. They reflect a constellation of barriers that limit household food security: limited transportation, reduced purchasing power, and limited availability of healthy food options. These barriers interact and reinforce one another, creating food insecurity in affected communities.

Mapping Food Deserts: Available Resources

The USDA's Economic Research Service (ERS) developed the Food Access Research Atlas, a web-based tool that visualizes food desert locations across the United States. The atlas displays layers showing census tracts with low income and low access at various distances (1, 10, and 20 miles), as well as areas with limited vehicle access. When zoomed in on Pennsylvania, the map reveals numerous low-income, low-access census tracts, particularly in urban areas like Philadelphia and in parts of the state's industrial regions. It is important to note that the Food Access Research Atlas was last updated in 2019, with comparisons available to 2015 data. This lag represents a significant limitation; the pandemic, economic changes, and shifts in retail patterns have occurred since these data were collected. The atlas includes supercenters, supermarkets, and large grocery stores in its analysis, but intentionally excludes drugstores, dollar stores, convenience stores, and farmers' markets. The ERS made this choice because consistent national data on the locations, inventory, and hours of operation for these smaller retailers are not easily available. However, this limitation means the atlas may underestimate actual food access in many communities, particularly in rural areas where farm stands, on-farm retail, and community gardens play important roles.

Another resource is the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) Food Desert and Grocery Store Consolidation Map, which provides finer-grained detail on grocery retail competition. The ILSR map distinguishes between independent grocery stores, small chains, and mega-chains.  When it comes to resources on urban agriculture in Pennsylvania, Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia has mapped access points across the five largest cities. This map includes farmers' markets, community gardens, orchards, CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) programs, and produce markets. These are all alternative food sources that can complement or substitute for traditional grocery retail. When these urban agriculture points are overlaid with food desert locations, gaps in food access become apparent. According to Nicolle Clement, the project manager, Philadelphia, despite being a major urban center, has the lowest ratio of agricultural access per resident among Pennsylvania's largest cities. Their finding underscores the reality that food system infrastructure requires ongoing investment and coordination across multiple scales and retail models.

Food Swamps: The Other Side of Inequity

While food deserts represent areas where healthy food is geographically distant or unavailable, food swamps are a related and equally concerning phenomenon in many communities. Food swamps are neighborhoods characterized by an abundance of fast-food restaurants and convenience stores that primarily offer ultra-processed, high-calorie foods, while healthy options remain scarce. Unlike deserts, which lack food retail, swamps are saturated with food outlets, but most sell products associated with poor health outcomes (Cooksey-Stowers, 2017).

Research increasingly demonstrates that food swamps are stronger predictors of obesity and diet-related disease than food deserts alone (Cooksey-Stowers, 2017). This finding challenges the assumption that proximity to any food retailer automatically improves health outcomes. A 2023 study found that counties with the highest food swamp scores had a 77% increase in obesity-related cancer mortality compared with counties with lower food swamp scores (Bevel et al., 2023).  Researchers have recommended that local zoning policies should restrict the proliferation of unhealthy food outlets in underserved areas while simultaneously incentivizing healthy retailers, such as full-service groceries, farm markets, and produce vendors (Cooksey-Stowers, 2017). According to Spatially Health, nationally, states with the highest food swamp concentrations include Mississippi, Louisiana, West Virginia, and Alabama.

Alternative Food Sources: Beyond Traditional Grocery Stores

The official food access datasets, while useful, capture only part of the food system, and we need better data sources to recognize diverse food retail. In rural areas and increasingly in urban neighborhoods, important food sources include community gardens, farmers’ markets, agritourism operations, on-farm retail and farm stands, pick-your-own operations, and CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) programs.

These sources are often seasonal and highly variable in availability and product mix; however, they can be a vital component of local and regional food systems. Nevertheless, recent surveys of agritourism and direct-to-consumer sales operations reveal persistent challenges in reaching potential customers. For Cooperative Extension, this presents an opportunity to help farmers reach customers through extension-delivered marketing assistance, directory development, or community education to build awareness of local food options. 

Penn State's Food Systems Mapping Resource

To address data limitations, Penn State Extension is developing an updated Food Systems Map to capture current data on food access in Pennsylvania. This resource, led by Harry Chrissy and supported by colleagues across Penn State, incorporates data from multiple sources to provide granular, up-to-date information.

The Penn State Extension Food Systems Map includes multiple interactive layers, among others:

• Urban and rural food deserts: Presented separately based on USDA distance-to-retail thresholds, building on 2025 data rather than the 2019 data in the federal atlas
• Grocery store accessibility: Showing areas where residents lack access to retail food sources
• Food banks: Displayed by size and location, showing the geographic distribution of emergency food assistance
• Farmers markets and on-farm retail: Capturing direct-to-consumer agricultural sales and seasonal food sources often absent from federal databases
• Geospatial Analysis identifying where various crops are grown: Crop acreage is identified and illustrated by type and quantity of acreage grown in each county.
• Community Characteristics Data: Census tract data identifies high poverty rate census tracts and areas with other variables of concern. The map also illustrates median household income statewide, color-coded from low to high, along with road traffic count data, which, when combined, suggest where various food market types may be most viable and sustainable, and where access to food may be challenged by infrastructure type and availability.

The Food Systems Map is under development, with ongoing efforts to provide comprehensive descriptions of the map layers. The team welcomes feedback, additional data, and user requests. This resource will enable researchers, Extension educators, and community leaders to identify food access gaps and prioritize interventions at the local and regional levels.

This work was supported in part by the United States Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) under project # 2020-68006-31683, # 2019-51150-29876, and # 2023-51150-41113. This work is also supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture and Hatch Appropriations under Project #PEN04950 and Accession #7006522.

References and Resources:

Bevel, M. S., Tsai, M. H., Parham, A., Andrzejak, S. E., Jones, S., & Moore, J. X. (2023). "Association of food deserts and food swamps with obesity-related cancer mortality in the US." JAMA Oncology, 9(7), 909–916. doi.org/10.1001/jamaoncol.2023.1625

Cooksey-Stowers, K., Schwartz, M. B., & Brownell, K. D. (2017). "Food swamps predict obesity rates better than food deserts in the United States." International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 14(11), 1366.  doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14111366

Institute for Local Self-Reliance. "Mapping Food Deserts and Grocery Store Consolidation." ArcGIS Dashboard.

Penn State Extension Food Systems Maps.

Saint Joseph's University. (2022). "Urban Agriculture in PA." Tableau Public. 

USDA Economic Research Service. "Food Security in the U.S.: Key Statistics and Graphics." 

USDA Economic Research Service. (2011). "Data Feature: Mapping Food Deserts in the U.S." Amber Waves, December.

USDA Economic Research Service. Food Access Research Atlas.

USDA National Agriculture Library. "Definitions: Sustainability and Food Systems."