reaching the limits: a geographic approach for
TRANSCRIPT
Reaching the limits: a geographic approachfor understanding food insecurity and household hungermitigation strategies in Minneapolis-Saint Paul, USA
Joel Larson • William G. Moseley
� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010
Abstract Research on hunger and food security in
the Global South and the Global North has often
emphasized different factors and scales of analyses.
Unlike newer monitoring systems in the Global
South, which evolved substantially following cri-
tiques by Amartya Sen, US food security research has
rarely combined the two dimensions of food avail-
ability and food access. Furthermore, this research
has paid scant attention to household coping strate-
gies. This study responds to this lacuna in US hunger
research by developing a spatial model for predicting
risk to food insecurity based on proxy measures for
access (three demographic variables) and availability
(grocery store density). The study then employs
qualitative methodologies (surveys and semi-struc-
tured interviews) to understand household coping
strategies in two ethnically distinct areas in Minne-
apolis-Saint Paul at risk to food insecurity. One
neighborhood is dominated by Southeast Asian and
East African immigrants and the other by African-
Americans. This approach should allow for better
targeting of food aid and programs that help alleviate
food insecurity.
Keywords Coping strategies � Food security �Hunger � Spatial modeling
Introduction
Food security as a field of research has been
dominated by work done in the Global South. Work
on this theme in the US is more recent, even lacking a
measurable definition until the mid-1990s (Curtis and
McClellan 1995). The term ‘food security’ in the US
context is defined as ‘‘all people obtaining a cultur-
ally acceptable, nutritionally adequate diet, through
nonemergency food sources at all times’’ (US House
Select Committee on Hunger 1989, p. 4). Hunger
research in the US has also evolved more or less
independently from the more sizeable and older body
of food security literature focused on the Global
South. As a result, US hunger research may not be
capitalizing on all of the advances made in its
developing world corollary.
In creating models to predict areas of food
insecurity in the US, most research up to this point
has focused on one of two issues: availability of food
for sale within certain geographic areas (referred to as
accessibility in the US food security literature) and
people’s ability to access food in terms of ability to
pay (often referenced as demographic variables in the
US literature). As of yet, however, little, if any, US
based research has attempted to combine these two
aspects of food insecurity. Furthermore, this research
J. Larson (&)
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
e-mail: [email protected]
W. G. Moseley
Macalester College, Saint Paul, MN, USA
123
GeoJournal
DOI 10.1007/s10708-010-9371-9
has paid scant attention to household coping strate-
gies (for which there is a well developed literature in
the field of developing world food security). This
study seeks to learn from advances in the Global
South and apply them to the study of hunger patterns
and dynamics in the US.
This study has four main objectives. First, to
develop a model that combines (1) measures of food
availability through access modeling techniques with
(2) people’s ability to acquire food as shown by
demographic proxy variables in Minneapolis-Saint
Paul. Second, to apply this model to the Minneapolis-
Saint Paul area to determine those areas at greatest
risk of food insecurity. Third, to use qualitative
methods (surveys and interviews) to determine how
residents at risk of food insecurity cope with that
danger. Fourth, to offer policy and program recom-
mendations based on the results of this model and the
insights on coping gleaned from interviews and
surveys.
Food security research in the Global South
and North
Research on hunger and food security in the Global
South and the Global North has often emphasized
different factors and scales of analyses. Hunger
studies in the developing world, or Global South,
historically focused on assessments at the national
scale. A number of national scale monitoring systems
were established following catastrophic famines,
particularly in Africa after major droughts in the
early 1970s and mid-1980s (Babu and Quinn 1994;
Quinn and Kennedy 1994). The UN Food and
Agriculture Organization’s food balance sheet
approach is a classic example of such national scale
monitoring (Maxwell and Frankenberger 1992). This
approach compares national food supplies (locally
grown food ? imports - exports) to national food
needs (per capita caloric requirements x national
population). Subsequent critiques of this methodol-
ogy by Sen (1981) and others (e.g., Jenkins and
Scanlan 2001) pointed out that national scale anal-
yses often missed more localized pockets of hunger
and conflated the availability of food with people’s
ability to access it.
As a consequence, other food security models
began to be developed that allowed for monitoring at
the subnational level. Examples of these approaches
include those that tracked a set of key indicators (Eele
1994) while others focused on the modeling of
household food economies (Seaman 2000; Moseley
and Logan 2001). These new approaches often took
account of food availability (i.e., is there enough food
available at the local, provincial or national scales to
meet the food needs of a given population) as well as
people’s ability to access such food. ‘‘Access’’ in this
context was conceptualized as people’s ability to
acquire food—and this was often measured along
several dimensions. Examples of these dimensions
include: whether or not households grew sufficient
amounts of food in a given year to meet their annual
needs; levels of household food stocks; proximity and
access to food markets; household monetary
resources available to purchase sufficient calories
given prevailing food prices; the availability of assets
that might be sold in order to purchase food; or other
non-market strategies for acquiring food.
A key aspect of this new breed of (or post-Sen)
monitoring strategies was attention to so-called
coping strategies. Coping referred to strategies
adopted by households in lean years to make up the
difference from food shortfalls. Many of these
strategies are included in the list of the monitoring
dimensions listed above (such as assets that could be
sold in order to purchase food), but also included
such factors as a household’s ability to collect wild
food, additional off-season employment, etc. A key
distinction between coping and regular food procure-
ment strategies is that the former are (typically) only
employed in years of food shortage. It should finally
be noted that most hunger monitoring efforts in the
Global South focused on the rural milieu as, histor-
ically, food insecurity was greatest in this realm.
More recently, attention has been given to monitoring
hunger in urban areas (Moseley 2001).
In contrast, research on hunger in the US has
typically been undertaken at more local scales as it is
assumed that sufficient food supplies exist at the
national level. Furthermore, there is no regular
hunger monitoring in the US as hunger is thought
to be a low level, chronic problem rather than an
episodic problem related to poor harvests (which is
reflective of the largely urban character of the US).
As such, most data on hunger in the US are collected
during yearly Current Population Surveys (CPS) and
the decadal national census. Academic researchers
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and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) then
use this and supplemental data to understand hunger.
US food insecurity studies typically have focused
on two sets of factors. First, some studies have
concentrated on the availability of food in certain
neighborhoods by looking at the distribution and
density of governmental food programs and grocery
stores. Several scholars, including Guy (1983), Fra-
zier et al. (2003), and Clarke et al. (2002), use various
spatial accessibility models to predict communities
within urban areas that have fewer opportunities to
reach consumer goods. While not typically phrased as
such, what such studies are attempting to do is
understand the availability of food at different scales
of analyses (which is similar to market studies in the
Global South). Spatial units in the US with a paucity
of grocery stores have been referred to as ‘‘food
deserts’’ (e.g., Morton et al. 2005; see Wrigley 2002
for an example of this problem in the UK).
Second, the more common approach has been to
attempt to identify populations at risk of food
insecurity by focusing on demographic factors that
are often highly correlated with this problem, such as
race, household type, age and income. Here again,
while typically not phrased as such, these are proxy
indicators for people’s ability to access food through
purchase (which is similar to certain lines of research
in the Global South). Research to determine what
socio-economic groups are most at risk for food
insecurity have included efforts by the USDA’s
Economic Research Service (ERS) (e.g., Nord et al.
2002; Curtis and McClellan 1995). Results from this
work indicate that minorities, particularly African-
Americans and Hispanics, single females with chil-
dren, and households below the poverty line are more
at risk for food insecurity. While food insecurity
research has been conducted in urban and rural areas
in the United States, the majority of studies focus on
urban areas. In addition, there has been some research
modeling geographic availability to grocery stores
(US Department of Agriculture Economic Research
Service (USDA-ERS) 2009), but what US food
security research typically has not done is combine
these two dimensions: food availability and food
access.
Furthermore, very little attention has been paid to
coping in the United States. As these methods and
approaches are now frequently combined in the
developing world (Moseley and Logan 2005) and
the UK (Whalen et al. 2002; Wrigley et al. 2003;
Wrigley et al. 2004), it only seems appropriate that
these conceptual advances be applied to hunger
monitoring in the US. We finally note that, in this
very brief review of food security research in the
Global South and North, we clearly have omitted
large bodies of related scholarship. Perhaps the
greatest omission is the large body of literature
which examines the political economy of hunger.
Spatial access modeling
Related to the broad body of scholarship on food
security is a more specialized literature on spatial
access modeling. Spatial accessibility research on the
availability of food complements demographic stud-
ies by examining the physical environment, deter-
mining what areas of a city could be classified as
‘‘food deserts,’’ lacking in grocery opportunities
(Frazier et al. 2003; Guy 1983). Recent studies,
including Morton et al. (2005) and Gallagher (2007)
have that found residents living in food deserts not
only have to expend more time and energy to obtain
adequate nutrition, but they also have higher risks of
contracting diet-related diseases and other health
problems.
Geographic accessibility refers to ‘‘the inherent
characteristic (or advantage) of a place with respect
to overcoming some form of spatially operating
source of friction (for example, time and/or dis-
tance)’’ (Ingram 1971, p. 101). Put more simply, it
‘‘measures the potential interaction between places,’’
i.e., the attraction that one point places on another
(Frazier et al. 2003, p. 217). With regard to retail
activities, this attractiveness can be based on vari-
ables such as store size or population and can be
measured by time, distance, or cost (Song 1996).
General geographic or spatial accessibility can be
broken down further into two distinct types. The first
is relative accessibility, ‘‘the degree to which two
places (or points) on the same surface are connected’’
(Ingram 1971, p. 101). The second is integral
accessibility, the effort needed to overcome spatial
separation between many places (Frazier et al. 2003).
Each form has its own advantages and drawbacks and
must be considered together for each particular point
of interest. For example, relative accessibility can be
used to compare the shortest distance needed to travel
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from a house or block group centroid to obtain some
convenience good, such as gas, milk, or produce,
while integral accessibility can aid in viewing
systems as a whole, creating a larger picture of
access for a particular community.
A research project’s purpose and design should be
critically examined to determine what type of acces-
sibility measure to use for its particular question.
Utilizing an inappropriate method can lead to prob-
lematic and inaccurate results. Most problems arise
from accessibility measures’ nature as a process
versus outcome indicator (Guy 1983). Process indi-
cators are measures of a supply (or availability) in a
system, and are the goal and end-product of model-
ing. Outcome indicators show actual use and level of
satisfaction, which is not easily measurable through
theoretical modeling. Because of the lack of shopping
behavior data available in many locations, outcome
measures are rarely used and process indicators are
often substituted in their place. With the latter,
behavior and decisions made by the shoppers are
assumed and fixed, side stepping the need for such
information.
Because of accessibility’s nature as a process
indicator, there are dangers associated with treating it
as an indicator of actual use (Frazier et al. 2003). For
example, in a gravity model, the assignment of an
‘‘attractiveness’’ value based on size is not the
equivalent of an individual’s ability to travel to that
particular store. In other words, a store’s size and
attractiveness does not mean that all consumers can
afford to reach it (which relates to Sen’s (1981)
critique in the broader food security literature of
equating availability with access). Another problem
that presents itself when determining the integral
accessibility of a particular place develops from the
averaging of distances from it to other points of
interest. While this calculation is often done to allow
comparison between places (Ingram 1971), it can be
erroneous due to the presence of outliers. These
conditions aside, there are circumstances where
accessibility can measure equality of opportunity,
but not (as mentioned) the ability of households to
pay or their choices made under financial or time
constraints (Frazier et al. 2003).
Calculations of equality of spatial access can be
useful for comparing various neighborhoods within
the same urban area. To this end, empirical measures
of accessibility have been developed and range from
the simple to complex. Perhaps the most easily
understood is straight-line, or Euclidian, distance.
Most often calculated using Pythagoras’ theorem,
straight line distance can either be relative, covering
only two points, or integral, averaging the relative
accessibilities of that point (Frazier et al. 2003;
Ingram 1971). In 2009, a report by the USDA ERS
modeled geographic access based on straight line
distance to compare how income, race, ethnicity, and
several other factors related to distance to a major
grocery store or retailer. They found that low-income
and ethnic and racial minorities have better geo-
graphic access than the general public, but those
populations tend to live in denser areas than high-
income, white residents.
Another relatively simple measure is rectangular
distance, or the distance from the origin along a
rectangular, right-angle pattern (e.g., a road system).
This method may be more appropriate than straight
line distances when the rectangular nature of the
travel network causes significant differences from
straight line distances (Ingram 1971). A third simple
measure is time–cost distance, which determines
either the potential time taken to travel a specific path
or the equivalent in other monetary or non-monetary
means.
Several studies, including Ingram (1971) and
Clarke et al. (2002) have compared various geo-
graphic or spatial accessibility measures and found
that a Gaussian equation developed by Guy (1983)
was the most appropriate index when examining
grocery stores. Frazier et al. (2003) used this equation
to examine accessibility to grocery stores in two
counties in the eastern United States. Their findings
indicate that areas of minority concentration
(AOMCs), where more than half of the population
is non-white, had relatively poor access. In addition,
differential access within AOMCs was found, with
Hispanic concentrations having better access than
African American concentrations.
These previous studies use several methods of
measuring accessibility and have demonstrated that
the choice of index and parameters greatly affects the
end values. Keeping with these findings, it is
important that assumptions made through the choice
of the index and parameters be clearly understood
and stated. A thorough understanding of the study
area, including its population characteristics, and the
nature of consumer behavior with regards to food
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shopping will help in determining the best method for
calculating accessibility.
Study area
The study area is encompassed by the seven-county
metro area of Minneapolis-St. Paul, USA (hereafter
known as the Twin Cities area). The seven counties
represented are Anoka, Carver, Dakota, Hennepin,
Ramsey, Scott, and Washington (Fig. 1). The larger
region was selected because of the expansive urban
development of the Twin Cities, which has moved
out of the of Ramsey and Hennepin counties with the
growth of suburbs such as Chanhassen, Coon Rapids,
and Eagan. The grocery store industry has changed
with the growth of these suburbs, causing food
security throughout the region to change as well.
Demographically, the metro area has some char-
acteristics that are higher and some lower than US
national averages. With a population of slightly over
2.6 million, ranging from 70,000 in Carver County to
1.1 million in Hennepin, the region encompasses
over half of the population of the state of Minnesota.
Racially, the area is not as diverse as the US as a
whole, with 86.4% of the population identifying as
White alone or in combination in the 2000 Census,
compared to 77.1% nationally. When broken down,
the levels of Black and African-American and
Hispanic members of the population follow this
trend, with percentages of 6.9 and 3.6, respectively,
compared to 12.9 and 12.5% for the US as a whole.
The Asian population follows a different pattern,
however, with 5.2% of the population identifying as
such against an average of 4.2% for the entire
country. This change is due to the large population of
Hmong immigrants that have arrived in Minneapolis-
St. Paul in the past several decades (US Census
Bureau 2000).
In terms of monetary resources, all seven counties
have higher median household incomes than the US
as a whole, ranging from US $45,722 in Ramsey
County to US $66,612 in Scott County. Accordingly,
the region has a lower percentage of people in
poverty (6.9%) than the nation as a whole (12.4%),
although there are substantial differences between the
counties. The final demographic at a higher risk for
food insecurity, single female headed households, is
lower in the metro area (9.5%) than for the entire US
(12.2%).
Methodology
This research was divided into two major phases; the
first focused on using quantitative methods to deter-
mine which areas of the Minneapolis-St. Paul were
most at risk for food insecurity and the second relied
on qualitative techniques to help describe and under-
stand coping strategies among those groups at risk of
food insecurity. To determine which areas of the
Twin Cities were most at risk for food insecurity, it
was necessary to compile data from a variety of
sources and model what neighborhoods were most
vulnerable.
Fig. 1 Map of study area
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Food insecurity risk modeling
The two parts of the food insecurity risk model,
demographic risk factors (as a proxy for people’s
ability to acquire food) and accessibility, were
calculated and combined using ESRI’s ArcMap 9.1
software. The first and simpler half, the demographic
model, was calculated through the creation of a
demographic food insecurity risk index. The output
of this index calculates the magnitude of three
combined characteristics found to be positively
correlated with food insecurity: (1) poverty status,
(2) single female headed households, and (3) minor-
ity status (Nord et al. 2002). These data were
obtained from the 2000 US Census’s Summary File
3 data (US Census Bureau 2000). This information
was aggregated by tract level and expanded to the
county level for summary statistics. The scale of the
tract level was used for two reasons: (1) they are
small enough to identify various neighborhoods in the
Twin Cities, and (2) using divisions any smaller
would make it difficult to determine if any patterns
exist within the data.
The percentage of the population falling into each
of the three aforementioned groups was determined
as relative amounts (in the form of percentages) to
allow for comparison between tracts, eliminating
problems posed by varying tract populations. Each of
the above variables were then converted into an
index, which allows for the identification of the most
vulnerable populations, enabling their needs to be
addressed first. The three demographic groups were
then combined into an demographic risk index, which
constituted one half of the food insecurity risk index.
Once the demographic model was obtained, the
more complicated calculations required for the
accessibility index were performed. Spatial accessi-
bility to food resources was calculated by using
Guy’s (1983) Gaussian measure, which can be
written as:
Ai ¼X
Sj exp 1=2dij�d�
� �h i;
where Sj is the size of store j, dij is the distance
between origin i and opportunity j, and d* is the
distance from origin i at which accessibility declines
at the most rapid rate. For Guy’s (1983) study of
Reading, England, d* was set at 0.6 and 1.5 km, two
values between the maximum walking distance and
the distance most easily traveled by public transit.
Frazier et al. (2003) set d* at one mile due to the
automobile-oriented nature of the United States and
the minimum radii of primary trade areas for grocery
stores. Since this study was performed in the US, d*
was also set at one mile.
The three pieces of information needed to calcu-
late the above spatial accessibility equation were
grocery store addresses, property information (to
determine store size), and distance between origin
points and groceries. The addresses of grocery stores
in the Twin Cities area were found in online business
directories. The property data, containing square foot
data for the groceries, was provided by the Metro-
politan Council, an administrative body overseeing
some aspects of the governance of the Twin Cities
area. The final data required to determine accessibil-
ity around the Twin Cities were origin points to
determine distances to the groceries. A systematic
sample of block group centroids was taken, which
provided a distribution of points that correspond with
the population density of the Twin Cities area.
The last piece of information needed to calculate
spatial accessibility, the distance between the origin
and destination points, was was then determined. A
cutoff radius of one mile around each of the sample
points was used, to represent the maximum distance
that most people travel to obtain groceries. This
distance was chosen based on previous research (Guy
1983; Frazier et al. 2003) that determined that one
mile was the approximate minimum radius for
grocery store trading area and was a distance slightly
more than that which is normal walked but less than
that which is easily accessed through public trans-
portation. Spatial accessibility was then calculated for
the centroid sample using the Gaussian measure
above. Once the accessibility had been calculated for
each point, zonal analysis was conducted to deter-
mine the average accessibility value for each tract.
The accessibility results were then divided into an
index, to allow combination with the demographic
risk index.
The final food insecurity risk model involved
multiplying the two index values, demographic and
spatial accessibility, together. Creating a multiplica-
tive index caused the tracts with both high demo-
graphic risk and low accessibility to be magnified. In
this way, the areas at greatest risk for food insecurity
were highlighted, while still indicating those with
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moderate or low risk. The final index was then
mapped on the tract level, allowing for further
research to be conducted to determine how individ-
uals and families coped with being food insecure.
Determining coping strategies
In order to provide a more qualitative perspective on
the results of food insecurity and hunger, the second
research approach for this project included a series of
surveys (designed to spark informal conversations),
semi-structured interviews, and focus groups. Over
the course of a three-month period, 58 surveys and
interviews were administered to community mem-
bers, two food shelf coordinators were interviewed,
and a focus group of neighborhood residents was
convened. The surveys were designed similarly to the
US government-administered Food Security Supple-
ment of the Current Population Survey (CPS), which
is given every year to measure change between the
Censuses. By utilizing the same questions, it was then
possible to determine if the survey respondent was
‘‘food insecure’’ as defined by the CPS, and then
determine what coping strategies they used to miti-
gate their food insecurity risk. The supplement
includes questions about some coping strategies,
such as the use of government aid programs, while
the authors added questions regarding other strate-
gies, such as relying on friends and family. The in-
depth interviews were conducted with food shelf
coordinators to see if any larger trends were occurring
in the communities, and the focus group was utilized
to provide area residents a chance to compare
situations and provide information about area-wide
trends over longer periods of time.
Quantitative results
Combining the demographic risk and spatial acces-
sibility indices results in Fig. 2, showing which areas
of Minneapolis-St. Paul are at the greatest risk of
food insecurity. The highest areas of vulnerability
were in north and south Minneapolis as well as tracts
along the southern edge of St. Paul and several north
and east of the downtown. Several tracts that had high
demographic risk had their composite vulnerability
lowered due to their relatively high levels of access,
such as those in downtown Minneapolis. Without
examining the results of this model, intuition might
lead one to the conclusion that the central city
neighborhoods would have the highest risk for food
insecurity, but this is not the case here, where the first
ring neighborhoods surrounding the central business
districts are the areas most at risk. Another reason for
Fig. 2 Food insecurity risk in Minneapolis-St. Paul
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this result may be the increasing development drive
in downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul. Gentrification
and condominium construction is on the rise, leading
to a larger market for high-end grocery chains that
might not have located in these neighborhoods
previously.
More areas that have their composite risk reduced
by high spatial accessibility to grocery stores are the
neighborhoods directly south of downtown Minne-
apolis. In these predominantly minority tracts there
are high numbers of groceries able to serve the
population, increasing their accessibility result
(Fig. 3). The tracts with few groceries easily stand
out as having the highest risk, particularly in south
Minneapolis and north and southeast St. Paul.
The results of the food insecurity risk model are
not immediately intuitive, but they can be explained
through careful examination of the data that led up to
the index. The downtown Minneapolis area has
relatively high percentages of all three demographics
at risk for food insecurity, but it is also densely
populated. This large population leads to markets for
groceries that have established themselves in those
neighborhoods, increasing their accessibility.
In addition, many of the predominantly minority
neighborhoods have significant numbers of ethnic
groceries run by minority businessmen and women.
The exception to this trend is the Afro-American
dominated areas, particularly north and south Min-
neapolis. There are fewer groceries in these neigh-
borhoods, and few local business owners opening
new ones, so accessibility is not able to decrease the
aggregate insecurity risk like it does in other demo-
graphically vulnerable communities.
Initially, several areas of the Minneapolis-St. Paul
Metro were seen to have higher risks for food
insecurity. Upon greater examination of these areas,
it was discovered that, while being similar in their
high levels of risk for food insecurity, differences did
exist, particularly among the different ethnic groups
represented. While many of the areas of highest risk
were populated by African-Americans (North and
South Minneapolis, East St. Paul), some areas also at
risk were populated by immigrants, particularly
Southeast Asian and East African in the Midway-
Frogtown area.
Qualitative results
While two areas may have similar food insecurity
risk levels, their respective situations and coping
strategies may vary, particularly among different
ethnic groups. For that reason, the two areas that were
focused on (which were not necessarily the most food
insecure) were North Minneapolis, a traditionally
Fig. 3 Accessibility index and grocery stores
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African American community, and the Frogtown-
Midway neighborhoods of St. Paul, a destination for
many of the Southeast Asian, Somali, and Ethiopian
immigrants to the Twin Cities area. The initial set of
49 surveys and 19 interviews were conducted in the
Midway-Frogtown neighborhood in conjunction with
English Language Learner (ELL) classes taught by
the St. Paul Public Schools’ Adult Education Depart-
ment and by grassroots community organizations.
Out of all of the respondents surveyed, 23.7% were
determined to be food insecure, using the same
criteria as the CPS Food Security Supplement. While
this is more than double the proportion of the US
population that is food insecure (10.7%), it is
important to note that this is not a representative
sample and is likely biased toward the more food
insecure (Nord et al. 2002).
Respondents in the study area who were food
insecure tended to utilize both governmental and
private aid programs more often than food insecure
households in the entire US (see Table 1). The largest
differences were for free or reduced-cost lunch
programs, Women, Infants, and Children, and the
use of emergency kitchens. One potential reason for
this finding is that demand for such programs is
higher among urban minority households. If so, these
results provide evidence for those who wish to
increase both emergency aid and long-term hunger
reduction programs in these areas.
In addition to utilizing local, state, and federal
resources, the majority of those deemed food insecure
(50.0%) relied on friends or family for aid when they
did not have enough food. A question about this
behavior is not asked on the CPS food security
supplement, but was an addition of the authors, and
this high level of response indicates that it is an area
that would benefit from further research at the state
and federal level. Another common experience
among the Midway-Frogtown residents surveyed
was difficulty understanding aid programs when they
first arrived in the United States. Several respondents
indicated that they did not go hungry now, but during
the first few months after their arrival they had severe
problems affording food. They attributed this diffi-
culty to a lack of knowledge about federal programs,
little knowledge of English, and no local resources
such as friends for family to rely upon.
In the neighborhood of domestic minorities, North
Minneapolis, the nine interviewees indicated that the
greater concern revolved around the changing gro-
cery industry, instead of difficulties obtaining either
grassroots or government aid. As one resident
expressed, ‘‘There’s not a lot of possibilities, we
only have one grocery store [in the entire north
side].’’ Occasionally, a new store would move into
the area, but generally it would not last very long
before it closed down or moved out of the neighbor-
hood. These results are concerning, given that many
low-income households that participate in food stamp
programs shop only at supermarkets (US Department
of Agriculture Economic Research Service (USDA-
ERS) 2009).
An additional concern in North Minneapolis was
the lack of public transportation for residents. At one
grocery store ‘‘first, they took the bus shelter away
and now they are building townhomes there [after the
store was torn down].’’ Finally, there was significant
concern about the lack of grocery stores in the
neighborhood. Of the few grocery store points in
North Minneapolis, only one is a larger-size retailer;
the rest are convenience stores or small corner
markets. With only one stable grocery store in the
neighborhood and an inadequate public transportation
infrastructure, North Minneapolis could easily be
classified as a ‘‘food desert’’ lacking in any oppor-
tunity for its residents to purchase safe, healthy food.
Overall, the residents in the North Minneapolis
neighborhood seemed more concerned with physical
access to grocery stores and supermarkets, while
respondents in Frogtown-Midway were more often
worried about economic access to adequate food. These
findings echo those of Whalen et al. (2002), where
focus-group participants also differed in their percep-
tion of economic versus geographic accessibility.
Table 1 Coping strategies among the food insecure
Study areas
(%)
United Statesa
(%)
Food stamps 50.0 25.1
Free or reduced-cost lunch 71.4 33.4
Women, infants, and children 50.0 13.4
Food pantry 28.6 18.6
Emergency kitchen 12.5 2.8
Friends and family 50.0 N/A
a Nord et al. (2002)
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Coping strategies
Unfortunately, the small number of surveys con-
ducted did not allow for the separate study areas to be
broken out by type of coping strategy, but there were
several findings from the interviews that pointed to
both similarities and differences among the varying
ethnic groups. For example, many of the Hmong
families in Frogtown had personal gardens, a trend
that was also found among the African-American
residents of North Minneapolis. Additionally, farmers
markets were mentioned as places that people had
shopped at in the week before the interview.
There were also several unique strategies that were
utilized in one study area but not the other. For
example, co-ops had been a part of North Minneapolis
in the past, but had closed their doors due to lack of
funding. As one resident stated, ‘‘We had a co-op for
12 years and we moved it three times … the commu-
nity was not prepared because it was expensive, unless
you were a worker.’’ Another kind of organization
mentioned in North Minneapolis was food buying
clubs, which grouped people together to buy groceries
in bulk at reduced prices. ‘‘Years ago, I had friends that
were part of a food buying club,’’ said one Minneapolis
woman. ‘‘That is who the co-ops got started.’’ These
strategies match the increase in community food
projects noted by the US Department of Agriculture
Economic Research Service (USDA-ERS) (2009).
In the Midway-Frogtown neighborhood, however,
these two coping strategies were not mentioned. Instead,
several interviewees stated that they had family mem-
bers shop for them. ‘‘I don’t know how much we spend
on food. My brother does all of the shopping for me.’’
While one reason for this choice was cultural expecta-
tions, another that was mentioned was a better knowl-
edge of English and the grocery system in the United
States. A few Frogtown residents did most of their
shopping at local, immigrant-owned markets, due both
to similar language and food choices. As found in
Whalen et al. (2002), the proximity of extended family
was an important mechanism for reducing food insecu-
rity risk due to both economic and geographic barriers.
Food shelves
To try to develop a more comprehensive perspective
of those in need of food assistance, it was logical to
turn to food shelves themselves. An overarching view
of the shelves was provided through interviews with
two coordinators, one in North Minneapolis and
another in Midway-Frogtown. The information that
they provided was instrumental in creating a picture
about those who turned to emergency food shelves as
one of their coping strategies. By tracking the
participants in their programs, the managers were
able to develop a sense of who their clients were and
how to best serve them.
Economically, clients in both neighborhoods
tended to have fixed incomes, often through Social
Security or disability payments. One major reason
that was stated for coming to the county-funded shelf
was that the clients did not qualify for national
government programs such as Women, Infants, and
Children (WIC) or Temporary Assistance for Needy
Families (TANF). In both neighborhoods, the largest
ethnic group seen was African-Americans, although
both were seeing a rise in the number of immigrants
utilizing their resources. The food shelf in Midway-
Frogtown saw a disproportionately small number of
Hmong, Ethiopian, and Somali immigrants, but this
may be expected given that those interviewed seldom
indicated that they used these resources.
In addition to knowing about the clients that they
serve, the managers and organizers were well in
touch with both the problems that their patrons faced
and the larger issues present in trying to address food
insecurity and hunger. From both interviews and
internal materials distributed among food shelf
administrators, it was apparent that there is recog-
nition that there are more issues to solve than
meeting emergency food need. As Arnold (2004) has
stated:
The average community in the United States
already possesses and likely is already expend-
ing on hunger relief enough resources to end
hunger five times over, but likely is meeting
only about one-fifth of the need because of how
those resources are being utilized and
employed. (p. 1, emphasis added)
To address the issue of resource misallocation,
individual managers are moving away from a ‘‘band-
aid’’ model and attempting to address the root of the
problem. In their efforts, they are moving beyond
their own organizations by forming community
‘‘listening projects’’ to determine the needs of the
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neighborhood, talking with both state and federal
legislators, and reaching out to other food aid
programs to form networks and combine
resources.
With these changes being made within the food
shelf system, administrators realize that there are still
problems that are present for their clients. One
obstacle encountered by patrons even before they
reach the shelf is the difficulty in finding the facility
that serves where they live. In the 1970s and 1980s
food shelf funders required that their organizations
set up boundaries to prevent clients from jumping
from shelf to shelf and not being ‘‘productive’’
members of society. As shelves merged and split,
these boundaries changed, rarely reflecting neighbor-
hoods or taking public transportation networks into
account. This model is beginning to change, however,
and shelves are beginning to serve larger areas
without restrictive boundaries.
Another difficulty seen by food shelf coordinators
stems from cultural differences about food. As
mentioned before, the US House Select Committee
on Hunger includes in its definition of food security
as ‘‘all people obtaining a culturally acceptable,
nutritionally adequate diet’’ (1989, p. 4; emphasis
added). With a large immigrant community, the
food donated to shelves in the Twin Cities may not
be the food that is needed (or understood) by those
who are patrons of those shelves. One example of
this cultural misunderstanding occurred at a food
shelf in North Minneapolis, where a recently arrived
Hmong family left the facility with their box of
food, but, unsure of how to cook the boxed
macaroni and cheese, left it in the parking lot, only
taking the meat that they had been given. This
problem has begun to be addressed, as shelves are
employing native language speakers and holding
cooking classes to teach both native Americans and
recent immigrants how to properly store, cook, and
serve food that is available to them through shelves,
food stamps, and emergency kitchens. Other diffi-
culties faced by food shelf clients and administrators
include long waits for appointments and little
control of inventory, often resulting in surpluses of
unusable food. These problems are not discouraging
either patrons or organizers, however, and there
seems to be some progress made in how effectively
and efficiently hunger is reduced for the most
vulnerable households.
Conclusions and policy recommendations
This study demonstrates that both quantitative and
qualitative research methodologies may be combined
to determine where hunger exists, how food insecure
households cope with their situations, and what
strategies and programs are effective for individuals,
families and communities. Quantitative research,
such as the two-stage model used in this project,
can be used to determine what areas and populations
are at the greatest risk of hunger. Qualitative
methods, including surveys and interviews, help to
understand the causes and effects of food insecurity at
an individual and household level.
Strategies and behaviors that help households and
individuals mitigate the effects of food insecurity
included relying on friends and family, enrolling in
federal aid programs, and turning to local resources
such as food pantries and emergency kitchens. By
focusing on two ethnically distinct areas of Minne-
apolis-Saint Paul, it was also possible to determine
how different groups utilize coping strategies. Such
information could be used to design or ameliorate
programs for reducing hunger for these populations.
Based on the results of this research, we recom-
mend three strategies that could be used to identify
and address food insecurity in the US, and then
prevent these conditions from becoming chronic
barriers to healthy development and lifestyles. First,
combining two different ways of measuring food
insecurity (demographic risk and spatial accessibility)
into a single food insecurity risk index allows for
more efficient and accurate identification of areas and
populations susceptible to hunger. Second, encour-
aging food shelf and pantry programs to adapt to the
local cultural environment will make them more
successful both in the short and long-term. Adapting
to the changing demographics of US urban centers by
incorporating culturally appropriate food choices,
hiring staff who speak residents’ native languages,
and providing food storage and preparation classes
will allow existing food programs to better meet the
needs of those seeking their services.
Third, it is vital that administrators and policy-
makers at all levels of government understand that
hunger cannot be completely resolved through emer-
gency food programs. Government tax incentives to
encourage grocery stores to move into existing food
deserts may help alleviate spatial accessibility
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123
problems. In some case, food buying clubs (where
communities purchase basic food stuffs in bulk from
wholesalers and resell it to their membership) may
help reduce the price of food and thereby make it
more accessibly to low income families. Food
intervention programs that encourage supermarkets
to place new stores in food deserts have also been
found to change the behavior and accessibility of
residents in those areas (Wrigley et al. 2004). Finally,
job programs to improve household income will, by
extension, increase people’s abilities to purchase
food.
While the approach for studying food insecurity
adopted in this study is most appropriate for use in
urban areas of the US, it was informed by decades of
research on similar problems in the Global South.
The scourge of hunger in the Global South and the
Global North needn’t last any longer than it has to.
Scholars and policy makers working on this issue in
various parts of the world can only benefit from being
in dialogue.
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