Dictionary

food desert en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio
• /fud ˈdɛzɚt/ (General-American)
• /fuːd ˈdɛzə(ɹ)t/ (Received-Pronunciation)

Etymology

A report by Cummins and Macintyre states that a resident of public housing in western Scotland supposedly coined the more specific phrase food desert in the early 1990s. The phrase was first officially used in a document in 1995 from a policy working group on the Low Income Project Team of the UK's Nutrition Task Force.

Meanings

1. (figuratively) A populated region where food, especially healthy food, is difficult to obtain.
   • More precisely, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines a food desert as any census district where at least 20 percent of the inhabitants are below the poverty line and 33 percent live over a mile from the nearest supermarket (or in rural areas, more than 10 miles). 2011 August 12, “America's ‘food deserts’”, in The Week, archived from the original on 28 May 2016:
   • New Orleans' Ninth Ward is what the U.S. Department of Agriculture calls a "food desert." Food deserts are communities with little or no access to healthy food. 2012 October 5, Judy Valente, “Food Deserts”, in Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, PBS, archived from the original on 10 Sep 2016:
   • For years, major supermarket chains have been criticized for abandoning densely populated, largely black and Latino communities in cities like Detroit, Los Angeles, Memphis and Newark, N.J. — contributing to what many experts call food deserts. 2009 May 26, Steven Gray, “Can America's urban food deserts bloom?”, in Time, archived from the original on 28 Jan 2016:

Forms

Coordinates

food oasis · food swamp

Relateds

food bowl

Translations (4)

pl pustynia żywieniowa (Translations) · fr désert alimentaire (Translations) · nl voedselwoestijn (Translations) · fi ruoka-aavikko (Translations)