Arkansas Commission to Award Grants Aimed at Food Desert Elimination

credit: Salem Community Center Official Website

"Arkansas is now ranked #1 in food insecurity and every county in the state now has at least 1 food desert, so providing these funds to organizations doing this targeted work will certainly be impactful," Kenya Eddings, director of the Arkansas Minority Health Commission, says in a press release.

The state has seen a rapid decline in grocery stores and is now home to at least one food desert in every county, per the Annie E.

Casey Foundation, which defines a food desert as "geographic areas where residents have few to no convenient options for securing affordable and healthy foodsespecially fresh fruits and vegetables."

The foundation notes that food deserts "create extra, everyday hurdles that can make it harder kids families and communities to grow healthy and strong."

A report released in October by the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement found that 16.6% of households in the state experienced food insecurity within the past year, the highest percentage in the country.

And 6.5% of households experienced "very low food security," which the report defined as "where one or more members of a household experience reduced food and disrupted eating intake at least once in a year because of limited money and other resources for obtaining food intake at healthy times in a year."

The Arkansas Minority Health Commission is offering grants of up to $10,000 to organizations

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