Why Building More Walmarts Won't Fix Food Deserts

Earlier this month, the Chicago City Council voted to change city zoning law in order to allow a second Walmart megastore to open in the city's South Side, a predominantly low-income area. Despite major opposition from community groups and some residents, council members reasoned that the store would create jobs and raise property taxes. They also bought Walmart's claim that the big box retailer will bring fresh fruit and vegetables to the area, as the South Side lacks a grocery store. Walmart plans to continue its quest for market domination by opening stores in other urban areas nationwide under the guise of "combating food deserts." In reality, bringing more Walmarts to cities will only further exploit the nation's food producers and devastate the work of community food activists working to build real, sustainable food solutions.

Building a Walmart to eliminate food deserts only serves as a cheap, "lesser evil" Band-Aid to the real, gaping problems that create them: poverty and inequality. Billion-dollar corporations like Walmart could throw all the fresh tomatoes and organic bananas at local residents they'd like, writes Eric Holt Gimenez, executive director of Food First, but it won't allow people in these communities to be lifted out of poverty and overcome the economic, health, and racial inequalities that cause food inequality. "The solution to food security in America must come through a revitalized food economy — one that pays workers a living wage, that includes worker and minority owned businesses, and that keeps food dollars in local communities," Gimenez wrote on the Huffington Post. "Walmart does none of that."

To many people living in food deserts, Walmart isn't the answer, but rather a patronizing slap in the face. Small community groups throughout the nation understand the root causes of food inequality and are working to combat it through grassroots efforts. Groups nationwide including Chicago's Inner City Muslim Action Network, New York's South Bronx Community Supported Agriculture, and Baltimore's Food Policy Task Force, have developed their own community-run programs that place fresh produce in pre-existing stores owned by the community, grow their own food, join CSAs, and build farmer's markets. LocalHarvest, a nonprofit, lists more than 2,500 CSAs in its directory, many based in or near urban areas. The USDA counts about 4,500 local farmers' markets. More and more communities are taking control of not only what they eat, but who grows it, who benefits, and who controls the process. It's the beginning of a healthy, sustainable system that needs funding and backing from local governments. Lending legislative support to Walmart completely undermines the amazing work all these hyper-local, sustainable food groups are doing.

Of course, big box supporters will say that Walmart's cheap produce will benefit low-income residents. And while that may be true, the stores represent a major loss for farmers and food producers. Major food retailers, especially Walmart, force farmers to keep costs down as much as possible. Indeed, the story that rarely gets told is how the biggest retailer relentlessly pressures its suppliers in the name of bringing shoppers "every day low prices," according to Fast Company. Some jobs move overseas, and America's pickers, planters, and processors earn far less than a fair wage.

While Walmart might seem like a panacea to food deserts, urban centers do not need a major corporation that swindles food workers and disrupts the work of real, grassroots efforts to build a sustainable, local food system. Sign our petition asking Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley to stop more Walmarts from opening up in the city.

Photo credit: mjb84 via Flickr