Imagine you are hungry with two choices. You could either walk five miles to buy groceries or go down the street for fast food. Which would you choose?

Over 700,000 Arizona residents are faced with this decision every day due to the rise of food deserts across the state.

Almost 14 percent of Arizona lives in a “food desert,” an area where most residents do not have easy access to grocery stores because of distance, low income or not having a vehicle, according to a study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). 

Sustainability organizations, farmer’s markets and food banks have all developed projects with similar goals to help low-income, low access families get access to affordable fresh produce in Arizona.

Kara Jones, the farmers' market manager at the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona, said over two-thirds of the food bank’s clients reported having diet related disease in their homes, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes.

“Being in a food desert area is directly correlated with people’s health,” said Jones.

Jones said long-term chronic diseases “reduce people’s productivity and ability to work,” so health diseases also increase people’s medical costs, which then decrease the remaining budget they have to spend on food.

The majority of health outcomes can be attributed to where people live which is greatly grouped by socioeconomic class. “Zip code matters more than genetic code when it comes to health outcomes,” said Jones.

At least 33 percent of a location with a minimum of 500 people must have low access to a supermarket in order to qualify as a food desert. Arizona has almost triple the amount of people living in food deserts compared to the national average of 4.8 percent, according to Agriculture’s Economic Research Service.

Community members in Arizona have taken action in hopes to cease this expansion of food deserts.  

Tres English, a Tucson resident and member of Sustainable Tucson, started an edible landscape project about 4 months ago at a triplex on Columbus Road that will produce up to a dozen edible trees in the near future.

Sustainable Tucson is a non-profit organization that hopes to build a community-based network of people to produce safe, healthy food, create ecological balance and help people develop strong relationships with neighbors.

English recently planted apricot, apple, elderberry and persimmon trees by using a combination of different water conserving systems to help the plants grow. The edible garden currently has one grapefruit tree.

English’s edible landscape involves harvesting 10 thousand to 12 thousand gallons of grey water; gently used water from sinks, washing machines and showers, each year and 8 gallons to 10 gallons of rainwater to grow a dozen or more locally adapted food trees that neighborhood tenants can enjoy. 

English hopes this edible landscape will make a big impact on his family, the triplex residents and the surrounding neighbors. English wants to encourage others with low access to fresh produce to develop similar planting systems that will help people save water and money.  

The growth of these attractive, water conserving edible landscapes is “an important step forward in creating food security for all of Tucson,” said English.

English is not alone on this quest to develop community sustainability.

Elizabeth Kizer, a community engagement coordinator at the University of Arizona Center for Rural Health, is currently working in the rural community of Florence to improve access to healthy foods through the “backyard garden initiative.”

The backyard garden initiative was developed by the Future Forward Foundation in Florence to teach people how to create their own gardens and grow produce they can sustain throughout the entire year with a one-time cost of $250.

The owners of these backyard gardens are then expected to give 30 percent of their produce to food banks in the area or people in need, which can help lower the food desert problem, according to Kizer.

Kizer believes public health advocates should consider these “small scale initiatives,” like backyard gardening, because it is something an individual can do to contribute to the community.

Local farmer’s markets have also created ways for people in food deserts to be able to afford freshly grown produce.  

Roxanne Garcia, co-owner of Heirloom Farmer’s Market, said there is a directive through USDA to try and get farmers in Arizona to accept people on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which is another name for food stamps that low-income individuals use to buy food.

Jones said the Community Food Bank farmer’s market also recently started accepting SNAP to lower the rate of people in Tucson food deserts.

Garcia hopes that accepting SNAP at Heirloom Farmer’s Market will help “lower the food desert problem in Tucson,” and allow struggling college students access to healthy foods.

“If every body spent just five dollars at a farmers market,” according to Garcia. “We would have a sustainable environment under which we could survive.”

The University of Arizona (UA) area has 327 households out of 1,581 total households without vehicles that are more than half a mile from a grocery store, according to the USDA, leaving 20.7 percent of people without easy access to fresh produce.

“38 percent of students at the UA are on assisted living,” according to Garcia. The SNAP program was created to help those living in food deserts get access to cheap, healthy food by allowing them to buy more produce for less at farmer’s markets.

Kyle Wilkie, a freshman at the UA, lives in the dorms on Highland Avenue and does not own a car, so he mostly shops for groceries at the Highland Market.

Wilkie said the food at the Highland Market is “way overpriced,” and even though the market does sell some fresh produce, “it’s not restocked all the time so there are old fruits and vegetables.”

Wilkie believes one solution for getting college students better access to grocery stores in the area is for the UA to open something at the union or expand the highland market and lower prices so students can afford fresh food close to the dorms.