Why is There a Food Desert in Wheaton?

At , you’ll find Indian eggplant, long-arm octopus and the widest variety of tofu selection around, but you’ll also find heaps of fresh produce, meat and brands that you’d find at any large chain grocery store.

Yet HMart is right in the middle of a “food desert”, a classification the United States Department of Agriculture uses to specify geographic locations where food access is low, based on distance and low-income populations.

The census tract in Wheaton that qualifies as a food desert is one of only two in Montgomery County - the other in Germantown. The geographic area is bounded by Arcola Avenue on the south, Randolph Road on the north, Georgia Avenue on the west, and Kemp Mill Road on the east.

And smack-dab in the middle, on Shorefield Road, is the HMart. Not to mention a right outside of the tract area on the other side of Randolph Road.

So how does a census tract with a large food store end up on USDA’s list of areas with food access problems?

Shelly Ver Ploeg, an economist with the Economic Research Service at USDA explains that the current food desert locations are a baseline for the Department to study the way urban and rural food access changes.

“This is the first time we’ve measured food deserts on the national level,” Ver Ploeg said.

Studying food deserts across the country will allows USDA, the Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Treasury to identify areas that can qualify for their combined grant and loan programs

To meet the threshold for a food desert, a census tract, which is usually several thousand people large, must have a poverty rate of at least 20 percent. One-third or 500 of its residents, which ever is smaller, must live outside of a one walking mile distance from a large grocery market or grocery store. In rural areas, this distance is 10 miles.

The tract in Wheaton has 524 residents with low access. That's approximately 10 percent of the population, although this data is from the 2000 census.

As to what qualifies for a “large supermarket or grocery store”, the USDA’s data is based on a list of stores in 2006 that met the industry standard - $2 million in annual sales, and contains all major grocery departments. 

“The idea is that while we know there are other sources of food, this is a pretty good proxy for healthy food,” Ver Pleog said.

Ver Pleog said she’s visited to an HMart before and thinks it should qualify for the industry standard.

“You could have a food desert tract with a supermarket, but only if there’s enough people that live far away,” she said. Other features that decrease food access include geographic features like large cemeteries, highways and most importantly to this tract, parks. Wheaton Regional Park is entirely included in the tract’s geographic area.

Ver Ploeg says the Department knows the food desert indicator is a “blunt tool”.

“It doesn’t tell you completely what areas might be higher areas of need. It’s a pool to identify potential problems,” she said.

Compare the Wheaton tract with other food desert areas in the Metro region, and there are some stark differences: in many census tracts designated as food deserts in Prince’s George’s and the District of Columbia, 100 percent of that tract’s population has low access. 

USDA will be updating the food desert locator tool over the next year and half, using American Community Survey census data from 2006 to 2009, as well as an updated store list. From the baseline data now included on the online tool, the Department hopes to get a better look at how food access changes.

Check out the food desert locator tool here.