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The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has utilized the term food desert to highlight regions within low-income communities located far from fresh and healthy sources of food such as supermarkets and farmers markets. Most research on food deserts has revolved around urban areas, which bring about other considerations such as sidewalks, pedestrian access, rideshares, and public transportation, typically not viable options in rural regions. Rural food insecurity is also a problem in North Carolina. Utilizing data provided by the United States Department of Agriculture’s Food Access Atlas, this paper explored if and to what extent rural food insecurity exists, with findings showing 1) a higher percentage of people living in rural areas live in food insecurity compared to non-rural areas 2) counties in the eastern part of the state are more prone to food insecurity and 3) racial, ethnic minorities, as well as the young (age under 17), are more subjected to food insecurity compared to the majority and older cohorts. This research highlights the need for a rigorous and comprehensive understanding of rural food security that transcends the economic, cultural, and sociological reasons of differential food access with long-term health outcomes that have multi-generational consequences.
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This content will become publicly available on July 1, 2026
Assessing land use change trajectories following food insecurity shocks in 25 low- and middle-income countries
Food insecurity is a perennial problem in much of the developing world, with gains against hunger backsliding in recent years and climate change predicted to accelerate this trend. Food insecurity is highly disruptive to rural livelihoods and can lead to dramatic shifts in food production strategies and resultant land use. However, studies to date have yet to outline the overarching patterns of land use change that can result from food insecurity. We elucidate the impact of food insecurity events between 2013 and 2020 in 25 low- and middle-income countries on resulting land use change and demographics. Using propensity score matching, we create a counterfactual and assess changes in forest cover, crop cover, population and nighttime luminosity between regions that experience food insecurity and comparable food-secure regions. Land use change theory, specifically the classical trajectories of agricultural intensification, land rent theory, and regime shifts help to explain observed land use trajectories. We find that food insecurity events lead to around a 4 % decline in population and a 3 % decline in cropped areas, alongside a 4 % increase in forest cover compared to control regions. Additionally, we show that drought-driven food insecurity drives impacts on land use and conflict-driven food insecurity shows greater impacts on population and nighttime luminosity. Food insecurity shocks result in an increase in population and crop cover in urban areas despite losses in adjoining rural land, suggesting that food insecurity drives local rural to urban migration. Furthermore, by assessing the impacts of discrete food insecurity events in three countries, we find that regional contexts mediate impacts by producing variable land use change trajectories.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2125913
- PAR ID:
- 10627366
- Publisher / Repository:
- Global Environmental Change
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Global Environmental Change
- Volume:
- 92
- Issue:
- C
- ISSN:
- 0959-3780
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 102999
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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