Policy choices make healthy food more expensive than it needs to be. Billions of dollars of agricultural subsidies make it cheap to grow large amounts of staple crops like corn and wheat, industrial standardization makes processing large amounts of those crops even cheaper, and the design of welfare programs like SNAP often encourages poor people to buy the resulting unhealthy foods. The physical structure of the places we live also deserves recognition for its contribution to food inequality.
A "food desert" is a place where residents are unable to access and afford healthy foods, particularly fresh fruits and vegetables. These are linked to higher rates of chronic disease, and are sometimes the result of intentional planning decisions that have limited access to high-quality food in lower-income places.
Based on the USDA's data for the city of Bellingham, Washington, there are some amount of food deserts in much of the city, including places where significant amounts of people live without a car and more than half a mile away from grocery stores. Large swathes of the city have either only convenience stores or no grocery stores at all.
Zoning reform has the potential to lessen food insecurity. Many cities in the United States do not allow grocery stores to be built near houses, making it much harder to get food without a car. By allowing grocery stores in more parts of cities where people live, municipal governments can reduce food insecurity, and support public health by encouraging people to walk more places.
The U.S. Department of Defense operates hundreds of not-for-profit grocery stores for servicemembers, which are thereby able to offer much lower prices than private grocery stores. Cities like New York use public funding in various programs to improve access to food for over a million residents.
Community-powered projects offer other ways people can improve their own access to healthy food. In Detroit, organizations like Keep Growing Detroit work to build community gardens and support people who grow food in them. The organization has supported thousands of gardens and tens of thousands of citizens, providing a literal grassroots solution to food deserts.