By Daniel Breen and Josie Lenora for Little Rock Public Radio.
Broadcast version by Freda Ross for Arkansas News Service reporting for the Little Rock Public Radio-Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation-Public News Service Collaboration.

Several parts of Little Rock can be classified as “food deserts,” or neighborhoods that don't have easy access to a grocery store. Now, city officials are considering a new, at least to Little Rock, solution; a mobile grocery store.

If you stand at the intersection of Chenal Parkway and Bowman Road in west Little Rock, next to Best Buy and The Purple Cow, you’re within a mile of five grocery stores: Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Walmart, Sam's Club and a newly-minted Aldi.

But some streets in Little Rock aren’t within a mile of any grocery store. That’s called a food desert, and most of them are in lower-income neighborhoods of central and southwest Little Rock.

Being a mile away from a store may not seem like much, but if you have mobility challenges, or you're low on money, this mile can mean the difference between eating and being hungry.

Virgil Miller is on the Little Rock City Board of Directors. He represents Ward One, which covers downtown and encompasses several food deserts. Miller says he’s talked with constituents who come to him to ask: why am I not near a grocery store?

“Because, in the past, there were several grocery stores in the area. They’ve all closed and relocated,” Miller said.

At their core, grocery stores are businesses. They have to turn a profit, and companies say there just isn't a lot of money to be made in some of these neighborhoods. When the Kroger on Colonel Glenn Road closed in 2022, a representative from the company told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette the store had “lost significant profit for many years and if left open, the losses are projected to get even worse going forward.”

Some neighborhoods are what’s called a food swamp. This means they may be near a McDonald’s or a convenience store, but the quality of food there is so low it can cause health problems down the line.

Little Rock Vice Mayor Kathy Webb has spent much of her career working to combat food deserts, serving on a state food desert task force and as executive director of the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance. What most people wanted was a brick-and-mortar store; but, when the team looked at what other communities were doing to fix the food desert problem, she realized that just building a grocery store doesn't always work.

“A nonprofit opened a grocery store in Baltimore, and we were very excited about it… it went out of business,” she said.

Webb said the grocery store was designed by consultants who had success in building supermarkets in suburban areas, but not ones in the inner city.

“They didn’t talk to the people in the neighborhood to find out what they wanted. They didn’t try to become part of the neighborhood.”

Both Miller and Webb heard that Memphis came up with a creative way to combat the food desert problem. And it seemed to work better.

“A mobile grocery store. It’s almost like an 18-wheeler that has been adapted to have an aisle in the middle of it, and on each side they have food,” Miller said.

The mobile grocery store has fresh produce and other staples. Sometimes, customers can order things on request. They move around neighborhoods stopping at two locations a day. Webb and Miller went on a “field trip” to see it in person.

“The nonprofit had developed relationships with the residents… and it’s much more than just a store,” Miller said.

The hope now is to bring a mobile grocery store like this to Little Rock. But the concept isn’t entirely new to the city.

Paul Kroger–no relation to the grocery store chain–is executive director of Vine & Village, a nonprofit based in Little Rock’s University District. They operate a weekly food distribution program called The Orchard, which serves hundreds of families and unsheltered people living in the 72204 ZIP code.

“People start lining up at about 7 in the morning back here with vehicles, and we start distributing at 1. The line will go serpentining through the parking lot like several blocks long,” he said. “We have a whole team of people out here treating it like an assembly line, giving them different things.”

Each Tuesday, a small army of volunteers comes in to run the drive-up program. But food is constantly coming in; Kroger says they keep as much as a quarter-million pounds of food and other household items on hand at any given time, donated from food banks, grocery stores and restaurants. But, Kroger says they’re not your typical food bank.

“Generally you get a box of food, mostly shelf-stable items, but here that’s the minority of what you get. The vast majority, maybe four or five boxes, 40 to 70 pounds each, of fresh fruit, vegetables, high-quality protein, that’s the emphasis here,” he said.

Back in 2016, then-Mayor Mark Stodola came to Vine & Village, asking them for help with the city’s food desert problem. Stodola’s solution sounds familiar–use an old city bus to distribute food to people who can’t travel to get it.

For several years, the bus, dubbed the Fresh2You Mobile Market, made the rounds of all public housing complexes in Little Rock and North Little Rock. They weren’t just focused on alleviating hunger, but ensuring that people were getting healthy, nutritious food in a sustainable way. Kroger says they offered free samples and recipe cards to customers, much like a traditional grocery store.

“So whatever the bus had for that day, they could pick up those items and they could have already tasted something. Could be a smoothie, could be a fresh salad, something that was pretty simple to do but would really be, not only healthy, but it’s gotta be tantalizing to your taste buds.”

Initially, they charged money and accepted public assistance benefits, but ultimately Kroger says they stopped charging.

“Not being able to really provide the volume of food that people really needed to change the course of their nutritional intake, it was just important that we give it for free. So that’s what we’d been doing for the last number of years until we were shut down by the pandemic,” Kroger said.

The Fresh2You Mobile Market pivoted during the COVID-19 pandemic, partnering with World Central Kitchen to distribute hot meals in place of school breakfasts and lunches. But Kroger says their equipment is aging, and the future of Fresh2You is uncertain.

He’s applying for a grant to buy a new bus, which will then likely focus on delivering food to two new micro home villages currently under construction, which will provide temporary housing to people experiencing chronic homelessness.

But even if the city does end up operating a mobile grocery store, as Kroger found out, the cost of food will remain a concern. Marquis Willis is the Chief Data Officer for the City of Little Rock, and has done research on local people living in food deserts. It showed that, yes, transportation was an issue, but there was a larger issue that's harder to solve.

“The bigger issue that we noticed, 63% of our respondents said that the cost of food was a bigger issue,” he said.

Vice Mayor Kathy Webb said that with all the money in the world she would approach the problem differently. She would build a lot of not-for-profit grocery stores and pay-what-you-want restaurants.

But money is an issue. So, she says, hopefully the mobile grocery store will go forward. Right now, it's in the procurement phase with plans to be finalized in the future.


Daniel Breen and Josie Lenora wrote this article for Little Rock Public Radio.


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By Seth Millstein for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Nadia Ramlagan for West Virginia News Service reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration

The House Republicans have now passed the sweeping piece of budgetary legislation requested by President Trump. Colloquially known as the “megabill,” the legislation passed by a single vote with no Democratic support, and is primarily aimed at extending the tax cuts for wealthy Americans that Trump signed in 2017. But the megabill contains significant agriculture and food-related provisions as well, including cuts to food stamps and financial assistance to meat and dairy producers.

It’s worth noting at the top that this bill isn’t yet law, and won’t become law until the Senate passes it as well. As is usually the case with big pieces of legislation, the Senate will likely pass its own version of the bill, which will then need to be reconciled with the House bill and then passed in identical form by both chambers.

In other words, none of this is set in stone yet, and the bill will almost certainly change before becoming law. Although there are some debates within the Republican caucus over what provisions the final bill will include, the broad strokes will likely remain the same, says Andrew deCoriolis, executive director of Farm Forward.

“The bill is really a grab bag of Republican and meat and dairy industry interests,” deCoriolis tells Sentient. “The disagreement is really not whether or not we should be cutting taxes and giving tax breaks to big companies and millionaires and billionaires, but whether we should cut more social safety net programs to pay for it.”

Let’s take a look at what’s in the megabill, and how it will — and won’t — affect American farming and food systems.

No EATS Act

The GOP’s 2024 farm bill proposal, which did not pass, included a version of the EATS Act, a highly controversial bill that would ban states from enacting laws that interfere with the interstate commerce of agricultural products.

The primary goal of the EATS Act — as well as its more-recent successor, the Food Security & Farm Protection Act — is to overturn California’s Proposition 12, which requires farmers to give egg-laying hens, pigs and veal calves a certain amount of living space in animal farms (a modest increase of space from standard factory farms). The law also requires that all eggs, pork and veal sold in the state be produced in accordance with these requirements, even if the products were produced out of state.

Republican lawmakers did insert some of the 2024 farm bill’s provisions into the megabill. But the EATS Act wasn’t one of them; the megabill contains no language that would diminish, weaken or overturn Proposition 12.

The reason for this — one of them, at least — is that Republicans in the Senate plan on passing the megabill using budget reconciliation, a legislative maneuver that allows lawmakers to circumvent any potential filibuster and pass a bill with only 51 votes. But the tradeoff is that any bill passed using budget reconciliation can only include budget-related provisions, and overturning Proposition 12 has nothing to do with federal spending. As such, it wasn’t, and couldn’t have been, included.

Because the megabill contains some components of the proposed 2024 farm bill, its successful passage could make a new farm bill an even lower priority for lawmakers than it already is. And while this is pure speculation, this could be good news for Proposition 12, as the farm bill was the primary mechanism by which Republicans were attempting to repeal the California law.

Cutting SNAP Funding

SNAP is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, otherwise known as food stamps. Around 41 million Americans receive SNAP benefits every year, which they can use to buy groceries.

The megabill cuts federal SNAP funding by around $300 million over the next decade, ostensibly by shifting some of the cost burden to states. The reason this is being characterized as a cut in funding, rather than simply a redistribution of the cost burden, is that there’s no guarantee that any state will be both willing and able to cover the difference.

Historically, the federal government has funded 100 percent of the SNAP program. The megabill breaks from this tradition by requiring states to fund at least five percent, and potentially up to 25 percent, of SNAP benefits that their residents receive. The exact percentage depends on each state’s historical “error rate,” or the frequency with which it has over- or under-paid SNAP recipients in the past.

States with higher error rates will have to shoulder a bigger share of SNAP funding. An analysis of historical error rates by Center for Budget and Policy Priorities found that, if the past is any guide, every state other than South Dakota will potentially have to fund 15 percent or more of its SNAP benefits in at least some years under the new bill.

This isn’t the only way in which the bill slashes SNAP funding. In addition to paying for the benefits themselves, the federal government also reimburses states for the cost of administering SNAP, but the megabill will reduce that funding from 50 percent to 25 percent, again shifting more costs to individual states. It also raises the age threshold of the program’s already-stringent work requirements from 54 to 64.

“It’s not subtle in what it’s doing,” deCoriolis says. “This bill seems like a massive transfer of wealth from hungry Americans and low-to-medium income Americans who rely on supplemental food programs.”

Subsidies For Big Meat And Dairy

The megabill also increases subsidies for the meat and dairy industries, both of which are already heavily subsidized by the federal government.

First, it increases both the amount of money that dairy producers receive through the Dairy Margin Coverage Program and the number of producers who are eligible for the program. This is a price stabilization program aimed at protecting the economic wellbeing of the dairy industry when milk prices fall below certain levels.

“That’s a direct transfer of wealth,” deCoriolis says of the DMC expansion. “That’s a direct giveaway to dairy companies.”

Similarly, the bill raises the reference prices for the USDA’s commodity programs, which function similarly to the DMC but for things like rice and wheat instead of dairy. In effect, this means that the government will subsidize farmers of these commodities even more generously than they already do.

The bill also increases funding and eligibility for various livestock subsidy programs, which compensate livestock farmers when their animals are killed by predators or disease. As deCoriolis notes, many vertically-integrated agribusinesses produce both livestock and grains to feed the livestock, and thus stand to benefit in both cases from the megabill’s increased support levels.

“[They’ll] get subsidies on both ends of the production,” deCoriolis says. “It’s a smart way to capture even more taxpayer dollars.”

Tax Credits for Biofuels

The bill eliminates most of the clean energy tax credits established by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), but retains and actually extends one: The 45Z tax credit. Officially known as the Clean Fuel Production Credit, it’s ostensibly aimed at providing a tax incentive for producers of clean transportation fuels; in practice, however, it’s most commonly claimed by producers of biofuels, the environmental benefits of which are highly questionable at best.

This is relevant to agriculture because biofuels are often produced using manure from factory farms, which themselves cause an enormous amount of environmental destruction in a number of different ways. As such, large industrial animal farms that produce biofuels will financially benefit from the extension of the 45Z tax credit.

“It’s just a biofuel expansion program,” deCoriolis says. “Our own investigation from earlier this year showed that a lot of the IRA money that was going to biodigesters was being used to help expand factory farms, especially in the Midwest. This bill would substantially expand the 45Z credit program, and would give it another four years of life.”

Other Provisions

The megabill is over 1,000 pages long, and contains a number of other measures that will affect American agriculture. It increases crop insurance subsidies and tax deductions for businesses that include farms, and reduces the estate tax, which taxes the inheritance of property.

This last provision is relevant to agriculture because farms are frequently passed from generation to generation in the same family.

“You’ve got a lot of ranchers who pass on these extremely large, valuable ranches in their wills, and they don’t want to pay taxes on it,” deCoriolis says.

What Happens Next

With all of that being said, it’s worth stressing again that this bill will almost certainly undergo changes if and before it becomes law. DeCoriolis notes that the Republican Senate caucus includes some moderate lawmakers who might object to the megabill’s spending cuts, which apply not only to SNAP but also Medicare and Medicaid.

“Those are programs that literally every American in every geography uses, [including] lots and lots of constituents in the states that are represented by Republican Senators,” deCoriolis says. “I could see them kicking a different version of the bill back to the House, and then having to have some reconciliation process between those versions of the bill.”

Ultimately, we won’t know for sure until the Senate passes its version of the bill — and given that Republicans have only a three-seat majority in that chamber, it may be quite a while until that happens.


Seth Millstein wrote this article for Sentient.


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As food insecurity rises across the state, groups fighting hunger are highlighting the need for food that is not only nutritious, but culturally relevant.

Leialoha Kaula is the executive director of the nonprofit KALO HCC, which serves Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities in Oregon and Southwest Washington.

The organization started distributing food boxes during the pandemic, and Kaula said the food didn't always meet people's needs - because it wasn't familiar, or they didn't know how to use it.

In response, she said, KALO started including traditional foods in the boxes, like taro root and coconut.

"We saw that it was not just hunger for food, it was that hunger for culture," said Kaula. "It was that hunger for home, that's what was filled."

Visits to food banks in the state have risen sharply in the last year, and data shows Pacific Islander Oregonians are twice as likely to experience hunger than their white neighbors.

Kaula said KALO HCC has also started cultivating taro, a Native Hawaiian staple, and encouraging people to get involved in the project.

"Even though we're here in Oregon, that's still a connection to home," said Kaula. "It's about how we as Indigenous people are caring for the land."

Amid federal cuts to food programs, Kaula said she wants to see Oregon focus more on providing culturally relevant foods, so all communities in the state can thrive.

"To really, truly have a healthy Oregon," said Kaula, "we have to make sure that we're serving all the communities in a way that makes them feel seen, heard, and feed them in that way."

With the start of summer, organizations across Arkansas are ramping up programs to ensure kids have access to healthy food. The No Kid Hungry campaign, operated by Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance and Share Our Strength, connects kids to federal food programs.

Patty Barker, director of Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance and Share Our Strength, said students can receive meals at designated sites such as a schools or community centers, through the Summer EBT program that provides families with 120 dollars per student each month or the non-congregate meals for students in rural areas.

"That's a several meal day package - a box - [it] could be for a few days or even for a week's worth of meals provided for pick-up by the parents or distribution straight to the home of the students," she explained.

There are USDA authorized Summer Meals Sites in almost every Arkansas county. A link to find meal sites is available on the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance website.

Arkansas ranks fourth highest in the nation for childhood hunger, with nearly one in four children facing food hardship, that's down 19% in the last ten years. Barker said more children are being helped because of the programs.

"We see it for sure through the participation of the various types of partners that are participating in the program offering meal in these new ways, in rural areas especially," she continued. "And the same for even on-site meals, those districts recognize the need."

She added that sponsors are still needed. School districts, faith-based and nonprofit organizations and local civic groups can still sign up to be a food distribution site.


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