USDA Secretary, Tom Vilsack, announced a program under the Healthy Food Financing Initiative to increase availability of fresh fruit, vegetables and other foods in areas underserved by commercial groceries. Funding will be available under the Food Access and Retail Expansion (FARE)Fund financed by the umbrella American Rescue Plan Act.
USDA is soliciting applications for loans ranging from $0.5 to $5.0 million to be used for predevelopment, land acquisition, renovations and equipment. Funding is available for business support, training and visibility studies.
In announcing the program at the National Rural Grocers Summit on June 24th, Secretary Vilsack stated, “Through this program, we are partnering with food retailers to ensure that everybody has access to affordable, delicious foods while also supporting local farmers and ranchers.”
It is noted that national chains previously established grocery stores in so-called food deserts in Chicago and other metropolitan areas. Despite the application of sound management practices and drawing on the extensive resources of the chains involved, the established businesses failed and were closed. Reasons for the lack of success included extensive theft, security issues and lack of community support. There is no reason to anticipate that the USDA FARE program will have any more meaningful impact on communities currently underserved by groceries.
The FARE project will merely disburse funds without anticipation of recipients repaying loans. It would have been more beneficial for USDA to have partnered with a food retailer to establish a demonstration project that if successful could serve as a model and training location for subsequent implementation. Merely making loans available does not address the realities that resulted in the previous failure of grocery chains to establish viable stores in food deserts.