Food insecurity may seem to many of us like a problem for someone else, somewhere else. For others, it is an urgent and very personal worry. A map produced by the Institute for Local Self Reliance shows there are food deserts in every state. In Ohio, they are growing.

According to a report by the Ohio Capital Journal, the institute defines an urban food desert as a low-income census tract with at least 500 people or 33% of the population living a mile or more from the nearest supermarket, large grocery or supercenter; rural food deserts have the same parameters with the exception of people having to be 10 or more miles away from those grocery stores. Convenience stores and dollar stores were not considered as being regularly able to provide a wide variety of fresh, healthy food options.

There are significant food deserts in the Mahoning Valley. Large swaths of the metro areas of Warren and Youngstown both qualify. In both the centers of Trumbull and Mahoning counties, there are sizable areas in which more than half of residents — and in some areas up to 98-99% of people — do not have easy access to grocery stores, according to 2010 census numbers.

Given the number of grocery stores that have closed since those numbers were fresh, there seems little reason to think the situation has improved.

Though there are some food deserts in urban areas, the largest number were rural — and more concentrated in southeast Ohio.

“… poverty and small towns are not new,” the report said, according to the Capital Journal. “Food deserts are. They arrived relatively recently, beginning in the late 1980s, as the suspension of (Robinson-Patman Act) enforcement undermined competition and drove consolidation in the grocery sector.”

The Robinson-Patman Act was a Depression-era law that required suppliers to give the same deals to all buyers, regardless of size. Now, the big guys are better able to provide a variety of fresh, healthy foods because they can get a better deal.

“As independent grocers disappeared … competitive pressure vanished,” the Capital Journal quotes the report. “Large chains no longer faced locally owned rivals in many rural towns and urban neighborhoods, which meant they no longer needed to maintain local stores to capture local spending.

“Instead, they could rely on residents to travel to another town or neighborhood to shop at their other locations. Meanwhile, those without the means to travel were left to get by on the meager selection of processed foods available at dollar stores and gas stations.”

Ohio House Bill 543, to create a food desert elimination grant program by helping those smaller convenience stores sell fresh and healthier foods, has been languishing in the state House Community Revitalization Committee since Oct. 29.

In December, lead co-sponsor Rep. Terrence Upchurch, D-Cleveland, told WCMH “”Food deserts have made a balanced diet inaccessible to many Ohioans.”

It’s that simple. And while we may not be able to move the needle on this issue all at once, lawmakers could certainly be looking at HB 543 and other ways to make small changes — if they have the appetite for it.