IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/agrhuv/v18y2001i4p447-457.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An investigation of the potential existence of ``food deserts'' in rural and urban areas of Northern Ireland

Author

Listed:
  • Sinéad Furey
  • Christopher Strugnell
  • Ms. McIlveen

Abstract

Food Deserts have recently beenidentified in the United Kingdom. They havebeen defined by Tessa Jowell, UK GovernmentHealth Minister, as an area ``where people donot have easy access to healthy, fresh foods,particularly if they are poor and have limitedmobility.'' The above definition is particularlyrelevant in Northern Ireland, where it isestimated that 32% of households do not haveeasy access to a car and it is recognized thatcertain groups in Northern Ireland are amongstthe poorest consumers in the United Kingdom.The phenomenon has been further exacerbated bythe effect of large grocery retailers locatingon the periphery of towns and the subsequentdisplacement effect of independent retailers inthe town center. The resultant effect is suchthat disadvantaged consumers cannot accessfresh, quality, nutritious foods at anaffordable price. Preliminary researchindicates that certain consumer groups areexcluded from equitable shopping provision –possibly to the detriment of their healthstatus. Research methodology includes aconsumer questionnaire, consumer focus groups,interviews, and comparative shopping exercisesthat confirm an inability among vulnerableconsumer groups to achieve an affordable,healthy diet. This was further complicated bynon-car owners' and lower-income family unitsneeding to shop locally and more frequentlythan their higher-income, car-ownercounterparts. This was demonstrated with theuse of shopping diaries. Future research to beconducted includes a large-scale survey acrossNorthern Ireland to ascertain accessibility,availability, and affordability of qualityfresh foods and to distinguish the consumergroups who are most vulnerable. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2001

Suggested Citation

  • Sinéad Furey & Christopher Strugnell & Ms. McIlveen, 2001. "An investigation of the potential existence of ``food deserts'' in rural and urban areas of Northern Ireland," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 18(4), pages 447-457, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:18:y:2001:i:4:p:447-457
    DOI: 10.1023/A:1015218502547
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1023/A:1015218502547
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1023/A:1015218502547?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Heather Brown & Justin Presseau, 2018. "Work Me Not Into Temptation: Exploring the Relationship between Work and Healthy Eating in Dieters Using Data from the HILDA Survey," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 51(3), pages 368-381, September.
    2. Birol, Ekin & Kontoleon, Andreas & Smale, Melinda, 2005. "Using A Choice Experiment To Estimate The Demand Of Hungarian Farmers For Food Security And Agrobiodiversity During Economic Transition," Environmental Economy and Policy Research Discussion Papers 31937, University of Cambridge, Department of Land Economy.
    3. Daniela Bernaschi & Davide Marino & Angela Cimini & Giampiero Mazzocchi, 2023. "The Social Exclusion Perspective of Food Insecurity: The Case of Blacked-Out Food Areas," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-18, February.
    4. Eckel, Carsten, 2007. "International trade and retailing: Diversity versus accessibility and the creation of retail deserts," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 66, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    5. Dean, Wesley R. & Sharkey, Joseph R., 2011. "Food insecurity, social capital and perceived personal disparity in a predominantly rural region of Texas: An individual-level analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(9), pages 1454-1462, May.
    6. Dowler, Elizabeth A. & O’Connor, Deirdre, 2012. "Rights-based approaches to addressing food poverty and food insecurity in Ireland and UK," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 44-51.
    7. Meneely, Lisa & Strugnell, Chris & Burns, Amy, 2009. "Elderly consumers and their food store experiences," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 16(6), pages 458-465.
    8. Chen, Yulin, 2019. "Neighborhood form and residents' walking and biking distance to food markets: Evidence from Beijing, China," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 340-349.
    9. repec:got:cegedp:66 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Oludele Akinloye Akinboade & Segun Adeyemi Adeyefa, 2018. "An Analysis of Variance of Food Security by its Main Determinants Among the Urban Poor in the City of Tshwane, South Africa," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 137(1), pages 61-82, May.
    11. Gilbert Gillespie, 2009. "Introduction: Thomas A. Lyson—a biographical note," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 26(1), pages 15-19, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:18:y:2001:i:4:p:447-457. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.