Across Louisiana, 1.3 million residents (29% of Louisiana’s total population) live in communities designated by the USDA as having low access to grocery stores. The problem affects every civil parish in the state, with 83% of parishes containing communities with a severe enough concentration of low-access residents to merit the designation of “food desert” by the USDA.

Obesity-related healthcare costs amounted to an estimated $2.9 billion for Louisiana alone in 2013.

Over the last two years, a statewide coalition of more than 200 Louisiana organizations in the agricultural, food retail and faith-based communities, led by Together Louisiana and Market Umbrella, has come together to support funding and implementation of the Healthy Food Retail Act, to bring grocery stores to low-income communities without them.

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