County-level map shows estimates of rural food insecurity

Daily Yonder adaptation of Urban Institute map shows food insecurity and associated factors such as housing costs and health risks in rural and mostly rural counties. Click on the map to enlarge it, or click here for the interactive version.

"Food insecurity on average tends to be a bit higher in rural counties versus urban ones. But there’s a tremendous variety in food insecurity across rural counties – and even within the same states," Tim Marema reports for The Daily Yonder. That reality is displayed in a newly published Urban Institute report about food security in the U.S. in 2017, the year with the most recently available data, and an interactive map with county-level data. About 40 million Americans, including 12.5 million children, are estimated to be food insecure. 

"To me, one of the most striking revelations of the map is how food security and insecurity exist side by side in many states," Marema writes. "Blue (low insecurity) and orange (high insecurity) abut in Southside Virginia. Eastern and Western Oklahoma are worlds apart on the food security scale. And single counties with food insecurity dot across the otherwise blue northern Great Plains. Nearly all these counties with food insecurity (red) are home to Indian nations."