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Hello, everyone, and welcome to Rio Virginia, a show about Virginia agriculture and the people who produce the wonderful local products we enjoy.

Brought to you by the Virginia Farm Bureau.

Here's what's coming up on this week's show.

We'll show you what's being done to reduce the number of food deserts in the Commonwealth.

Chef Tammy shows us how to add a little salsa to your tuna steak.

And we visit beautiful Patrick County in this month's county close-up segment.

Between the blue beach and shit, Atlantic.

Welcome back to Rio Virginia, everyone.

We're coming to you this week from Shalom Farms in Powhatan County, one of many facilities bringing fresh food to underserved communities.

Food insecurity affects one in nine Virginians, and many of those affected live in what's called a food desert.

The U.S.

Department of Agriculture defines a food desert differently between rural and urban areas, but the outcomes are often the same.

Over a million Virginians experience some form of food insecurity.

And eight of the ten localities with the highest hunger rate are in rural and mostly Southwest Virginia.

According to the advocacy group, Feeding America, one of several organizations fighting hunger in the state.

Food banks also play a critical role in reducing hunger.

We have made a lot of investments in our pantry network.

So Virginia's food banks, we have 1,100 pantries throughout the state.

And they often need more refrigeration capacity.

They need more trucks.

We've worked hard to bring resources where it's needed most.

But a lot of our pantries are run by volunteers.

They may be older, run out of a church basement.

And so these are really good folks working really hard with limited resources to feed people in need.

And so we are doing everything we can to fundraise for bringing additional government dollars that are going to connect people to healthy food because we know the better people eat, the more productive they're going to be, the more likely they are to stay out of the hospital and ultimately get on better financial footing.

While many Virginians above the age of 60 are experiencing food insecurity, the problem is also affecting the young as well.

One growing area of interest is the college hunger.

A lot of folks who go to community colleges might be working part-time, supporting a family.

And so there was a hunger-free campus grant program established that we're hopeful is going to help us extend into some uh rural communities and some other areas where folks are trying to better themselves and advance their career and make more money for their families.

The U.S.

Department of Agriculture defines a food desert as a low-income census tract where a significant number or share of residents has limited access to a supermarket or large grocery store.

Low access is defined as an area where at least 500 people or 33% of the population must live more than one mile from a grocery store in urban areas and 10 miles away from a store in rural areas.

A food desert task force in 2017 helped the Fredericksburg Food Co-op get off the ground.

The city was one of eight primary localities examined.

Today, fresh produce and other farm products are available to this once underserved community.

And their products come from farmers in Madison, King George, and other nearby communities.

The Fredericksburg Food Co-op is one of 156 locations participating in the Virginia Fresh Match Program, where EBT users get twice as much value when they buy fresh foods.

The program started in farmers markets, but organizers quickly saw the value in food co-ops.

Depending on whether you have transportation, um, you know, it can be very difficult to get to a grocery store.

But as you go further out in the Fredericksburg region, you find less and less uh availability.

So for example, in Caroline County, there are two grocery stores.

A poll by the group No Kid Hungry found 78% of Virginians report that groceries have become harder to afford in the last year.

Forty-two percent showed at least one sign of food insecurity, such as not having enough food to eat, eating low quality food, or eating a limited variety of food due to cost.

Can't always be sure that the kids are going to like what you bring home.

Nobody wants waste.

Uh, it's one of the great things about the Virginia Fresh Match program is that we're essentially providing some food risk-free.

So it enables people to try new things, to uh expand their palates.

It's an irony that in many of the rural areas where fresh foods are grown, access to fresh food is limited.

Stores such as the Fredericksburg Food Co-op and the Snap Match program are trying to change that.

For a map of food deserts by location, head to ERS.usda.gov.

In Fredericksburg, Virginia, I'm Burke Muller reporting.

Food deserts are found all over the Commonwealth.

And in 2024, the Virginia General Assembly established the current Virginia Commission to end hunger, which is charged with developing an action plan every two years to address an end hunger in the state.

In March 2025, Governor Glen Youncins signed the hunger-free campus food pantry grant program, providing half a million dollars to pantries serving Virginia colleges and universities.

Coming up on From the Ground Up, we're gonna learn how to grow ginger in the home garden.

Stay with us.

The ginger plant has no shortage of uses for food, medicine, or drink.