Sec. 2. Findings

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Congress finds that— developing high-quality fresh food retail outlets creates jobs, expands markets for agricultural producers in the United States, advances health, and supports economic vitality in underserved communities; model programs in several States and cities (including the States of California, Illinois, New York, and Pennsylvania and the city of New Orleans) have shown success in creating public/private partnerships that leverage millions in private capital and grant funds to establish successful retail outlets in low-income underserved communities; as a result of those programs, thousands of jobs have been developed, hundreds of thousands of people are gaining access to healthy food, and sustainable businesses have been developed; despite those successes, more than 25,000,000 people in the United States live in low-income communities with very limited access to supermarkets, grocery stores, and healthy food; with an increasing demand for fresh local foods, regional food hubs are rapidly expanding, with well over 200 food hubs operating in the United States as of the date of enactment of this Act; regional food hubs are part of a growing local food system that strengthens rural economies by lowering entry barriers and improving infrastructure to establish, as well as expand, regional food markets; and many food hubs are designed to move locally produced food into underserved communities; supermarkets and grocery stores often face barriers to opening stores in communities with very limited access to healthy food, also known as food deserts; the supermarket industry operates on a historically thin profit margin; according to the 2011 National Grocers Association Independent Grocers Survey, the average net profit margin before taxes for independent grocers in 2010 was 1.08 percent; urban operators face barriers, including— increased real estate costs or limited availability of suitable commercial real estate in the community; increased employee training needs and costs; elevated security expenses; and often zoning restrictions; and supermarkets and grocery stores in rural food deserts also face barriers, including increased food delivery costs due to distance from distributers, dispersed customer base, and low volume; the United States faces an obesity epidemic in which 30.5 percent of children ages 10 through 17 are overweight or obese; the obesity epidemic contributes to increasing rates of chronic illness, including diabetes, heart disease, and cancer; and the obesity epidemic cost the United States $147,000,000 in medical expenses in 2008, and this cost is expected to rise in the future; more than 170 studies show that— access to healthy food is particularly a problem in hundreds of low-income, rural, and urban communities, as well as communities of color in the United States; and the opportunity to access healthy food is linked to lower levels of obesity, diabetes, and other food-related chronic illnesses, leading to better health outcomes; children from low-income families are twice as likely to be overweight as children from higher income families; and African-American and Hispanic children are more likely than Caucasian children to be obese; studies show that when healthy foods are available, people will increase consumption of fruits and vegetables; leading public health experts, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Heart Association, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Public Health Association, agree that providing improved access to supermarkets and grocery stores is needed to improve public health and prevent obesity; access to affordable capital is a significant problem for rural and urban supermarkets, grocery stores, regional food hubs, farmers markets, and healthy food retail business enterprises; by providing seed capital and technical assistance, the Federal Government, through time-limited investments, can— attract private sector investment to create and retain much-needed jobs; and provide long-term, sustainable solutions to the decades-old problem of limited access to healthy food in underserved, low-income urban and rural communities; and legislation establishing a national fund modeled on successful programs in Pennsylvania and other States and localities will help create much-needed jobs and economic revitalization, address an important part of the obesity epidemic, and solve the healthy food access problem in hundreds of communities across the United States.