Food Insecurity In Clay County Could Be Alleviated By New Dollar General Market

A new possibility to bring more groceries and fresh produce opportunities to Celina will have a positive impact on food insecurity.

A new Dollar General Market could be on the way to the community. Tennessee Tech Agriculture Professor Dennis Duncan said the Clay County population under the age of 18 has a food insecurity rate of about 20 percent.

“Which to me is unbelievable,” Duncan said. “So that means over 20 percent of youth in Clay County are food insecure and are not sure if or when they’re going to get their next meal.”

Duncan said food insecurity can be caused by multiple factors, including socioeconomic status or living in a food desert. He said a food desert occurs when the nearest grocery store or market is more than two miles away.

Duncan said while Clay County currently has one, family-owned market, increasing the opportunity for residents to get healthy foods will be a huge benefit.

“There’s a number of ways we can address this,” Duncan said. “When we talk about youth, one of the activities I’ve been involved in for a number of years at two different institutions is working with elementary school and middle school children and teaching them on their school campuses how to grow food, how to harvest food, fresh food, and then as they get older in age for example at the middle school age, is having them prepare food (…) the data out there will show you that if the child grows something there is a stronger probability they’ll want to eat it.”