Food stamps at fruit stands
Isn’t it a shame that poverty is one of the strongest predictors of obesity? And doesn’t it make sense with all the cheap and readily available fast, processed and packaged foods available for just pennies? Wouldn’t it be something if people in poverty could put their food stamps toward wholesome healthy foods rather than all that fake crap?
Last week I visited a farmer’s market in town and was pleasantly surprised to see that they do in fact accept food stamps. Wonderful! But do others?
According to The New York Times, food stamps at farmer’s markets were scarce in 2004 when the government switched from paper stamps to debit cards back in 2004. Debit card terminals are expensive and unlikely to make appearances at outdoor farmer’s markets. But in the six years since then, great strides have been made to make food stamp terminals available at farmer’s markets and in 2008 753 farmer’s markets in the US accepted food stamps with sales totaling $2.7 million.
Does your farmer’s market accept food stamps? Here are some tips from the Food Research and Action Committee to help get them there:
Tips from FRAC
Click to enlarge
Great post, Katie!
As an Americorps member, our living stipend basically forces us to resort to food stamps, so I’ve been on them for about 8 months – Of four or so different local farmers’ markets I went to last summer, only one accepted food stamps.
Aside from it being an expense, I think there are probably a few other issues– I would think part of the problem is that many farmers’ markets sell ready-to-eat or pre-prepared foods, like roasted corn-on-the-cob and single servings of… whatever. Food stamps do not allow the purchase of ready-to-eat foods (i.e. fried chicken at the deli counter of a supermarket) to encourage families to prepare meals at home and plan in advance. There would have to be a lot more UPC-like coding and categorizing and recording than I’ve seen at most markets. Then of course there’s taxing issues. And I’m sure to some extent class issues… And probably some other obstacles.
But thanks for posting the link!
[...] my backyard. (I tried earlier this summer but failed.) Farmers markets are fantastic (some are even accepting food stamps now), but even that isn’t a realistic option for many [...]