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  • From: "TxBeeFarmer" <TxBeeFarmer AT HotPop.com>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] How One Farmers' Market is Handling Food Stamps
  • Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2006 14:14:42 -0600

The Crescent City Farmers Market link you gave doesn't seem to be working. I sent it to HHSC to read, but it doesn't work.

TxBeeFarmer
West Texas Zone 7b

----- Original Message ----- From: "Pat Meadows" <pat AT meadows.pair.com>
To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Cc: <tiogacountypafood AT yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, December 22, 2006 11:43 AM
Subject: [Market-farming] How One Farmers' Market is Handling Food Stamps



How one farmer's market is handling food stamps (or EBT - this is the card
that replaced food stamps).

Pat

---------------------------------------

Bringing Wireless EBT to Farmer's Markets in Louisiana

Lucinda Megill

When the Crescent City Farmers Market opened in 1995, Louisiana announced
plans to change the delivery of Food Stamps from paper coupons to
Electronic Benefit Transfer, or EBT. This did not bode well for Food Stamp
users who wanted to buy fresh produce or for the farmers who wanted their
business.
With EBT, each farmer would need a telephone line to swipe the card and
complete the instant electronic
transaction. But the Crescent City market was set up in a New Orleans
parking lot with no electricity or telephone access. Low-income shoppers
who wanted to use their Food Stamps to purchase fresh local produce were
effectively being shut out by technological barriers.
The Crescent City Farmers Market was not unique. Many farmers markets
operate as temporary "tent cities" in parking lots, there for a few hours
one day a week and then gone again. The space they inhabit for that short
period of time doesn't usually come equipped with hookups for performing
electronic transactions.
An irony seemed to be in the making. While new farmers markets were
proliferating
across the country (and old ones were enjoying a new lease on life), USDA
was introducing new technology
that denied access to the fresh produce for some of the people most likely
to benefit from expanded access-Food Stamp users.
USDA was aware of this problem. For the next few years, they experimented
with several pilot programs designed to overcome the challenges of
accepting Food Stamps at farmers markets in an age of EBT. One of the
experiments involved equipping all the farmers at a market with wireless
EBT machines. It sounds good in theory, but it is prohibitively expensive
to use on a wide scale.
At the Crescent City market, we came up with a solution that is simple and
affordable, and we think quite clever. After we did some research on what
was being tried in Arizona farmers markets, we adopted the idea of using
wooden tokens. Wooden tokens may sound childish, but once you get past the
jokes about not taking any wooden nickels, they proved to be an extremely
effective way of addressing a very troubling problem of access.
A transaction is simple. A customer walks up to the market Welcome Booth
and requests an amount of tokens, which come in $1 or $5 denominations.
Rather than provide a wireless EBT machine to every farmer, we set up one
central terminal. Once customers decide how much they want to spend, we
swipe their cards and they enter their PINs. Within a few seconds, we
receive instant authorization and get a receipt for the transaction. The
customer then receives tokens to spend on eligible products at the market.
Just like using an EBT in a store, the wooden tokens cannot be spent on hot
foods, or on alcohol or tobacco. No change can be given either-it is
illegal to exchange Food Stamp benefits for cash. The vendors collect the
tokens and turn them in to the market as their rent check or submit them to
be reimbursed by the market.
We decided to experiment with this system first for credit and debit
customers. The customers welcomed the wireless solution, which is quick,
efficient and secure. A year before we started to accept EBT, we had been
taking the credit card numbers by hand ("turning plastic into wood")
in the form of $5 wooden tokens). Customers were receptive, so the
extension into EBT tokens was natural for our vendors, plus it fit into our
market culture without stigma.
We completed our first EBT transaction
on January 29th, 2005. Since then, we have noticed a small but steady
number of EBT customers. It will take time for the news to spread by word
of mouth and through the community organizations that have agreed to help
with outreach. We also received some national attention when Undersecretary
of Agriculture Eric Bost came to visit, and he has been a steadfast
champion of the program ever since.
Accepting Food Stamps at the farmers market is a win-win-win situation.
The customers benefit from the access to fresh local products in their
neighborhood. The family farmers, fishers and small businesses benefit from
the federal dollars spent at their stands. And the community benefits from
the money spent that stays in the local economy. That's why it was too
important not to come up with a solution that works.

For information about using EBT at farmers markets:
http://www.crescentcityfarmersmarket.org/4m/downloads/2005_4M_ebt.pdf.
Lucinda Megill was a Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellow with the
Congressional Hunger Center in Washington, DC committed to fighting hunger
by training new leaders. She was a member of the 11th class from August
2004 to August 2005. Her fieldwork included the Food Stamp outreach project
described above.

From:
http://www.wecanendhunger.org/cmsContent/files/BREAD%2006-Chap-1-Food-Stamps.pdf

------------------------------------------
--
In the Appalachian Mountains in northern Pennsylvania
Blog (mainly gardening and cooking related):
http://www.entire-of-itself.blogspot.com/
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