Getting healthy food to low-income households and children is a priority for first lady Michelle Obama, but red tape, suspicion and a lack of manpower have kept many farmers from selling fresh fruits and vegetables to thousands who need them most.
Last year, the Department of Agriculture announced a $4 million initiative to bridge what is often the biggest divide between farmers markets and recipients of aid from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the successor to the federal food stamp program: the lack of technology at many markets. SNAP uses electronic debit cards, so if a market can't accept credit cards, it can't process SNAP purchases.
Despite the $4 million the USDA has pledged to get markets wireless debit card machines, few markets have accepted the offer. By the time the program was supposed to be wrapping up in late February, only $263,900 had been spent.
Today, of the nearly 8,000 farmers markets in the U.S., fewer than half accept SNAP payments. At the same time, SNAP has grown significantly in recent years — more than one in seven Americans now receive government help to buy food.
The number of direct-sales farms and farmers markets who accept SNAP has quintupled — rising from 750 to 3,824 — over the past five years. But officials say they need to do better.
"Our goal is to close the gap," said Kevin Concannon, undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "Low-income folks will often buy foods that are calorie dense. We want to try to nudge them in the direction of farmers markets and purchasing healthy, less-processed foods. This is part of that strategy."
Concannon acknowledged the agency started the process late, offering the equipment last May, just as markets ramped up for the busiest part of their season.
Jan Walters, a member of the Farmers Market Coalition board who oversees a national task force on SNAP, said some states didn't have the personnel or administrative ability to promote the program and disburse the money. And farmers said that the paperwork and ongoing fees associated with the card machines — which also accept bank debit and credit cards — often were too much, she said. Seven states — Arizona, Iowa, Idaho, New Hampshire, Nevada, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania — declined the funding outright.
