WHY's own Christina Schiavoni reports
With a multitude of benefits — ranging from supporting the livelihoods of small-scale family farmers; to increasing access to fresh, healthy food; to fostering a sense of community as well as a sense of security from knowing where one's food has come from and how it has been grown — it is no wonder that farmers markets have dramatically increased in popularity in recent years.
From 1994 to 2002, the number of farmers markets in the US (documented by the USDA) increased by 79 percent, and their numbers continue to grow from state to state. How can we use this explosion in popularity and in number of farmers markets as an opportunity to leverage national policies to address issues such as hunger and obesity? How can we protect existing farmers markets and encourage the creation of new ones while ensuring that they are made accessible to people of all economic and cultural backgrounds? These are some of the questions discussed at The National Workshop on "The Role of Farmers Markets in America's Food System," held in conjunction with the "Third Iowa Food Policy Conference" in Des Moines, Iowa.
Co-sponsored by the Drake University Agricultural Law Center and the Iowa Food Policy Council, the national workshop provided a forum for exchanging information on sucessful farmers market operations throughout the US as well as addressing current challenges and policy needs. Examples of challenges to establishing and running farmers markets, as identified by National Workshop participants, include: difficulties in securing space and permits for market areas; lack of affordable accident insurance for market vendors; the need for more permanent infrastructure for market operations; and lack of funding for coordinating, staffing, and promoting farmers markets. While these challenges and others are being addressed in a number of innovative ways at the state level by grassroots groups, state agriculture departments, and other entities such as cooperative extension offices, more uniform support and protection need to come from the national level. One federal program that would assist in promoting and improving current farmers market operations as well as establishing new markets is the Farmers Market Promotion Program. The Farmers Market Promotion Program was included in the 2002 Farm Bill but has not been appropriated any funds by Congress, making this program ineffective to date.
While creative ways of enabling farmers to accept food stamps are being piloted at farmers markets in a number of states, the barrier to using food stamps at farmers markets should be addressed at the national level, and solutions should be applied in all markets in each state as soon as possible.
Promoting farmers markets and increasing their numbers will only be worthwhile if there is an increase the number of people able to access the markets. Much more support is needed at the national level to ensure that farmers markets are made accessible to under-served populations. Two federally-funded programs — the WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) Farmers Market Nutrition Program and the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program — enable participants (low-income women who are pregnant or have young children and low-income senior citizens) to use coupons to purchase fresh produce at farmers markets and other direct farm marketing operations. Both programs are extremely popular and successful, but both are also extremely under-funded, reaching only a fraction of eligible low-income people in 44 states.
Another means of making farmers markets more universally accessible is to ensure that they can be used by Food Stamp Program participants, whose numbers surpassed 20 million nationwide in 2003. Although many farmers markets have traditionally accepted food stamps, now that the Food Stamp Program has switched from operating through paper vouchers to operating through an Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) system using swipe cards, most farmers markets currently lack the technology to accept food stamp payments. In fact, it is estimated that food stamp redemption at farmers markets has decreased by 90 percent since the switch to an electronic system, eliminating an important source of healthy food for low-income individuals as well as an important source of income for farmers. While creative ways of enabling farmers to accept food stamps are being piloted at farmers markets in a number of states, the barrier to using food stamps at farmers markets should be addressed at the national level, and solutions should be applied in all markets in each state as soon as possible.
Hunger, food insecurity, diet-related health problems, and the crisis facing family farmers are complex problems that cannot be solved overnight. Farmers markets do, however, address each of these issues, and there are some simple steps that can be taken to ensure that farmers markets are both supported and made accessible to those who could benefit from them the most. Appropriating funding to the Farmers Market Promotion Program, increasing funding for the WIC and Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Programs, and removing barriers to food stamp redemption at farmers markets are practical and achievable measures that could have widespread positive impact. This is part of a national policy agenda set at the National Workshop on the Role of Farmers Markets in America's Food System. As a leader in both the anti-hunger and food security fields, WHY is proud to be actively working towards these goals.
For more information on farmers markets and related topics, check out WHY's Food Security Learning Center.
Christina Schiavoni is WHY's International Coordinator.
