Bringing Health (and hope) to the Hungry

In these troubling economic times, it’s easy to forget the little things. People all over the country are struggling with car payments, credit card and student loan debt, job losses, inadequate or missing health care, and foreclosures. With huge issues like these casting a shadow over our nation, it seems that there’s always more to worry about—and that sometimes means that other issues, particularly those which affect communities who are already under-served by government policy, often get lost in the shuffle.

But it’s also in times of struggle where there is perhaps the most fertile ground for innovation. One such area of potential innovation that I would like to propose deals directly with a community of people who have been particularly hard hit by the recession—the poor, namely those who are at or below the federal poverty line and receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or Food Stamps) benefits. With my project, I aim to expand the current SNAP benefits to farmer’s markets, so that individuals on limited budgets can still afford nutritious, healthy, and sustainable food—while also supporting another struggling industry: local agriculture.

The SNAP program, which serves over 35 million people every month (USDA Food and Nutrition Service website), is a critical resource for many low-income individuals who would be otherwise unable to provide adequate nutrition for their families without sacrificing other needs, such as health care, heat, and rent. Since its inception with the Food Stamp Act of 1939, the SNAP program has been a source of much-needed assistance for families and individuals in both obtaining affordable food as well as working on the path towards self-sustainability. Never in the history of this program, however, have there been more people in need of this critical assistance. In the state of Massachusetts alone, the number of households receiving SNAP benefits has gone up dramatically—from 197,562 in June 2006 to now an estimated 364,590 in June 2010 (Mass Office of Health and Human Services). Clearly, these increasing numbers necessitate a continuing commitment to funding this program, but also encourage us to examine how to make the program more effective in serving this growing community’s needs.

One way in which I believe the SNAP program can sustain both low-income families and local economies and businesses is by allowing food stamps as a form of payment at farmer’s markets. There are currently 200 farmer’s markets in Massachusetts (Mass Dept. of Agriculture), a number which is growing seemingly by the day. Farmer’s markets not only provide healthy, fresh, and sustainable local food, but they also provide a community gathering spot and a source of economic stimulus that’s grown at the local level. According to Jane Black of the Washington Post, who recently did an article on food stamps at farmer’s markets (and profiled Holyoke as an example of why this idea works), “Doubling food assistance money helps needy families afford fresh fruits and vegetables and eat more healthfully, and the money they spend goes to another struggling x population: small farmers. Moreover, studies show that the food stamp program (recently renamed the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) and similar forms of aid are among the most effective ways to stimulate the slumping economy, creating $1.73 worth of economic activity for every dollar spent.” Though there is already a stated program in place which technically allows individuals receiving SNAP benefits to use their EBT card (the form of payment now used for food stamps) at these farmer’s markets (like they do in Holyoke), only 35 out of 200 do offer this as an option. The question we all should be asking is: why?

The answer has to do with something we all take for granted as being there to solve our problems: technology. However, in this case, technology is the barrier to enabling this program to reach wide-spread implementation, because the costs of EBT machines (about $1000 each) are unfunded by the federal, state, and most local governments. Though grants have enabled communities like Holyoke to fund these machines, we cannot rely on outside funding or individual markets alone to solve this problem. Interestingly, though the federal SNAP program does subsidize these machines at retail-chain supermarkets (where individuals and families often end up choosing unsustainable, less healthy, pesticide-ridden foods due to lack of education and access), but has not yet adopted a strategy for funding the machines at farmer’s markets. However, due to the comparatively low cost for the machine versus the high benefit of increased access to healthy, sustainable, local food, it makes it even more critical for us to discover a solution to this problem.

Beyond the obvious benefit of allowing low-income individuals and families increased access to healthier and more sustainable food choices, there are also measurable benefits for the farmers at markets that fund the EBT machines as well as the towns where the markets are located. For example, in Ms. Black’s article, she later describes how Holyoke’s EBT machine has improved low income families’ quality of life, quoting Daniel Ross of Nuestras Raices as saying “We've found in all our research that low-income people know what healthy food is, but because of price, they can't afford it. This helps them get the food they really want for their families." Later, she quotes the head of a Washington farmer’s market, who states that "By implementing these programs, a single dollar of stimulus impacts nutrition, helps farmers, stimulates the economy and provides a direct investment in reducing health-care costs."

Clearly, there’s incentive all around: for low income households, there’s access to better food for their families. For farmers, it means additional revenue at their weekly markets. For towns, it means more visitors to their town’s markets over other towns, which means increased foot traffic and often leads to more money flowing into local businesses. There’s also that little issue of one dollar spent in food stamps creating $1.73 in economic activity, a figure which makes sense when considering where that dollar goes—directly back to the community it comes from, plus tax, increasing the dollar value while continuing to circulate money into the pool of local revenue. This is something that’s not only laudable, implementable, and impactful, it’s also attainable—the main question is how to find the funding, considering the struggling economy.

That’s where you come in—what are some suggestions? Possible funding sources, new ideas, criticisms, comments? Please email me at heatherm@student.umass.edu if you have any questions, concerns, or (hopefully) suggestions as to how to achieve this goal. I appreciate it—with your help, we have the potential to make Massachusetts (and with it, the country) a healthier, greener, and ultimately more hopeful place.

Heather McCormack