No Cash, No Problem: bringing local food to everyone in Gainesville

By Lydia Fiser

Bringing local, healthy food to everyone in Gainesville

The High Springs Farmers Market springs up from the black pavement of an empty parking lot each week to provide a space for locals to buy and sell food grown in North Central Florida. It brings consumers to the source of their food the way McDonald’s severs them from the source. Money flows from house to farm and from farm to store, circulating through the local economy, instead of skipping town buried in the pockets of corporate giants.

Gainesville citizens have their own farmers markets throughout the week, but unlike High Springs, where everyone has access to healthy, local food regardless of income level, the Gainesville markets aren’t available to everyone yet.

The High Springs Farmers Market is the only market in Florida that accepts federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, formerly known as food stamps. So everyone in High Springs has the opportunity to eat Florida-grown produce that’s washed in in water, not pesticides, and bought from fellow citizens instead of a Super Wal-Mart. Although this isn’t the case in Gainesville now, Florida Organic Growers (FOG) and its partners in the city and county have a plan to change this and join High Springs in setting the precedent for other Florida cities.

Last May, FOG received a one-year grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to investigate food security for low-income residents of the county and how it can be increased. The organization worked through the year to assemble ideas and potential plans to present to the USDA and the city of Gainesville this spring.

The goal of all their ideas is to increase access for people who have trouble getting fresh foods, said Melissa Desa, the FOG project coordinator.

“SNAP at the farmers market is a win-win because it’s federal dollars being spent in the community and kept locally. So it’s kind of the best of all scenarios,” Desa said.

About $4 million of federal money comes to the county each month through SNAP beneficiaries, according to the Department of Children and Families. As it is now, about six or seven of the 29,449 people who receive benefits go to the High Springs’ market each week, but the majority live in other towns in the county, like Gainesville, where their benefits are only accepted at corporate stores with national economies. There’s been a steady rise in the last year and a half with more than 7,000 additional people receiving benefits since December 2008. And that’s only one-third of the people in the county who qualify, according to John Skelly, the director of Poverty Reduction for Alachua County.

Christine Hale, the director of education and outreach at FOG said that “because there are so many people added to the [SNAP] list every month, this is a great opportunity to bring those federal dollars back to farmers.”

Desa and Hale are looking at how other cities have structured their programs for guidance while formulating the plan for Gainesville.

Most markets get a hand-held, card-reading machine where customers can scan their cards, whether it’s a debit, credit or Electronic Benefits Transfer card, which draws from a SNAP funds account. In exchange, customers get tokens worth certain amounts to purchase food and plants from individual booths.

The plan can’t stop at just setting up the infrastructure for the program though.

“It’s not like all of a sudden people will flock to the farmers market,” Hale said. “Education and outreach is needed to get people eating from the middle of the store – the processed food isle – to the market.”

Cities throughout the country that are home to the 753 farmers markets authorized by the USDA to accept SNAP benefits have tried different programs to increase the ease, access and awareness of the SNAP benefits at farmers markets.

One program, which Desa and Hale are optimistic about, relies on the sponsorship of outside companies. A business can sign up to provide incentive coupons to SNAP beneficiaries that double their benefits. So a $10 token can earn a $10 coupon, and the beneficiary then gets $20 worth of food at the market.

Autry Ellison displays the size of his shrimp, "as big as your hand," that he brings down from Jacksonville weekly for the High Springs and Gainesville farmers markets. Photo by Jessica Newman.

“The coupon program is really key to making this happen,” Hale said. “We can easily obtain [Electronic Benefits Transfer] machines for relatively little cost, but getting the people to the market might not be successful. If they know their value is going to be doubled, they’re more likely to do it.”

The coupon program, along with paying someone to run the Electronic Benefits Transfer machines and distribute money from federal funds to local farmers, is the biggest cost obstacles to bringing SNAP to Gainesville farmers markets.

A lack of funding to set up and run the program and the amount of cooperation needed between federal, state and local organizations are what have prevented Gainesville from trying this before now. But since the USDA grant spurred FOG to look into the program, “everyone is seeing the connections [of those who can benefit], and the wheels are turning and we’ve got the ears of city and county people,” Hale said.

Farmers markets in Gainesville could begin accepting SNAP benefits as early as this summer or fall if people step up to fund it. Desa and Hale hope eventually to make the program self-sustainable so that it won’t have to rely on outside money. Until then though, FOG is applying for grants and working toward forging partnerships with local businesses.

“We need funding to make this happen,” Desa said. “We know there are companies out there to support projects like this and help the hungry in our community, help farmers, our local economy and help the people. I think they’ll see the rewards trickle up from the low-income people and benefit the entire community as a whole.”

Tags: Gainesville • high • sustainable agriculture