The link to the excellent Growing For Markets site. In the January 2014 issue, I have an article where I share the latest news on SNAP at farmers markets. GFM is a great magazine for news and tips for market farmers and organizers. You can subscribe at different levels for print or online (which can include their excellent archives) or you can simply purchase a single issue.
farmers markets
New Nationwide Study Shows SNAP Incentives at Farmers’ Markets Boost Healthy Eating, Support Farmers, and Grow Local Economies | Fair Food Network
From the conclusion:
A minority of funds went unused. Possible reasons for this gap include that tokens were lost, misplaced, or reserved for a future visit that did not occur. Regardless, a loss in purchasing power negatively affects the financial benefits provided by the incentive program, and means that SNAP participants have fewer funds to mitigate food insecurity. Future work should strive to better understand this problem in various communities and test innovative solutions to increase SNAP redemption rates. Additionally, further exploration will be helpful to determine what maximum amount of SNAP benefits
matched maximizes participation by SNAP customers. To better understand the health impacts on individuals who use SNAP incentives to purchase fresh produce, future research also should explore changes in consumption and other health behavior. Finally, examining the relationship between various implementation strategies and reported changes in consumers, vendors, and markets will help better identify promising practices for effective incentive programs. The cluster evaluation documented program innovations; influences of incentive programs on consumers, vendors, and markets; and lessons learned to inform a fragmented field of practice. The cluster program organizations are poised and ready to share what they are learning about effective program management, marketing, funding, capacity building, sustainability strategies, and achieving desired outcomes with fellow practitioners. After sharing program experiences, program implementation, and outcome data, and advancing ideas on how best to advance and implement solutions to food system issues of common concern through this cluster evaluation, the programs are exploring plans to launch an online “Learning Community” that would bring more program coherence to the field of practice and increase the field’s capacity to be more impactful.
the seeds we didn’t know the soil held
The title of this piece was included in an end of year TomDispatch commentary, written by one of my favorite writers, Rebecca Solnit:
…Many seeds stay dormant far longer than that before some disturbance makes them germinate. Some trees bear fruit long after the people who have planted them have died, and one Massachusetts pear tree, planted by a Puritan in 1630, is still bearing fruit far sweeter than most of what those fundamentalists brought to this continent. Sometimes cause and effect are centuries apart; sometimes Martin Luther King’s arc of the moral universe that bends toward justice is so long few see its curve; sometimes hope lies not in looking forward but backward to study the line of that arc.
and near the end of her piece, this:
I don’t know what’s coming. I do know that, whatever it is, some of it will be terrible, but some of it will be miraculous, that term we reserve for the utterly unanticipated, the seeds we didn’t know the soil held….
I am going to adopt this as my new mantra (my friends and colleagues should get ready to hear it often) for the work that we are all doing in food, in recalibrating what health and wealth means in our communities and in demanding a civic (public) life that breeds empathy and justice.
Writer/activist/teacher Michael Harrington who used the metaphor of being a “long-distance runner” for community organizing and movement work would also say this in lectures:
“…you must recognize that the social vision to which you are committing yourself will never be fulfilled in your lifetime.”
Some of Harrington’s writing and the majority of Solnit’s is about how successful movements-when pulled apart and examined-are made up from a series of direct action moments and negotiations finally coming to fruition around a shared narrative of big or even scary ideas that will lead to societal transformation.
Yet Solnit’s content is most often written about the individual or about small groups using meandering/karmic ways to create this change, outside of the broken or simply too large formal structures that stopped responding to individual plights a long time ago. And that when it happens the right way, collectively and with heart-thumping goals attached (let’s say during the American Revolution or with the 18th and 19th century abolitionists or with the woman’s suffrage movement) it starts slowly with small groups of citizens and spreads to those governing us, not the other way around. And that it takes a while.
All of that is all very nice I hear some of you say. But what does this matter to my never-ending project list and non-stop funding crunch?
What I ask is while you take the time to read this, do examine your own way of working and ask yourself now (and later on too) if you are also caring for the seeds yet unseen. If you have the maturity to manage your or your organization’s relationships in your work like a long-distance runner does with his/her energy and time.
I don’t expect you to remember this post every time that you sit at your desk or head out to the community to work on food and justice. Just remember the title of this piece and remember my teacher Michael Harrington, pacing himself as best he could. He died long before he saw what he defined as success but I believe that he was genuinely glad the work outlived him. Not the injustice certainly but the connections and the ideas.
How could any of us expect to get it all done in our lifetime? My god, I hope many of the seeds and saplings that I have planted bear fruit 300 years after my passing, just like that long ago pear planter.
However you find your pace, I hope we can all find the energy and patience to stay on for the long seasons ahead, some with cloudy dusks with fallow ground and others with sunny days full of trees bearing fruit as far as the eye can see. If not, if you only want a win, to bring in a single crop, then throw it all in now by all means. We need those too. I suspect you will find more work to stick around, but if not, I will still salute your effort and your time. And I’ll come get you when the green shoots takes hold.
Solnit gets the last word:
A decade ago I began writing about hope, an orientation that has nothing to do with optimism. Optimism says that everything will be fine no matter what, just as pessimism says that it will be dismal no matter what. Hope is a sense of the grand mystery of it all, the knowledge that we don’t know how it will turn out, that anything is possible.
The Spread of Obesity in a Large Social Network over 32 Years — NEJM
Once again, the link between social influence and obesity is identified. Markets could conceivably use this more powerfully in “bring a friend” campaigns or by keeping healthy recipes at trusted vendor tables rather than at generic tables or maybe with “2 for 1” specials for SNAP incentives….
The spread of obesity in social networks appears to be a factor in the obesity epidemic. Yet the relevance of social influence also suggests that it may be possible to harness this same force to slow the spread of obesity. Network phenomena might be exploited to spread positive health behaviors,34-36 in part because people’s perceptions of their own risk of illness may depend on the people around them.37 Smoking- and alcohol-cessation programs and weight-loss interventions that provide peer support — that is, that modify the person’s social network — are more successful than those that do not.34,35,38,39 People are connected, and so their health is connected.40,41 Consequently, medical and public health interventions might be more cost-effective than initially supposed, since health improvements in one person might spread to others.42 The observation that people are embedded in social networks suggests that both bad and good behaviors might spread over a range of social ties. This highlights the necessity of approaching obesity not only as a clinical problem but also as a public health problem.
The Spread of Obesity in a Large Social Network over 32 Years — NEJM.
How the Bitcoin protocol actually works and what that means for us
Complementary currencies fascinate me and recently, the crypto currency bitcoin especially. Its an example of a decentralized example designed to reduce inflation (although maybe not deflation) and the need to have a central authority. I agree with many that the bitcoin seems unlikely to be a replacement for fiat currency (government-decreed legal currency) and I also agree with the concern over the ultimate role of this currency that has a limit to how much can be “mined.” Still, important to remember that gold has very close to the same values and limits and has flourished as a protection against only using a national currency.
The reason why this should be so important to food system organizers-especially to direct marketing outlets-is that many of these outlets are operating what is essentially a debiting system with tokens, yet doing it without the robust and transparent nature of a currency system, or without a fair and openly discussed exchange rate that asks everyone possible to share the costs. In other words, we have built systems that allow people to begin to depend on the market to supply a debiting system so as not to have to stop and get cash before coming to market, or from vendors from having their own machine and costs, yet are not extending the reach of that system to find ways to pay and find support for it. What seems to be the goal for most involved is to dream of the day that we can hand these systems off to the farmers to run themselves. I would say that for many reasons this is unlikely in any near future as these systems will remain unwieldy to manage.
Those reasons for the delay or impossibility of the vendor hand off happening include (but are not limited to):
-the lack of easy-to-manage back office systems
-the wide variations of card fees and systems needed to swipe cards
-the costs for each vendor to purchase and maintain these systems. Add to that the very nature of pop up markets without access to good wifi or mobile phone signals, the low number of transactions per vendor and complication of a high number of customer transactions on any one day with many small businesses that will confuse and alert card processors.
To me, what comes first is solving these problems and extending this system’s reach to savings and loans pilots. What about allowing restaurants that source locally to accept the tokens during slow months? Or working with banks to help provide some accounting or backing? What about establishing micro loans to encourage more people to use this as a sticky currency working through a local food system? The Berkshares system in Great Barrington area is an uniquely designed currency that is experimenting with these ideas and more and has added hundreds of outlets at which their currency can be used; it is surely one that should be studied closely by our field, if nothing else.
There are examples of different token pilots at markets, such as MarketUmbrella’s Crescent Fund and Massachusetts’ pilot of electronic wallet (an example here of an electronic wallet) but these pilots are still so limited and information is not widely available. I would love to see some deep analysis of the impact of these systems and some prototyping of entire systems, especially with the emergence of these popular electronic currency such as bitcoins and vibrant complementary currencies such as the Berkshares.
Grazing with goats in the Crescent City
Goats for grazing is a super idea for the many open, untended sites we have in New Orleans and throughout the U.S. This is a simple fundraising idea for an New Orleans entrepreneur that wants to use goats to graze public and private green space. She has already been contracted to use goats on a park in the city (Brechtel Park) starting in 2014 and needs support to get her business prepared for the work ahead.
I see she also sees this as public art, which I’d have to hear more about to understand I guess, but the goat grazing is by itself an idea that I can certainly support. Maybe you can too?
…To comment further on the public art point, I’d rather this be seen chiefly as a serious farming and open space issue that helps urban people see that livestock can safely serve many roles in the larger natural survival loop, even in our ordered urban environment.
“Where Farmers Markets and CSAs Fall Short” An interview with Mary Berry
Be forewarned-if you know me, you are going to hear and see excerpts from this link many, many times in the future. An articulate and necessary interview with Mary Berry of the Berry Center (yes, daughter of our agrarian apostle* Wendell Berry) on the shortcomings (or pitfalls if you prefer) of our good food work so far. I think all of her points are spot on and all have potential actions to take to push forward.
In These Times
*Don’t worry-The term “apostle” is used here in the Classical Greek context of messenger. No idle idolatry intended.
Economic Opportunity Is Lowest In the Republican Bible Belt, Major Study Finds | Alternet
I suspected as much, based on the struggle that our community food systems here still have in front of them to reach any decent economic plateau. And, of course, this is another easy way to track where large swaths of institutional racism are still at work.
Economic Opportunity Is Lowest In the Republican Bible Belt, Major Study Finds | Alternet.
VT Currency Report wins a 2013 American Graphic Design Award
Our Vermont Market Currency Report won a national design award, thanks to our amazing and patient designer Matt Hannigan, now working with GoodThree Design. I heartily recommend working with them on your next report.
Better Eats for All | Belt Magazine | Dispatches From The Rust Belt
A commentary from yours truly on the food system found in my first hometown of Cleveland Ohio. Whenever I return to it, I am struck by the unusual underpinnings of their food work, being as it is deeply embedded within the community organizing/social justice strategy that is alive and well in many of their neighborhoods, as well as in the larger reality of figuring out what to do with their post-industrial inner core. Combine that with enthusiastic corporate greening, municipal support and the awareness of the need to combat the foreclosure crisis with innovative small business and residential reclamations and you get a dynamic little system coming to maturation there.
Better Eats for All | Belt Magazine | Dispatches From The Rust Belt.
Why Some Communities Police Themselves, While Others Don’t – Mike Riggs – The Atlantic Cities
Certainly, this article is talking more about how third parties help with prevention of crime but the very concept is highly adaptable to our work.The subject of rules and how they are established and maintained is an important topic in community food systems where so much is self-regulated. If we continue to advocate for “home rule” as it were, how do we embed the appropriate levels of control into these tiny volunteer-led markets and entrepreneurial food system projects? And beyond that, what levels of certification are truly necessary without killing innovation or democracy?
I think a big part of the answer is how well we understand the social ties that we have within each project and how they can be best utilized to maintain quality and openness.
Gelfand et al’s model says that having third party punishers in your neighborhood or workplace is dependent largely on “high average strength-of-ties and low mobility.” Or put more simply, knowing the people around you and not being likely to leave. The higher the strength of ties and the lower the mobility, the more third party punishment you’re likely to see. In these situations, Gelfand’s question (why are these people intervening?) has a logical answer: “Punishing responsibly fosters a culture of cooperation in the neighborhood, by signaling that defection is not tolerated.”
So what happens if we have low strength of ties and high mobility, which is sometimes the case in melting-pot cities such as D.C.? In highly transient communities where few people know their neighbors, third party punishers are far and few between. “It’s really difficult for responsible third party punishers unless there’s a few of them around a neighborhood,” Patrick Roos says. For those of you who consider yourselves white knights, this also means that “a single third party punisher is unlikely to remain one for a very long time.” (Unless that third party is, say, Jackie Chan’s character from Rumble in the Bronx.)
Why Some Communities Police Themselves, While Others Don't – Mike Riggs – The Atlantic Cities.
Article 89 outlines Boston’s zoning changes for food
Article 89 of the zoning code will create clarity and predictability for anyone interested in growing commercial food and creating farms in Boston. The development of Article 89 was made possible through the exploration of six research modules which were studied and discussed in depth throughout 2012 during monthly public Working Group meetings:
Soil safety, pesticides and fertilizers, and composting
Growing of produce and accessory structures
Rooftop and vertical agriculture
Hydroponics and aquaculture
Keeping of animals and bees
Farmers markets, winter markets, farm stands, and sales
The existing Boston zoning code does not address many types of agricultural activities. If an activity is not identified, it is considered a forbidden use and requires an appeal process through the City’s Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA). Article 89 will identify urban agricultural activities to improve Boston’s direct access to locally produced fresh food.
Why Urban Agriculture is Good for Boston:
Community based farms can bring people together, increasing cooperation, collaboration, and neighborhood building.
Urban agriculture improves access to affordable, fresh, and healthy food.
Urban farming provides an opportunity for Bostonians to learn how to grow food and empowers entrepreneurs to operate a farm right in the City.
Local farming can be an effective tool for empowering youth by teaching young people how to grow food and run a business.
Urban farming teaches us about using land wisely, which helps us grow our neighborhoods and communities in a positive and healthy way.
Farming in the city is good for the environment because it can reduce transportation costs and carbon emissions on the buyer and grower’s end.
Urban farming is a great way to get Bostonians excited about sustainability and “greenovation,” so that we can make this a cleaner, healthier city.
Urban Agriculture – Article 89 Quick Facts_tcm3-38477
Using food stamps at farmers’ market in limbo
Although this story from Madison is a bit sobering (and was probably meant to be an alarming title by the writer, good work there Lindsay), it is also a well-reported one about the issues that we currently face in the hard work of encouraging benefit dollars to be spent on healthy food with farmers at markets. Clearly, by working closely with municipal partners these excellent markets have already begun to build deep understanding and support among those officials. We are still searching for an answer (or answers) to the costs and time needed to administer these programs, but there is no doubt that the success in attracting low-income shoppers has impressed our potential partners. I believe these programs will be rewarded in the long run with sustainable funding or with cooperative administration for managing the financials and outreach pieces if we keep telling our story in as many ways as we can.
What seems clear to me is that markets cannot continue to knock on doors for small amounts every season to fund these programs, but must instead find income streams that will maintain these programs over years. That work must happen even as we band together to fight for better technology and back office systems on a regional and national level. We can do both of those things if we collect and share data (good and bad) and talk often to each other about these issues.
The city has expressed significant support for EBT at farmers’ markets as well. In August through October of this year, grants from several local hospitals made $8,000 available in “MadMarket Double Dollars” at four smaller markets on the north side, the Eastside market at the Wil-Mar Neighborhood Center and two on the south side. For every $1 in Quest benefits, the user got another $1 from the grant.
City officials want to expand that program.
“We saw incredible growth of SNAP use at those (smaller) markets,” said Mark Woulf, the city’s alcohol and food policy coordinator. “That’s something we don’t want to lose. … Hopefully we can work through a solution.”
Woulf said financial support of the DCFM’s FoodShare program would require City Council approval, but it “would be on the table.” He conducted some of the follow-up surveys after the Double Dollars pilot program and was encouraged by what he heard.
“The Eastside market did something unprompted, which was give us a break down of (SNAP use at) individual vendors,” Woulf said. “I was impressed by how well spread out it was.”
Helping Farmers Markets Grow 