food stamps (SNAP)

Credit Card Payments Market Competition

Here is a link to an excerpt on the politics of credit card systems. It illuminates how startups companies wanting to provide services face difficulties, including this:

Two pieces in the chain are particularly vulnerable to disruption: the makers of the actual hardware — basically card readers and registers — that are used to physically accept card payments at stores, and the hundreds of vendors known as merchant service providers, or MSPs, which set businesses up to accept credit cards.

The entire article (unfortunately you must pay to get it) speaks to some of the issues we are facing with MobileMarket et al in expanding technology to lower capacity markets and farmers. It also shows the need for the food movement to embed knowledge on card and currency issues so that we stay ahead or at least on the curve of changes, rather than being pawns of the very small set of multi-national players in technology and card processing. If, like me, you accessed the entire article (or others like it) and want to have a conversation, I’m interested in talking about these issues in more depth. Feel free to contact me…

Credit Card Payments Market Competition 2 – Business Insider.

an excerpt from another article on the subject raises many of the same questions:

“…with the global roll-out of mobile payment services comes uncertainty for both banks and consumers, and this is evident in the lack of standardization in mobile payments technology. Financial institutions are facing a major dilemma. When planning mobile payment services, they need to select one of the available technologies in the hope that it will become the dominant standard, or they risk being left behind.”

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What I Learned from a Week on Food Stamps: Paul Ryan Couldn’t Be Any More Wrong

A surprisingly well done article, even though it springs from what I consider an overdone and less than useful premise that I’ve seen before: a reporter using SNAP for a week. However, this one is has decent information and connects this issue to some larger issues, partially thanks to Daniel Bowman Simon.

The average amount that a family on food stamps gets per month is $133. That is $133 for 93 meals. For three meals a day, $133 breaks down to less than $1.50 per meal.

Luckily, the New York City Department of Human Resources’ website has guides available for SNAP participants, including a one that explains how to “Cut the Junk” and another with recipes for healthy and cheap meals on it. (Most of these are bean/chili based….)

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Daniel Bowman Simon is deep into SNAP, which is the focal point of his research at New York University’s Food Studies program. And he is frustrated. Seated in the Food Studies program’s fifth-floor conference room, he ticks off a list of grievances relating to the SNAP program and the Farm Bill, as well as the media’s coverage of the issue — framed as a contest between farm subsidies and SNAP benefits….

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My mom posed a simple question: “Sarah, does SNAP feed people?”

“Yes,” I responded, “and it’s actually really efficient.” It’s true: SNAP has less than a 4 percent error rate, according to Riley — and sometimes that error is because of people who received less money than they should have. The program also has very low rates of fraud. The USDA just released a report saying that only 2.77 percent of errors in the programwere in the form of overpayment, which includes fraudulent applications.

“Food is one of the most cost effective forms of prevention,” Sarah Franklin explains. Obesity, cognitive abilities, and heart disease are all linked to eating habits. “Making sure that people have access to food is, in my mind, one of the most important and no-brainer policies,” she says. “The food stamp program, even though it’s not the perfect program — to make cuts to that program is idiotic.”

What I Learned from a Week on Food Stamps: Paul Ryan Couldn’t Be Any More Wrong | Alternet.

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Market Benefit and Incentives PPT-Vermont 2013 – Helping Public Markets Grow

Since I’m back in Vermont for the 2014 Direct Marketing Conference, I decided to upload the Power Point from the 2013 Wholesome Wave convening that Erin Buckwalter of NOFA-VT and I gave about the 2013 Vermont Market Currency Report. I’ll add notes for each slide sometime in the next month or two but the data will still be helpful to many.

Market Benefit and Incentives PPT-Vermont 2013 – Helping Public Markets Grow.

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Growing for Market

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.

Growing For Market

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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.

New Nationwide Study Shows SNAP Incentives at Farmers’ Markets Boost Healthy Eating, Support Farmers, and Grow Local Economies | Fair Food Network.

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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.

How the Bitcoin protocol actually works | DDI.

Overstock says they’ll take Bitcoin

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World’s first Bitcoin ATM goes live in Vancouver next week – Business – CBC News

The food system world needs to pay more attention to these digital currencies, like bitcoin. The time and effort it is taking to figure out which emerging technologies and systems of reimbursement and the corresponding risk levels will work for a market may very well be straining the small businesses of our movement. People like Jeff Cole in Massachusetts are piloting ideas such as “electronic token systems” and lucky for all of you, I wrote about this in my Vermont Market Currency Report found on page 28 in the conclusion of the report.

World's first Bitcoin ATM goes live in Vancouver next week – Business – CBC News.

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Infographic: Food Stamps, Follow the Money | Eat Drink Politics

From Michelle Simon's excellent report "Follow The Money"

From Michele Simon’s excellent report “Follow The Money”

PDF of report

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Nearly 1 in 6 Americans Receives Food Stamps

This link sent to me by my Canadian colleague who said:
“It’s an astonishing figure…”

It certainly is, Helené.

And the graphic should be very useful to many markets and community organizers.

Nearly 1 in 6 Americans Receives Food Stamps – Real Time Economics – WSJ.

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The Farm Bill Deserved to Fail

“By rejecting reforms and doubling down on mean-spirited cuts in nutrition and the SNAP program, a critical mass of people across the political spectrum couldn’t stomach this bill. The result was a strong ‘no’ vote, leadership looking embarrassed, and the House in disarray.”

Rep. Earl Blumenauer, U.S. Representative from Oregon

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Nutrition Assistance Report Part II

More quotes and odds and ends from the Nutrition Assistance Project Report. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service, Office of Research and Analysis, Nutrition Assistance in Farmers Markets: Understanding Current Operations by Sujata Dixit-Joshi et al. April 2013.

I hope this is helpful to those readers that don’t have the time to read 799 pages!
Here is a link to my original post about this report

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Stated purpose of project:
“To seek innovative ways to increase SNAP participants access to farmers markets (fms) and direct marketing farmers (dmf)”

Questions being asked in this project:
1. What are the characteristics of fms and dmfs and do they vary by SNAP authorization status?
2. What procedures are being used to add SNAP programs at fms and dmfs?
3. What is the nature of incentive programs?
4. What organizations serve fms and dmfs?

Three studies to be done in next few years:
FM Operations (was completed 2013)
FM Client Survey
Orgs administering SNAP at FMs Survey
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Details from FM Ops study:

2 phases of Operations study:
1. Nine markets were interviewed in depth, selected by FNS based on regions and demographic of poverty level in area.

2. 1682 farmers markets and 570 direct marketing farmers were surveyed between January and May 2012, Organized in 4 study strata:
Stratum 1: Snap authorized FMs and DMFs with redemptions from July 1, 2010- August 31, 2011
Stratum 2: SNAP authorized FMs and DMFs with no redemptions from July 1, 2010-August 31, 2011
Stratum 3: SNAP authorized FMs with redemptions from July 1, 2007- August 31, 2010 but none since in 2011. (FNS did not track DMFs separately before 2010.)
Stratum 4: Never SNAP authorized
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3.9 Farmers Markets Operating Budget

“In CY 2011, farmers markets relied on multiple funding sources for their operating budget. A vast majority of the markets depended on vendor fees: only 10 percent of the markets did not collect any vendor fees. Sponsorship from business organizations (28.7%), fundraising events (24.7%), and government organizations were also important sources of funding for the markets’ operating budgets. About 10 percent of the markets received funding from State government.

About 76 percent of the farmers markets charged the vendors a flat fee. Among the farmers markets that charged vendors a flat fee, almost one-half implemented a flat fee per season while about
 40 percent implemented a flat fee per market day. Fewer than 10 percent of the markets assessed vendor fees as a percentage of sales, and less than 2 percent charged vendors based on the size of their rental space.”

5.3.1 Type and Characteristics of Outlet Where Direct Marketing Farmers Reported the Most SNAP Sales
“In CY 2011, a majority of the direct marketing farmers selected farmers markets as the outlet where they had the most SNAP sales.
… data suggest that direct marketing farmers who had prior certification may discontinue SNAP participation because they sell at outlets where they can use the market’s authorization to redeem SNAP. A sizeable majority of the direct marketing farmers in all three strata used their own authorization to redeem SNAP benefits at the outlet (Table 5-12).
In all three strata, receiving retail value of products was cited by 54 percent of the respondents in strata 2 and 44 percent of respondents in Stratum 1 (as reason for using the direct marketing outlets). About one-third of the direct marketing farmers in Strata 1 and 2 indicated that convenience was the most important driver for selling products at the outlet. A few reasons included location of the market (proximity to the farm, busy area, etc.); high volume of customers, particularly SNAP, WICFMNP and SFMNP customers; role in starting or operating the market, and to serve the local community.”

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Details of benefit programs at market (fms) and with direct marketing farmers (dmfs):

In 2009, 18% of the markets had access to card processing; by 2011, it was 35% (Briggs et al)
In 2011, 71.8 billion was redeemed in SNAP benefits and 11.7 million at farmers markets which is .016%

Markets with no incentive program had an average of $867 per season in SNAP sales and those with incentives averaged $2587 per season (p38)

(Expect more to come on this blog from this report….)

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USDA report: Nutrition Assistance in Farmers Markets: Understanding Current Operations

I have begun to take notes on the 799 page report released by the USDA last week (authored by Westat) on nutrition assistance programs managed at markets/with direct marketing farmers.
This (FM Ops) is the first completed phase of the 3 phases of research. Next will be a FM Client Survey, followed by a survey of organizations administering SNAP at farmers markets.

First, the data collection info:

2 parts to this research of FM Ops

First, 9 markets were interviewed in depth, picked by FNs based on their FNS regions and level of population below poverty level:
Eastern Market, Detroit MI
Peachtree Road, Atlanta GA
South Boston, Boston MA
Clark Park, Philadelphia PA
Market On The Square, Mobile AL
Fort Pierce, Ft. Pierce FL
Wytheville, Wytheville VA
Sitka, Sitka AK
Overland Park, Overland Park KS

Second, 1682 farmers markets and 570 direct marketing farmers were surveyed organized in 4 groups:
1. Those that were SNAP authorized and had redemptions between July 1, 2010 and August 31, 2011-77.4% (FMS) and 68.2% (DMFs) response among this group

2. Those that were SNAP authorized but had no redemptions between July 1,2010 and August 31, 2011- 69% (FMs) and 65% (DMFs) response among this group.

3. Those that were SNAP authorized and had redemptions between July 1, 2007 and August 31, 2010, but had no redemptions after August 31, 2010 – 56.8 % (FMs) response among this group -FNS did not differentiate FMs from DMFs until 2010 so there is no individual data on DMFs.

4. Never SNAP authorized- 51.8% (FMs) response among this group. Same issue as above in tracking DMFs so no numbers for that group in this stratum.

Westat also conducted focus groups with 2 markets in DC and Maryland, with some fascinating input from the participants:
“They don’t all make you feel that way, but sometimes you come across one that makes you feel a little bit like, ‘Oh, another EBT card.’ I don’t think they all do it and it’s not every time, but few and far between. They make you feel a little embarrassed, like a second class citizen.”

Much more to come…..

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Vermont Feasibility Report

Very proud to release the Vermont Feasibility Market Currency Report this week. I was contracted last fall to do this work by Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Marketing (VAAFM) in partnership with Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont (NOFA-VT).

The focus was whether there were opportunities to merge the coupon (FMNP and incentives) and SNAP programs into a universal currency for all of Vermont’s farmers markets (and also ultimately assist CSAs and other direct marketing outlets) in order to streamline the systems now being used.
The final report covers technology issues, market capacity, costs and outreach for the Vermont farmers markets and offers recommendations for streamlining through pilots and policy and further analysis.

This link takes you to my website where the report is listed.

I am happy to talk about the report or to answer any questions.
Dar

Report

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