A Farm Bill to Grow Healthy People and a Healthy Economy

Originally posted on Friday, February 22 on Room for Debate as a response to "A New Commitment to Food Stamps".

In this Farm Bill and beyond, policymakers should seek out and embrace innovative approaches that meet the twin challenges of providing healthy food access for millions of Americans and strengthening farm economies. In light of current budget realities, innovative, scalable approaches are the best chance we have for meeting these challenges.
 
SNAP incentive programs are one such approach. These programs leverage Federal resources to dramatically improve access to and affordability of fresh fruits and vegetables, and strengthen and diversify farm economies.
 
In Michigan, one such incentive program  - the Double Up Food Bucks (DUFB) project - provides families who receive (SNAP) benefits with bonus tokens, allowing them to purchase more Michigan-grown fruits and vegetables at farmers’ markets, increasing their purchasing power for healthful produce and increasing sales opportunities for fruit and vegetable farmers.
 
This innovative incentive program is working in Michigan: during the 2011 program season, SNAP recipients made 40,147 visits to 54 participating markets (up from 15 in 2010) to take advantage of DUFB. Shoppers used $687,843 of SNAP benefits and received $620,115 in DUFB matching tokens. Almost a third of these customers were using their benefits at a farmers’ market for the first time ever, creating an entirely new cadre of shoppers at the markets and supporters of the local food economy. DUFB is undoubtedly one reason why in 2011, SNAP redemptions at farmers’ markets in Michigan ($1,076,611, according to USDA) were greater than in any other Midwestern state by a significant factor.
 
DUFB has demonstrated the feasibility and effectiveness of using incentives to encourage lower income families to purchase healthier food and support the local food economy and farmers, but until now, DUFB has drawn on a pool of funds raised from foundations to “match” purchases at participating farmers’ markets. As our food and farm policy is created for the future with the reauthorization of the Farm Bill in 2012, we have an opportunity to provide public funding for this practical, scalable, incentive-based approach to improving healthy food access and rural economic development.