Farmers Market Nutrition Program Improvements Advance Access to Connecticut-Grown Produce
In partnership with: Connecticut Department of Agriculture
Each year, thousands of eligible parents, children and seniors receive benefits that they can redeem for fresh fruits, vegetables, herbs and eggs, and for senior participants, honey, at farmers markets throughout Connecticut.
In 1992, Congress launched the Farmers Market Nutrition Program (FMNP) as a component of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC). The initiative promotes healthy eating while also supporting local farms and farmers markets. A similar program for low-income seniors followed in 2001.
Recently, the Connecticut Department of Agriculture (CT DoAg) upgraded the way FMNP benefits are transferred. The change aims to make distributing and accessing those funds, and therefore getting farm-fresh goods, much easier.
Paper Trials
Vouchers were previously issued as paper checks, which required many administrative hours to distribute.
“We would get boxes and boxes of these farmers market checks and have to give them to the appropriate people, while also educating them about the benefits,” says Patty Mascoli, the East Hartford Regional WIC program coordinator.
Recipients had to keep from losing the checks, and farmers market vendors had to inspect the checks to verify they hadn’t expired. And farmers couldn’t give back change, meaning that if a person paid $10 in checks for $9 worth of produce, the remaining dollar had to be made up with additional product.
Paper checks also required effort at the end of the market season for farmers like Chris and Kevin Bassette, owners of Killam & Bassette Farmstead, a 130-year-old farm along the Connecticut River.
“It was very time-consuming to stamp, count and prepare the deposits, and a big challenge getting them all deposited before the end of November,” Chris says.
The program worked this way for 30 years.
Electronic Advancements
Then in 2022, a grant from the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, which funds the FMNP, enabled CT DoAg to make FMNP benefits payable electronically through the SoliSystems platform. For the first time in 2023, Connecticut beneficiaries were able to purchase goods at farmers markets using either a smartphone app or a SoliMarket Shopper card, which is similar to an EBT card.
While the card has the advantage of not needing a smartphone or Wi-Fi access (though the program supplies affiliated farmers markets with hot spots), the app gives users the ability to check exactly how much produce they have purchased and how much remains of their allotted funds.
Overall, Mascoli is pleased with the switch from paper to e-vouchers, as it means less time handling paper in her office – one of 23 local WIC agencies in Connecticut – and more time promoting the program.
“It’s really nice that we could step back from distribution and devote more time to education,” she says.
Change was perhaps hardest at the state’s 177 senior sites.
“The challenge with the seniors and most age/income eligible residents was having to accept the transition, but they participated with great optimism,” says James Johnson Jr., director of operations at the Northend Senior Center.
Directly in front of the senior center is the North End Farmers Market, managed by Hartford Food Systems. It opened in 2008 and further increases residents’ access to locally sourced food by operating every Wednesday, 9 a.m. to noon, between late June and late October.
As of 2023, 103 farmers markets, 230 certified farms and 15 certified farm stands accept FMNP benefits in Connecticut.
The program helps more than 44,100 WIC participants and more than 31,000 senior or disabled participants. There are more than 170 distribution sites in 103 municipalities, which have distributed more than $11,000 in benefits, and the top five certified farms redeemed more than $241,900 in benefits collectively in 2023.
Most Bang for Our Benefits
Through regular monitoring of transactions occurring at farmers markets, CT DoAg was able to work with partners to issue targeted messaging to participants encouraging them to redeem their funds. By identifying areas of great need, CT DoAg worked with certified farmers with late season crops to host pop-up markets in underserved communities to increase access and redemption numbers while also moving fresh farm products to those in need.
“Market season is a great time to be in the program, because they’ll get some extra fruit and vegetable benefits,” Mascoli says. “It’s also a teaching tool when families bring their children to the market and learn about Connecticut Grown foods. It’s a fantastic program.”