Local Food Hubs Provide Opportunity to Local Producers and Consumers

WesMonTy RC&D is working to ensure equitable access of locally grown foods to all residents in WV, and through this work, WesMonTy RC&D has helped sow the seeds for local food hubs in WV. Two farmers markets in North Central West Virginia have taken on the responsibility of being local food hubs by addressing three major issues in the local food system: distribution, supply and access.

These two food hubs are showing the potential for accepting SNAP benefits at their markets, thus reaching the issue of food access. The Community Garden Market in Philippi accepts SNAP benefits through a single-point-of-sale system, and the South Morgantown Farmers Market offers a token system. Both of these markets are leading the way in North Central West Virginia by demonstrating the potential for SNAP access, thereby increasing equitable access for all consumers.

The Community Garden Market in Philippi offers a unique single-point-of-sale system that easily allows all vendors to accept EBT with no training on their part. This was the first farmers market in the state to offer EBT. This market has a single cash register, and all produce is identified by a number that corresponds with the producer so the producer does not need to be present. Upon checkout, the cashier rings up the items with their respective numbers to ensure that each vendor is credited for the purchase of their produce. The customer then has the option of paying with cash, SNAP, Farmers Market Nutrition Program (FMNP) vouchers or WIC FMNP coupons. The producer does not need to be in attendance at the market because the market is operated similar to a consignment shop. The market manager staffs the cash register and producers pay a 20% fee to help cover the operations of the market and the market takes care of the rest with most producers receiving semi-monthly checks from the market.

With the added benefit of produce aggregation and the potential to generate a single purchase order, growers for the community garden market have distributed produce to the Healthy Families Cooking Demonstration (http://wesmontyrcd.blogspot.com/2010/11/healthy-families-cooking-demonstration.html canning demonstrations), canning demonstrations (http://wesmontyrcd.blogspot.com/2010/10/canning-workshop.html) as well as supplying produce for a fresh fruit and vegetable snack program in local schools (http://wesmontyrcd.blogspot.com/2010/12/farm-to-school-delivery.html). This is a simple, locally driven solution to the distribution issue.

The South Morgantown Farmers Market is a traditional farmers market by which the producers direct market their goods. At this market a token system is utilized for SNAP purchases. This is a very easy process where the customer simply swipes their card at the EBT/Credit Card table and tells the cashier how much they would like. The cashier then gives the redeemed amount in wooden tokens. Each token is worth $1. To make the distinction between EBT and Credit Card transactions they use two different color tokens. The customer can then take these tokens to any vendor they choose to redeem for food products. The vendor accepts the tokens and redeems them at the end of the day with the market manager. This system works incredibly well at this market and opens the wide variety of available produce to the SNAP participant. It is important to mention that this system works great at markets in which vendors direct market their products. At these markets, single-points-of-sale are not necessarily an option so tokens in lieu of several EBT machines is effective.

The South Morgantown Market distributes produce to a local chef for his cooking schools. Chris Hall runs My Kitchen (www.facebook.com/mykitchenwv ) a small cooking school in Morgantown WV and appreciates the availability of locally grown produce he can integrate into his cooking classes.

Offering SNAP has several important benefits. Firstly, it encourages low-income residents to shop at the farmers market. When people go to a farmers market for the first time, they are generally surprised by the affordability, and it encourages them to return, thereby creating long-term customers. By exposing SNAP participants to farmers markets it also helps to break down the idea that local produce is expensive. Secondly SNAP benefits increase the earning potential for the producer at the market. Many SNAP benefits are spent on non-local convenience food, and that money is the lost to the local economy. By spending SNAP benefits locally, at the market, it is actually a boost to the local economy through the injection of outside money. Furthermore, that money will continue to circulate within the local economy several times generating even more benefit. Simply by offering this free service to customers and vendors, these two markets have both increased the income-earning potential of their producers and laid the foundation for healthier, local food to be on local tables, no matter a family’s socio-economic status.

WesMonTy RC&D has assisted the food hubs with the supply issue by offering assistance on affordable season extension techniques; specifically low tunnels to the historically underserved community of farmers of North Central West Virginia. The purpose of supplying season extension materials to local producers is to lower their entry risk into enhanced farming techniques, and also to supply the local food hubs with produce earlier in the season as well as later. WesMonTy RC&D has distributed low tunnel materials to several local producers, and both earlier and later season produce holds the potential for greater income.

The season extension materials have already seen many added benefits, as more produce was available at the markets this past season. Furthermore, a local producer who lives in a frost pocket has seen incredible results in protecting his plants from early frost. Lewis Jett, a horticulturalist at West Virginia University has continually provided our producers with an extraordinary amount of technical assistance.

WesMonTy has also organized growers meetings with the formation of the Tygart Valley Growers Association. This independent organization is a venue for growers to discuss production, marketing ideas, socialize and learn about farm bill conservation programs (http://wesmontyrcd.blogspot.com/2010/11/growers-meeting.html). The association frequently features guest speakers including representatives from the USDA Rural Development, and the Farm Service Agency. This has considerable benefits for the group through the exploration of loan and grant programs. It has also benefitted the agencies by giving them easy contact with a large number of producers that they can service.

Recently the group organized a seed order through a popular catalog. This has the benefit of being able to receive generous discounts through bulk orders. The group as a whole ordered several hundred dollars worth of seeds.