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SALT LAKE CITY — Food stamp users in Utah will be able to double their benefits up to $10 for produce purchases at 21 farmers markets in Utah thanks to a new multi-year grant awarded to Utahns Against Hunger.
Utahns Against Hunger has been awarded a $247,038 multi-year community-based Food Insecurity and Nutrition Incentive Grant by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Utah was one of 26 states awarded such a grant, and one of seven in the category for multi-year community-based projects.
The Food Insecurity and Nutrition Incentive Grant will assist people who participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, to extend their benefits when purchasing fresh fruit and vegetables at farmers markets in Utah. The grant was authorized under the 2014 Farm Bill.
Kevin Concannon, the USDA's undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services, said the grant application from Utahns Against Hunger and its community partners emerged from a field of competitive applicants.
The Utah charity, which was founded in 1981, "had credibility on the ground," Concannon said Tuesday.
The grant was awarded due to "the track record of the organization, locally, the fact that the state agency was supportive of it, the willingness of the organization to try to connect this project with the 20 some odd farmers markets that are available currently in the state."
Utahns Against Hunger's partners in the initiative include the Utah Department of Workforce Service, the Utah Department of Health, Utah State University Extension and Salt Lake City Corp.
Food stamp users have been able to use their electronic benefit cards to buy eligible food items at farmers markets under a separate Utahns Against Hunger initiative that started in 2005 and has expanded in subsequent years.
Almost everyone they talked to talked about how grateful they were that they have additional money to feed their families and they were able to buy fresh fruit and vegetables. They're doing something they wanted to do and couldn't afford to do it.
–Gina Cornia, Utahns Against Hunger
Horizon cards, which are loaded with food stamp benefits, are swiped at wireless, point-of-sale credit card machines for specific dollar amounts. Users are given wooden tokens they spend for eligible food items from vendors.
Under the Double Up Food Bucks initiative, users receive regular tokens, as well as specially marked tokens that will double their purchasing power up to an additional 10 tokens.
Food Insecurity and Nutrition Incentive Grant recipients are working toward the USDA's goal of improving all Americans diets, in particular increasing the consumption of fresh produce, Concannon said.
There is mounting evidence that increasing the purchasing power of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for fruits and vegetables helps increase healthy food consumption, he said.
"We have a recent study that was done up in Massachusetts that found that households that received the incentive bought more fruits and vegetables and consumed more targeted fruits and vegetables by some 26 percent," Concannon said.
Gina Cornia, executive director of Utahns Against Hunger, said based on employees' conversations with families that use the incentives, they are overwhelmingly grateful for additional resources.
"Almost everyone they talked to talked about how grateful they were that they have additional money to feed their families and they were able to buy fresh fruit and vegetables. They're doing something they wanted to do and couldn’t afford to do it," she said.
Marti Woolford, nutrition incentives director at Utahns Against Hunger, said shopping at farmers markets has an educational benefits for children who visit markets with their families.
"When families come and they have their smaller children with them, we’d kind of engage the kids. ‘What are you excited to buy?’ They would list peaches or apples. It was kind of like this family shopping experience that was happening at the market. Of course we love that, because at the grocery store you don’t get to really engage with the person who's grown your food. At the farmers market, you do so there’s a lot of education for kids with that."
