(Almost) Everything You Ever Needed to Know About Bringing Food Stamps to Your Farmers’ Market

by Sarita Daftary

Almost all states now issue Food Stamps through an electronic system called Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT). This replaces the paper food stamps used in the past with an EBT card that works like a debit card to withdraw money from a customer’s Food Stamp account. A good thing in many ways, but a huge blow to farmers’ markets since accepting EBT cards means you need a working EBT machine – not an easy feat for most markets, which operate in outdoor areas without access to electricity, and include multiple vendors. But many farmers’ markets across the country, including our East New York Farmers’ Market in Brooklyn, NY, have been using wireless EBT machines to bring Food Stamps back to farmers’ markets.

You can too.

1. First, check with the Feds. USDA’s Food and Nutrition Services exists to “provide children and low-income people access to food, a healthful diet, and nutrition education.” Help them do their job. Contact your states’ Food and Nutrition Services (FNS) office http://www.fns.usda.gov/cga/Contacts/FieldOffices/default.htm, and ask if there’s anything going on in your state with wireless EBT and markets, and what you need to do to become an authorized retailer. Make sure you get a contact number to call back, not if but WHEN you have any questions filling out the application.
2. To buy a machine individually, get yourselves $1500. Keep reading. Alternatively, find out (probably through your FNS office) about a way to get linked up with a group order – the cost of the machines might go down to about $1000. Or better yet, get one for free by getting linked up with many of the state-funded initiatives to provide wireless EBT machines to markets. The New York State Department of Agriculture & Markets and the Farmers Market Federation started with providing wireless EBT machines to individual farmers, and then expanded to giving free machines to 40 markets throughout New York State in 2005. Because ours was provided through the state, like many others, our machine is only programmed to accept Food Stamps, although, if correctly programmed, the machine is capable of also accepting debit cards, credit cards, and EBT cash payments.
3. Check out your options. Prices don’t vary hugely between machines, but the size of the order makes a big difference. Ours is a LinkPoint9100, through CardService International. Other options are:VeriFone Omni 3600, through eFunds, or Nurit 8000 S, through Paymentech.s

4. Now you’ve got your machine. Better decide how you’re going to operate it. You’ve got basically two options.
1. Tokens. This is the system we use. Customers decide how much money they want to spend, and swipe their card. They receive $1 tokens in return (printed with our market name), which they give to any vendor for ‘food stamp eligible items’…meaning pretty much any food that is not undebatably meant to be eaten immediately. A bottle of juice is ok, hot coffee isn’t. The tokens are good until the end of the season. Vendors then turn in their tokens at the end of the day. For large amounts, vendors agree to be reimbursed by check on the next market day. For smaller amounts, we reimburse right away. We keep $100 in singles on hand.

The pros: Easy, fast, minimizes need to go back and forth.

The cons: Using tokens could be stigmatizing; some additional cost about $120 for printing 1,000 tokens; possible risk of counterfeiting, though that seems unlikely…

2. Paper scrip. This means customers shop at the market, and get a receipt from each vendor for the cost of their items. Customers then leave the items at the vendors’ tables, and bring their receipts to a stand where the EBT machine is operated, pay for their items, get a receipt showing that they’ve paid, and return to the vendors with this paid receipt to pick up their bags. Same rules as above for eligible and non-eligible food, and you can use the same reimbursement system.

The pros: No possibility for counterfeiting; customers do not need to decide ahead of time how much money to spend

The cons: Extra work and possibilities for confusion when customers must leave their bags and vendors must store them; having
to leave bags and return for them could create stigma

5. Be patient but call often. We waited, from the date of our application to actually having our machine and tokens in our hands and ready to go, 1 year and 6 months. Be conscious of this when creating and timing outreach for your markets…don’t count on having the machine, no matter what you’re told, until it is in your hands.
6. Outreach outreach outreach. Try taking advantage of the Food Stamp Nutrition Education Program in your state (google “Food Stamp Nutrition Education Program” and your state’s name)
7. Prep your vendors. Every vendor needs to know exactly how your food stamp system work so that they can be knowledgeable, helpful, and friendly when selling to customers using Food Stamps.
8. Now you’ve got a customer, but your machine has no signal. This will happen sometimes. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. Try to sit it upright in an open space (even putting it underneath a tent can interrupt the signal) and don’t move it around too much. Even if you do everything right, you might still not get a signal. In the very possible event that it does not work, make sure you have offline food stamp vouchers on hand (where you take down the customers’ card number, get their signature, and enter the sale into the machine later when you can get a signal). The offline vouchers work just fine, and are much better than making the customer wait for 10 minutes, or even 5 minutes while you try to get a signal. This leads to the final point, which is…
9. People will only want to use EBT at your market if it’s convenient – for customers and vendors. This means that it has to function just as easily as cash. Well, as much as that’s possible. It means your machine has to always be on and charged; your machine has to always be in the same, well-marked place with someone ready to operate it; the person operating it needs to know what they’re doing - if you know someone with an EBT card, do a test run for a 0.01 transaction before you use the machine at the market. Cash customers do not have to wait while someone locates the market manager to come operate the EBT machine, so customers using food stamps shouldn’t either.

Sarita has been working at East New York farms for two years. In her “spare time” she’s a member of the BLAST Cadre.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 13th, 2006 at 11:23 am and is filed under Change. Both comments and pings are currently closed.