foodperson.com

One of the old-time charms of farmers markets is the one-on-one interaction food buyers have with the vendors/growers; it’s nice to know and like the people who grow your food and who can keep you abreast of what’s tasting great and what is coming in the next days or weeks.

The flip side, though, is that you generally have to carry a pocketful of cash as you shop and pay each individual vendor. That’s part of the charm for some people. For other shoppers, it’s part of the inconvenience. Nevertheless, it’s a method that works and even allows farmers to sell their fresh produce to participants in the federal government farmers market programs for elderly people and some WIC (women, infants and children) recipients. That’s all to the good, when Americans, especially poor Americans are seriously deficient in their fruit and vegetable intake.

As Corby Kummer observed recently, however, the Agriculture Department is proposing to increase money for people to buy fruits and vegetables, but they’re going to require that program participants pay with plastic. (It’s in the NY Times; registration may be required.) He’s distraught that this will hurt small farmers who sell in farmers markets because they either don’t have access to card readers or the card readers are too expensive.

But there is a middle ground. The Downtown Lawrence Farmers Market here has a card reader on the premises, and people can use bank debit cards-or their food program debit cards-to buy tokens for use at the market. Individual vendors, then, accept the tokens, and there’s no need for each farmer to be plugged in. The Lawrence market is one of many nationwide that is operating similar programs.

I have reasonably high confidence that those programs have spread and will continue to do so. Kummer is certainly right, though, that we who care about our food need to speak up. I’m getting at least modestly hopeful that lawmakers might pay a little attention to us, the end users of farm products, since the New York Times’ recent pieces on the subjects (Kummer’s and one by Michael Pollan) will be read by millions, and at least some of them will contact their lawmakers.