Farmers’ market musings

We liked to rib Grandpa Kelley about the fact that the park
named for him was the smallest one in town, and that Howard Kelley,
Sr. Park was also called “Hobo Park.” I remember him leaning
slightly on his shillelagh, with a smile holding on to his cigar,
and a look in his eyes saying, “Someday you kids will
understand.”
He told us about the Hoe Boys, or Hobos as they came to be
called, who hitched rides on trains and jumped off in towns like
Brawley looking for seasonal work. There is always hoeing work to
be done on a farm, if the farmer can afford to hire the extra hand.
The men waited in the park near the train depot, hoping to be
hired. Nearby was the packing shed of Gerard Company, where Grandpa
was the manager from 1923 to 1957. He carried a gun during the
Depression; people were hungry and desperate for food, and the
packing shed had to be protected. Later when he was Mayor and had
his own farm, and the former Gerard Company Office became the
office for HE Kelley and Sons, he planted trees in Hobo Park so the
men waiting for work would have shade.
For all the fun and revelry enjoyed on St. Patrick’s Day, there
is also a tinge of loss and remembering the land that was loved and
left behind during the famine and the emigration. Grandpa never
spoke of that distant loss, but somehow it’s in our Irish blood. I
often look at the men on the Plaza waiting for work and wonder if
my immigrant ancestors once stood in their shoes.
In a perfect world, the poor among us would have the dignity of
working while earning a fair wage. They would purchase their own
healthy food for themselves and their families. In a perfect world,
the owners of small family farms would hire help when it was
needed. Consumers would pay for the real cost of growing the food,
and the farming families could afford to hire help.
We don’t live in a perfect world. Many of the poor are not able
to work. There are the complications of health issues,
homelessness, mental illness, drug and alcohol addictions, but
mostly, in this economy, many people simply do not have work or
their wages do not cover all of their expenses. So the US
Department of Agriculture provides Food Stamps, which are now known
as SNAP, the acronym for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance
Program, as well as WIC (Women, Infant, Children) Coupons and
Senior Farmers’ Market Coupons. Enrollment in the federal food
stamp program grew 43 percent between October 2007 and October
2009.
Our farmers have been accepting WIC and Senior coupons for at
least eight years. You will see a sign welcoming these coupons in
front of the stall of Nancy Skall, Yael Bernier, Mario Ortiz, Joel
and Renee Kiff, Lou Preston, and many other farmers. You may have
read about the Assembly Bill that would require Farmers’ Markets to
accept SNAP with the objective of making healthy food more
available to people with low incomes. We want to encourage SNAP
participation at the Farmers’ Market, but the administrative costs
should not fall on the farmers and market managers.
Last year, volunteer Melita Love got the ball rolling with the
SNAP application and she also purchased wooden tokens. Former board
member Susan Rose helped me follow through with the training so we
can accept SNAP at the market table. The way it works is this: I
charge the battery at home and take the wireless Electronic Benefit
Machine to the market table. The SNAP participant swipes their SNAP
card at the EBT, and then I give the person wooden tokens which can
only be spent at the market. They make their purchases from the
farmers by using the tokens. At the end of the market, the farmers
redeem the tokens for cash. I do the bookkeeping and make sure that
an electronic transaction from the USDA immediately replenishes the
cash that I have redeemed to the farmers from the Farmers’ Market
funds. This is quite a process for a small farmers market that does
not have a staff, but we are committed to making SNAP work in our
community.
We want to do everything we can to make fresh fruits,
vegetables, and eggs available to those who are on limited incomes.
To jump start SNAP participation at the market, our Farmers’ Market
has decided to donate $100 dollars to match the first $100 SNAP
dollars spent at the market. We hope that other organizations,
churches, businesses, or individuals will step forward and make
similar donations so that every dollar provided by the USDA is
matched by a local dollar. Then the shopper has a better choice;
they can choose to spend one dollar at a grocery store, or two
dollars at the Farmers’ Market where the food is often fresher,
more nutritious, and the dollars go directly into the hands of
local farmers and are cycled back into the local economy.
Please contact me if you or your organization would like to
match SNAP, WIC, or Senior dollars with additional funds. Also help
us spread the word that the Farmers’ Market’s prices are
reasonable, and that we welcome SNAP, WIC and Senior Coupons at the
Market. We are also looking for volunteers to help with the EBT at
the Market Table.
Mary is the manager of the Healdsburg Farmers’ Market and she
can be reached at Mary@HealdsburgFarmers Market.org. The Saturday Market will open
with a SNAP EBT on May 1, 2010.