WIC at Farmers Markets: Will DC Miss an Opportunity?
A revamped Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program — which provides low-income single mothers with cash value vouchers good for fruits and vegetables — will soon include a farmers market component. This is a promising opportunity.
But the program is currently designed in ways that will create tension with recipients, farmers, and administrators.
As of October 1, 2009, the USDA required all states to implement the new WIC Farmers Market Nutrition Program (FMNP). Through FMNP, WIC recipients can use the $6 to $15 monthly Fruit and Vegetable Cash Value Vouchers (or CVVs) just like cash to purchase a wide range of produce (PDF). (Check out a nice, clear explanation of the benefits here). The revised program will increase the voucher value for pregnant, breastfeeding, and partially breastfeeding women from $8 to $10 per month. And when the new market season rolls around, recipients can also use the vouchers at farmers markets. The previous WIC program, by contrast, provided only $30 worth of coupons for the entire May-through-November market season. It’s a significant increase.
But each state has the choice of whether to train and authorize farmers to accept those CVVs. Both Maryland and D.C. have opted in to the program. Virginia, on the other hand, recently canceled it.
Maryland has given the program every chance to succeed by including a variety of training options for farmers (including at market, and using trainers who have worked extensively with farmers market vendors). It will be pretty easy for farmers to become registered for the program, as the state will provide multiple trainings in different locations — and each only an hour-long.
D.C.’s Department of Health, by contrast, will offer only one training (on March 10th). It’s an all day training, and it’s in Greenbelt, MD.
The arrangement has raised concerns among market coordinators and healthy food advocates alike. This is a program with proven positive results for both WIC recipients and farmers, and yet for farmers to participate in the District, they have only one chance to attend all-day training — in the middle of a critical season.
The District has other options for facilitating participation in the program. For instance, Maryland will recognize the registration of farmers who undergo the D.C. training — freeing farmers up to sell across state and district lines. As of now, D.C. has expressed no such interest in a reciprocal arrangement.
