Vouchers that permit low-income women to shop at a local farmers' market increase fruit and vegetable consumption in poor families, a new study shows.
The research, published this month in the American Journal of Public Health, comes just as states are making important changes to national nutrition programs. For years, the federally-funded Women, Infants and Children (W.I.C.) program, which subsidizes food purchases for low-income women and young children, hasn't included fruits and vegetables, except for fruit juice and carrots for breastfeeding women. After a push by health groups and a recent report from the Institute of Medicine, the United States Department of Agriculture in December revised W.I.C. to include monthly subsidies for fruits and vegetables. States will begin implementing the new rules in February.
Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles tracked the eating habits of 602 area women taking part in the federal W.I.C. program. Some of the women were given $10 in weekly vouchers for vegetable and fruit purchases at a nearby farmers' market or supermarket, while a control group received coupons for non-food products in exchange for sharing information about eating habits.
After six months, women who shopped at the farmers' markets were eating about three additional servings of fruits and vegetables a day, compared to the control group...
Full Story: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/the-farmers-market-effect/
The Farmers' Market Effect
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By Tara Parker-Pope
The New York Times, January 15, 2008
Straight to the Source
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kparcell
Jan 18 2008, 08:50 PM
This is an excellent example of how municipalities can use "local money": distributing vouchers to the poor that are spent at farmers markets and other truly local merchants. The merchants use the vouchers to pay their local taxes and fees, and the vouchers are again distributed to the poor. Everybody wins: more business for the merchants and a low-cost food assistance program. In addition, the vouchers could be used in local trade outside of the formal network quite easilly because they are backed by the municipality, helping to build strong and autonomous local marketplaces.
http://sunmoney.org
http://birdshot.cc
Kevin Parcell