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A few years ago, back when she still had a job in the natural-foods industry, “my kids only got the best in terms of food,” said Corbyn Hightower, a mother of three who now lives outside Sacramento. Then, she said, “we lost everything, and we really started having to compromise.”

Hightower signed up for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps. When she looked through the information pamphlet she received, she found out that SNAP benefits can be used to buy seeds and plants, not just food. So she went to Whole Foods, bought some seeds, and planted a garden of salad greens. “It was one of the things I could do that made me feel like my kids weren’t going to have to let go of [eating well],” she said.

Unlike Hightower, most SNAP recipients are not aware of this alternative use for their electronic benefit transfer (EBT). “I’m really proactive about obtaining information, so maybe that helped,” she said. “I’m not the typical EBT customer, although I’m sure there are a lot more like me now — people who always shopped at the perimeter of the stores and bought organic.”

This detail of our federal food-stamp program flies under the radar of many people active in food-justice and urban-farming circles, too. Daniel Bowman Simon, a graduate student and garden advocate, didn’t know of the provision until 2008, when someone mentioned it to him during a chance encounter at a farmers market.