Food Stamps Are Welcome At The Newark Co-op Farmers Market - Sundays From 10AM-2PM On Main Street!

Did you know that the Newark Co-op Farmers Market accepts EBT!  -  Shop today and every Sunday at Market East Plaza - 280 East Main Street - from 10 - 2 p. m.

Farmers Market | Newark Natural Foods

Today 10 -2 - our Farmers' Market will be in full swing...rain or shine! Freshly picked produce, Artisan foods, Handcrafted gifts and scheduled musical guests: Mona Lisa's! It's a community event not to be missed.

Thanks to the Delaware Department of Agriculture, the Co-op was able to purchase its food stamp conversion machine with a grant. 

(USA Today) Meghan Hoyer has more ~ Feds try to close SNAP gap at farmers markets - Debit-card machine offer hasn’t taken off

Despite the $4 million the USDA has pledged to get markets wireless deb­it card machines, few markets have accepted the offer. By the time the program was supposed to be wrapping up in late February, only $263,900 had been spent. Today, of the nearly 8,000 farmers markets in the U.S., fewer than half accept SNAP payments. At the same time, SNAP has grown significantly in recent years — more than 1 in 7 Americans now re­ceives government help to buy food. The number of direct ­sales farms and farmers markets who accept SNAP has quintupled — rising from 750 to 3,824 — over the past five years. But officials say they need to do better. “Our goal is to close the gap,” said Kevin Concan­non, undersecretary for food, nutrition and con­sumer services at the US­DA. “Low-income folks will often buy foods that are calorie-dense. We want to try to nudge them in the direction of farm­ers markets and purchas­ing healthy, less-proc­essed foods. This is part of that strategy.” Concannon acknowl­edged the agency started the process late, offering the equipment last May, just as markets ramped up for the busiest part of their season.

Jan Walters, a member of the Farmers Market Coalition board who over­sees a national task force on SNAP, said some states didn’t have the personnel or administrative ability to promote the program and disburse the money. And farmers said that the paperwork and ongoing fees associated with the card machines — which also accept bank debit and credit cards — often were too much, she said. In 2012, Iowa farmers chalked up more than $950,000 in sales on the wireless card machines the state has been promot­ing since 2005. More than 90 percent of those were purchases from regular debit and credit card us­ers, said Walters, who be­fore her retirement ran the state’s SNAP electron­ic debit card program.........In May, USDA officials announced they were ex­panding the program so individual farmers could apply for the machines. That, coupled with educa­tional seminars and a push on state depart­ments to use the money, has made it more success­ful, Concannon said. In the past two months, 330 new markets and farmers have signed on.

Meanwhile, the Boy Scouts of America are banning fat kids from their national jamboree. The kids that need the physical activity the most are being denied it. WTF?

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