Paying for fruits or vegetables with a wooden token might seem like a throwback to Colonial America, but it is proving more practical than modern electronic payments systems for people on government food-subsidy programs that shop at farmers markets.
A federal requirement that each state switch to debit cards from food stamps a decade ago had an undesirable result for those seeking healthier food at farmers markets, where vendors generally have not invested in the terminals needed to process card payments.
A wireless payment card terminal might cost $1,200, which is too expensive for many farmers, says Layne Cozzolino, Wood County health educator for Wisconsin's Get Active Campaign. "So we got to thinking, what if each market had one place with a terminal that could accept an [electronic benefits transfer] card, or a debit or credit card?"
The Agricultural Department pursued that idea and provided grant money to Wisconsin so it could offer a free EBT-only terminal, an older VeriFone Systems Inc. model that accepts PIN-debit cards. Patrons pay at the terminal, then receive wooden tokens to bring to a food stand. The tokens resemble crude coins and come in denominations of $1, $2 and $5.
When the market closes, farmers bring the wooden tokens to the EBT terminal to receive their payments via check or cash, says Cozzolino, who works the terminal under a tent at the Main Street Farmers Market in Marshfield, Wis. Sometimes the farmers wait a few days until they have more than just a few tokens before turning them in.
"The wooden-tokens process just makes a lot of sense," Cozzolino says. "It would take years for a farmer to recoup his costs at the market if he had to buy the payment terminal on his own for just his stand."
By sharing a terminal, vendors can pool resources to cover service charges and transaction costs.
Alan Shannon, a spokesperson for USDA/Food and Nutrition Service-Midwest, says his agency prioritizes making access to farmers markets for those receiving food aid.
"Our agency has expended a great deal of effort in the past year or so to enroll more markets in [the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program], and we've had great success," Shannon says.
In Illinois, the work of Experimental Station, a nonprofit organization that administers the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the EBT system at farmers markets in Chicago, has been instrumental in getting more markets involved and alerting cardholders of the opportunity to purchase fresh food, Shannon says.
Dennis Ryan, Experimental Station's program manager of Link Up Illinois, says the number of farmers markets in Chicago accepting the state's Link food benefit cards has grown to 21, up 62% from 13 in 2010.
The number of farmers markets or individual farmers with roadside stands in Illinois authorized to accept the Link card grew 220%, to 48, last month from December 2009.
Not all farmers markets in Chicago and its suburbs use wooden tokens for payment. Some instead use a paper-receipt system in which the consumer chooses products at the market stands and takes receipts to the terminal accepting Link card orders. After those receipts are processed through the Link card, the consumer takes paid receipts back to the vendor to pick up the food.
More than 45 million consumers and 21.6 million households receive funds for food, with an average monthly benefit of $283 per family, according to May nationwide data from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
