Food Bucks fight food insecurity
The currency that changes hands at Wolfville Farmers’ Market is not all loonies and toonies.
A growing percentage of it is “food bucks” that help families and individuals access nutritious food. The Nourishing Community Food Bucks project is an annual program in which families who are vulnerable to food insecurity are given market money to spend in the market during harvest season, either in person or through WFM2Go, the market’s online ordering and weekly delivery service.
“Market money” was used at the market before the Food Bucks program. But Food Bucks was designed to put that currency into the hands of people facing food insecurity. Modelled after a similar program in British Columbia, Food Bucks originated in 2016 as a research project by Acadia student Jessica Wall.
“The market has a longstanding partnership with Acadia,” says Jen Bolt, volunteer co-ordinator with Wolfville Farmers’ Market.
“They’ve helped us in many different capacities over the years, and students have provided us with tremendous volunteer leadership.”
What was originally a six-week pilot project grew incrementally, and now runs from June through January. Wolfville is one of the farmers’ markets that runs yearround, and Bolt is hoping to see the program extended to 12 months. She compares the program to a three-legged stool. Giving people access to nutritious food is the first and obvious goal. But it also supports rural farmers and the vendors at the farmers’ market.
“Those food dollars stay in the local economy,” Bolt points out. “It supports local producers in ways that the large chains do not.”
The third benefit is the social interaction that comes with participating in a farmers’ market, she explains. There is a perception – and often a reality – that prices at farmers’ markets are higher than at grocery stores, which tends to exclude some people from taking part.
“This is a really lovely way to get people involved and socially engaged,” Bolt says. “Farmers’ markets are very much community hubs, and places where people of all ages gather together. It’s where you meet your neighbours every Saturday morning.”
The market partners with the Wolfville and Area Food Bank and Kings County Family Resource Center to ensure the Food Bucks are directed to the appropriate recipients.
“Our community partners are the organizations that know who is food-insecure, and who could benefit from social interaction,” Bolt says. “Their mission is to support families, so they select the participants from among the people they support.”
This initiative that began in Wolfville is now a provincewide program, called the Nourishing Communities Food Coupon Project, operated by Farmers’ Markets of Nova Scotia. Many of the participating farmers’ markets already had their own market money systems in place, and so the physical look and feel of the currency varies from one locale to another.
“The market money is used regularly, so the vendors have no way of knowing whether it came from Food Bucks, or whether it was a gift certificate, prize, or whatever,” Bolt explains. “So there is no stigma attached to the program.”
There is no restriction on how people can spend their Food Bucks, but all indications are that participants are making healthy decisions.
“Because this was an academic project we have very good data,” Bolt points out. “We know that a very high percentage is spent on healthy, local food.”