Food stamp discount for buying produce

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/08/19/food_stamp_discount_for_buying_produce/?camp=localsearch:on:twit:rtbutton





Food stamp discount for buying produce
Study will monitor W. Mass. recipients
By Patrick G. Lee
Globe Correspondent / August 19, 2010
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More than two dozen cities and towns in Western Massachusetts will be the focus of a major federal initiative being announced today to increase low-income families’ consumption of fruits and vegetables, as part of the nation’s efforts to combat obesity. The Agriculture Department awarded $20 million to Massachusetts and a Cambridge-based research firm to test whether providing subsidies for buying produce will encourage food stamp recipients in Hampden County communities — including Springfield, Chicopee, and Holyoke — to eat more nutritious meals.

Of the 50,000 households in Hampden County that rely on food stamps, several thousand will be offered a 30-cent discount for every dollar spent on fresh fruits and vegetables, while other families will continue to pay full price. Households will be tracked for 15 months to see whether their eating habits change and health outcomes, including obesity rates, improve. State officials hope to begin the program in fall 2011.

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“It’s one of the largest in the history of the Food and Nutrition Service, not only in terms of the size of the pilot, but the rigor associated with the evaluation,’’ Kevin Concannon, the Agriculture Department’s undersecretary for food, nutrition, and consumer services, said in an interview yesterday. “We have a lot of information on nutrition, we have a lot of information on health, but we have a lot less information on what influences behavior.’’ The grant announcement follows a flurry of more limited local and state programs to ramp up fruit and vegetable purchases among low-income residents. These include Boston Bounty Bucks, which offers discounts for residents who buy produce at farmers’ markets with food stamps, and doctor-provided “prescriptions,’’ which are actually coupons that can be redeemed at farmers’ markets for fruits and vegetables.

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By drawing on a large, randomly selected sample in Hampden County, researchers will be able to control for variations in income, race, and age so as to isolate the influence of the 30-cent subsidy on families’ food choices, said Steve Carlson, a program specialist with the Agriculture Department. Financial incentives are important for bringing about lasting changes in behavior, but the key to their success will be whether the discount is large enough to make healthy food as affordable as junk food, said Dr. David Ludwig, director of the Optimal Weight for Life program at Children’s Hospital Boston.

The pilot program will help “remove the paradox that low-income people who suffer most from obesity and related illnesses are least able to afford the cure, which is nutritious food,’’ he said. “If low-income populations simply can’t afford nutritious foods, then behavior modification will not solve the problem.’’ The state and federal governments have focused on making the purchase of subsidized produce through the program as seamless as possible: The regular prices will show up on the cash register receipt, but the discount will be immediately credited back to the customer’s food stamp debit card. This might not be ideal, said Dr. Kevin Volpp, director of the Center for Health Incentives at the University of Pennsylvania. Incentives work best when they are immediate and “as visible as possible,’’ he said. “That’s probably the part I worry about most. Instead of taking $20 off my card, now I’m taking $14 — is that going to be noticeable?’’


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Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program

Healthy Incentives Pilot (HIP)
http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/HIP/default.htm
The Food, Nutrition and Conservation Act of 2008 (also known as the Farm Bill) authorized $20 million for pilot projects to evaluate health and nutrition promotion in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to determine if incentives provided to SNAP recipients at the point-of-sale increase the purchase of fruits, vegetables or other healthful foods. FNS refers to this effort as the Healthy Incentives Pilot or HIP. SNAP was formerly known as the Food Stamp Program.

Pilot Site:

Hampden county, Massachusetts was selected as the Healthy Incentives Pilot (HIP) site. Hampden county is a mix of twenty-seven urban, suburban and rural cities and towns and approximately 50,000 SNAP households. The Majority of SNAP participants are in the areas of Springfield, Holyoke, Chicopee and West Springfield.








Send questions about HIP to HIP@fns.usda.gov


Last modified: 08/19/2010

When there is more demand for a product, prices rise. Families with food stamps will be paying the same as before with the 30 percent discount and those without food stamps will be paying 30 percent more.

If this is done on a national scale I still don't believe this will increase anything because the discount is going to the people using food stamps and NOT to the farmer or produce retailer. It would be like giving these people on food stamps more food stamps. They will simply see an increase in sales. Right now, if you go to any Farmer's Market or grocery store not all the produce is sold out. There is always more produce than sales. If all the farmer's and grocery stores were selling out, then you would see an increase in price but that is not happening.

The demand will not be large enough (we are only talking about a 30% increase for food stamp recipients) and the supply is so large that I doubt this will cause any increase in price.