BERKELEY, Calif. — For more than 10 years, the Berkeley Farmers’ Market has been at the forefront of a statewide effort to facilitate purchases of healthy, affordable food for those who struggle financially. Berkeley farmers’ markets are among the most affordable in the Bay Area because they accept electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards and are participants in California’s Market Match program.
EBT cards are magnetically encoded, just like debit and credit cards. Recipients of federal welfare aid have their benefits stored in EBT cards, which can be used to buy food at stores. Some farmers’ markets, like the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, accept EBT cards.
Berkeley Farmers’ Markets began accepting EBT cards as valid forms of payment in 2008. Though they had previously accepted paper food stamps, scanning a magnetic stripe card presented a new set of challenges. To this day, most vendors at farmers’ markets have no way to scan cards and accept payments. The solution to the problem involves a token system through which money is transferred from a card holder’s EBT account to special coins worth $1 each that can be spent on certain farmers’ market products.
Thanks to the Market Match program — a program funded by a national grant designed to incentivize healthy eating — EBT card-holding shoppers are matched dollar for dollar for any amount of money they spend off of their cards up to $10. Therefore, in addition to EBT tokens, shoppers can receive up to 10 Market Match tokens to spend every time they visit a Berkeley farmers’ market.
Because the Ecology Center, which administers Berkeley’s farmer’s markets, holds three weekly markets, card holders can receive up to $30 from the Market Match program every week without leaving Berkeley.
Paras Maharjan, a produce vendor from Riverdog Farm in Guinda, Calif., estimates that 15-20 percent of Riverdog customers pay with EBT or Market Match tokens.
“I think it’s a great program,” he said. “I think that they could maybe increase the amount of the Market Match to $15 or $20.”
There are some stipulations to the way EBT and Market Match tokens can be spent, though. EBT tokens can be used to purchase any food product except for hot prepared foods, and Market Match tokens can only be used to buy fresh produce.
Paul Stone, a Berkeley Farmers’ Market manager who has been working with the Ecology Center for more than 20 years, understands that the goal of the Market Match program is to encourage people to eat healthy, and therefore does not have many problems with ways the tokens can be spent. Though he would like to see the spending capabilities of Market Match tokens expanded to nuts and dried fruit, he is generally a proponent of both EBT and Market Match programs at farmers’ markets.
“I’m sure I would make some tweaks but I understand why there are restrictions,” he said. “The whole reason we do this is to get great, healthy food to the public.”