In the city of Baltimore, one in 8 families with children are “food insecure”, and 20 per cent of all people live in poverty. More than half a million Marylanders get help affording food nutrition assistance through additional Programs (SNAP). In fact, SNAP, or what we used to call the food stamps, registered 45 million people across the country this year, a leap of 25 million in 2008.
We have a proposal that benefits both financial difficulties consumers who rely on SNAP and small-scale farmers in Maryland: the supply of the farmers market with electronic benefits transfer machine (TAKE EBT CARDS) so people can spend dollars SNAP them in that market.
This can be put in motion by a new Farm Bill, which is being written now. We are looking for strong action from the Agriculture Committee leadership and supercommittee because they make a decision on funding the next month. Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland sat at his decision supercommittee, and vis