from the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development |
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• RESEARCH ANALYSIS ON JAFSCD •
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A study published in the June 2024 issue of the Journal of Agriculture and Food Research examines the literature on farmers markets from 1955 to 2022 and notes that JAFSCD is one of the top publishers of research in this area.
Using bibliometric techniques applied to 1,765 documents identified through Scopus and Web of Science, the article “tracks the research trends associated with farmers’ markets by identifying the stages of evolution of key topics, articles, journals, author citations, and co-citation networks.” The article notes that “the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development is the most relevant publication, with 60 published articles.” (See the search results for "farmers market" at the JAFSCD website.)
The article, “Understanding the relevance of farmers' markets from 1955 to 2022: A bibliometric review,” is by Áron Török (Corvinus U. of Budapest), Sándor Kovács (University of Debrecen), Gréta Maró (Corvinus U. of Budapest), and Zalán Márk Maró (Corvinus U. of Budapest). It is open access and available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jafr.2024.101108
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SUMMARY OF THE 2012 ARTICLE
The number of farmers’ markets in the U.S. has increased rapidly over the last 20 years. They have begun to attract a great deal of attention for their potential to provide consumers in rural and urban “food deserts” with fresh fruits and vegetables. Incentive programs targeting federal nutrition benefit customers at farmers markets are new and rapidly growing programs that seek to address the problems of access and affordability for these consumers, as well as enhance the viability of participating markets and farmers. This article relies on data from markets providing nutrition incentive programming in 2010 and a survey of participating farmers in order to study federal nutrition benefit and incentive usage at the markets and to provide preliminary results about the type of farmers and markets that might benefit most from incentive programming.
Often the focus of previous research has been on the participating consumer and the program’s impact on health indicators, and most of these studies are found outside of peer-reviewed journals. In terms of benefits to farmers, the premise is that as incentive programming increases, so too will the usage of federal nutrition benefits, thereby increasing sales for farmers and the viability of each market. However, the reality is significantly more complex; many factors affect the outcomes for farmers and markets. These factors may include, among others, the outreach to federal nutrition benefit consumers undertaken by the markets, the composition of the community surrounding the market (including the number of residents eligible for federal nutrition benefits and the ethnic makeup of the community), how accessible the market is for participating customers, the level of funding for incentive programming, and how welcoming the market atmosphere and individual farmers are to these consumers.
KEY FINDINGS -
Market Level Impact: Over 100 participating markets in 2010 redeemed US$1,000,000 in federal nutrition benefits (US$600,000) and nutrition incentives (US$400,000) over the season, representing over 57,000 federal nutrition benefit transactions from about 20,000 individual consumers.
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Farmer Level Impact: Of the 190 farmers who responded to the survey, 150 reported that they were able to redeem federal nutrition benefits during the 2010 season.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR POLICY, PRACTICE, AND RESEARCH
Little research has been published on the impact of these programs [at the time of this article—2012], probably because they are so new. Research on federal nutrition benefits at farmers market is also limited. As SNAP usage at markets continues to expand rapidly, this may change. This paper examines these emerging trends and provides preliminary results of the impact of some of the earliest nutrition incentive programming on farmers and their markets.
The farmer surveys revealed that both farmer and market characteristics are important to whether a farmer reported increased sales due to nutrition incentive programming. Those farmers with greater gross sales accounted for by fruits and vegetables and those who depend on individual farmers markets for a larger proportion of their sales are more likely to report increased sales due to the nutrition incentives.
SHARE ON YOUR SOCIALS
Want to encourage the use of #SNAP at your farmers market? @JAFSCD article from the vault (2012) studies the impact on farmers and market attendance in the Northeastern U.S. The #USDA reported a 25% increase in the number of farmers markets around the country from 1994 to 2011 — so ensuring that they are shopping options for everyone is important. #farmersmarket #healthyfoods #foodsecurity Read this @JAFSCD article for free: https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2012.024.002
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