“They told me that they could only sell me raw fish. They couldn’t sell me anything that had been cooked or prepared. It was against the law,” Fonseca said. “And in that moment, it was really humiliating because there’s no dignity in this. Having no access to a kitchen, there was no way I could cook food.”

Fonseca was denied a hot meal because that county did not have a Restaurant Meals Program (RMP), an obscure provision in the federal Food Stamp Act that lets food assistance programs in California and elsewhere allow SNAP recipients to buy prepared foods from restaurants and supermarkets. Since 2003, some of California’s food assistance agencies have used RMPs to make prepared meal purchases an option for people who might otherwise be unable to cook.

Fonseca, who was a Women’s Policy Institute Fellow in 2019, worked with her teammates to focus on expanding the program statewide.

Esperanza Fonseca

Now, their efforts appear to be having an impact. A bill signed into law in October 2019 will expand the RMP to SNAP users throughout California, allowing people over the age of 60, and people living with disabilities or experiencing homelessness, to buy prepared meals using their EBT cards.

“We decided that this bill idea was the most feasible one to get passed, and it would also lift a lot of people out of hunger,” Fonseca, who is now National Deputy Organizing Director at the nonprofit United for Respect, told Civil Eats. “We know that a lot of people who have SNAP benefits don’t fully utilize their benefits because they live in an area without the restaurant meals program.”

The expansion of the RMP across California is the product of a sizable collective effort. “A lot of people have been working for two decades to try to get this to be available to everybody who needed it in the state,” said Jessica Bartholow, a policy advocate at the Western Center on Law & Poverty, which in 2012 coproduced a report that advocates have used to expand the program to where it currently operates in 10 of California’s 58 counties.

Alongside the recent California victory, two other states are trying to implement their own RMPs. But advocates there worry that recent changes to food assistance policy may introduce obstacles to implementing the program in their states.

Using the Restaurant Meals Program to Target Food Insecurity

Food access experts say the recent focus on the RMP, which made its way into federal food assistance policy in 1971 (though some say 1977), is a response to the demographic changes taking place nationwide as the country’s population ages. The number of adults over age 65 is expected to nearly double to 95 million by 2060.

“We’re seeing renewed interest because of the elderly population,” said Ellen Vollinger, legal director of the Food Research and Action Center.

“We’re also seeing renewed interest unfortunately because of the numbers of people who are homeless and a new appreciation for the fact that people may have difficulty accessing food in the traditional purchase-and-prepare manner,” Vollinger said.

Advocates for people experiencing hunger and homelessness in Illinois and Maryland have successfully passed bills that were similar to California’s. And in all three states, food insecurity among the homelessness—as well as awareness of people who may not be able to cook their meals—are among the list of challenges to alleviating food insecurity.

Even as all three states have legislation on the books authorizing a statewide RMP, they will still need approval from the federal government to get their programs up and running.

For the handful of states that have experimented with the program in prior years, getting the green light from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the federal agency that administers SNAP, might not have been a hurdle. But the current efforts come at a time when the USDA appears to be set on implementing policy changes that, analysts say, could result in millions of adult SNAP recipients losing eligibility.

In December 2019, the USDA finalized the first of such policies. Under guidelines set to take effect in April, states will have less flexibility for opening enrollment to some adults. The USDA estimates that the rule will result in as many as 668,000 individuals losing eligibility if they don’t meet certain work requirements.

“States are seeking waivers for wide swaths of their population and millions of people who could work are continuing to receive SNAP benefits,” Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said in December while announcing the policy change. States should focus on screening individuals for fitness for work and providing them with access to work and workfare programs, USDA said. Otherwise unemployed adults are only eligible to receive SNAP benefits for three months during a three-year period. Even as the new rule may not impact individuals older than 60, it could affect efforts to reach people in Fonseca’s situation—those trying to recover from homelessness.

California currently has high numbers of people experiencing poverty and homelessness—the highest in the nation. The state also has more than a decade of experience with the RMP, and Bartholow says advocates in the Golden State have made allies with local USDA officials who in past years encouraged California counties to establish this option for their residents.

Considering California’s well-documented epidemic of homelessness, “I can’t imagine a scenario in which USDA would deny a single restaurant meals program request from our state,” Bartholow said.

States Still Waiting for Federal Approval

With two more federal proposals that could reduce eligibility for as many as 3 million adults currently on the table, anti-hunger advocates in Illinois and Maryland don’t share that same confidence.

The Hot Meals Act became public law in Illinois in July 2019 and required the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) to begin operating the program by January 2020. As of mid-January 2020, Illinois hadn’t received USDA approval. Advocates who worked on getting the bill passed in the Prairie State say stereotypes about people living in poverty are at the center of recent federal scrutiny of food assistance programs.

“I don’t want to say that it is an automatic no, but we do know that there have been some challenges with the current administration and how they view people who receive public benefits and people living in poverty,” says Niya Kelly, state legislative director for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless.

“There’s a lot of enthusiasm in our state around the prospect of [offering the program], so that’s what makes it particularly frustrating that we are running into bumps at the federal level,” says Nolan Downey, a staff attorney for the Shriver Center on Poverty Law. While he didn’t want to speculate about the reason, he added that the USDA has told the state agency “it would not be supportive of the program.” The USDA threatened IDHS with fines for over issuing federal food assistance to a significant number of individuals in 2018.

Photo courtesy of the USDA.

USDA’s Food and Nutrition Services has asked the IDHS to submit research that demonstrates the need for a prepared meals program in Illinois as well as show a willingness among food establishments to offer meals to SNAP beneficiaries at a reduced rate, said Meghan Powers, an IDHS spokesperson.

“We have several folks working on our implementation plan and we would really like to receive approval,” Powers said.

In May 2019, Maryland lawmakers approved a three-year pilot for a statewide restaurant meals program with an expected December 2019 start date, but it hasn’t received USDA approval either.

Taking care to explain that the restaurant meals program isn’t new and that implementation won’t expand SNAP eligibility, Maryland advocates and policy makers say its program will be designed to improve access to food among people who face barriers to shopping and cooking.

“The goal was to try to make sure that those people who aren’t able to really use their benefits right now are able to actually access food,” said Scott Tiffen, chief of staff for Maryland State Senator Clarence Lam.

“Some older people may have difficulty bringing groceries to and from the store or preparing them,” Tiffen said. “Similarly, some people who are homeless may not have a place to store food … or to prepare it.”

Beyond Fast Food?

Although the restaurant meals program hasn’t been the subject of much scholarly research, the program has received criticism about the kinds of food establishments that have signed on to participate. In California’s counties and a few other states, authorized restaurants include fast food chains such as Subway, Burger King, Domino’s Pizza, and Jack-in-the-Box.

In a 2013 report, San Francisco County outlined strategies to expand the range of vendors and recruit food establishments that could offer healthy and culturally diverse meals. At the time, 49 of the county’s 64 vendors were fast food chains and the remaining 15 were independent local restaurants.

In 2017, California began requiring food establishments on college campuses to seek approval from USDA to become a restaurant meals program vendor. But gaining that approval hasn’t been straightforward, Jessica Bartholow says.

“The application process is kind of clumsy,” she says. “For example, it asks for the social security number of the owner of the restaurant, Who’s social security number should we put down? Is it the governor’s—because these are state universities? Is it the chancellor of the school?”

USDA’s RMP policy requires food establishments to have a seating area for patrons to consume their meals and restaurants must sign a memorandum of understanding with the local SNAP agency agreeing to offer low-cost meals.

In addition to restaurants, counties in California with RMP’s have reached out to “corner stores” that offer prepared food and “supermarkets with deli counters” to participate.

Maryland advocates say their research indicates interest from potential vendors who offer healthier options. “There are lots of restaurants around the state that might be interested in applying to serve as vendors,” Michael J. Wilson, the director of Maryland Hunger Solutions, says. “I’ve had conversations with The Land of Kush, which does vegan soul food, and they’re interested.”

Even though grocery stores aren’t named eligible vendors in federal policy, Illinois, a state where urban and rural areas have been designated as significantly lacking access to healthy food, wants to expand the options for buying prepared foods beyond restaurants. “We think that the prospect of grocery stores providing hot meals is really exciting,” Downey says. “Once we [get] federal approval, a lot of our outreach is going to be focused on grocery stores because they play such a critical role for folks in those communities.”

“People are doing what America has asked of them. They’re working and going to school and trying to better their future and the future of their kids,” Bartholow says. “They could really benefit from being able to stop by and pick up a hot chicken instead of having to pick up a cold one and cook it at home.”

The post 3 States Moving to Make More SNAP Recipients Eligible for Hot Meals appeared first on Civil Eats.

But instead of heading into the halls of Congress in a power suit, Taylor drives into the parking lot of a condo complex near the U.S. Capitol, where she pitches a tent, sets up tables, and unpacks heaps of vegetables. On a recent day, they included orange and purple carrots, dark green cucumbers, heads of green cabbage, green beans, and a milk crate of hardneck garlic. This mid-summer week, she also has baskets of blueberries, red gooseberries, yellow plums, heirloom tomatoes, Presidio rice, and bags of hand-milled flour.

Then she awaits the arrival of 25 of her community supported agriculture (CSA) subscribers, who’ve signed up to retrieve their weekly share from Three Part Harmony, a farm she established three-and-a-half miles from the White House.

Taylor at a CSA pickup site in the city. (Photo by Cassie Chew.)

“I started with six CSA members on my porch, and now we do almost 200 shares, three days, and seven locations,” Taylor says.

Taylor’s efforts have not only led to the first production-focused organic farm and CSA accessible by bus or bike to D.C. residents. They have also led to the passage of legislation encouraging D.C. landowners to give their property over to agricultural purposes, helping make the nation’s capital a more friendly place for urban farms.

The field at Three Part Harmony farm. (Photo © Lise Metzger.)

District Councilmember David Grosso helped Taylor in her policy work. “She set up a model that wasn’t just about community gardens, but more about the expansion of urban farming, to grow quality food closer to the source of consumption,” he said. “It wasn’t about sharing a plot; it was bigger than that.”

Marla Karina Larrave, an advocate for justice in food and farming policy and Three Part Harmony CSA member, says, “She’s definitely the people’s farmer. In terms of farming, you’re talking to the most awesome person in D.C.”

Returning to the Land

Taylor’s venture into farming took root during a self-described “quarter-life crisis.” With a degree in U.S. foreign policy and Latin America, she worked as a human rights advocate before quitting to spend nine months in Guatemala on a project to promote healing among women recovering from the trauma of civil war.

Then, instead of continuing a career path in diplomacy when she returned, Taylor signed up to volunteer at a food co-op. A vegetarian since her teens, she wanted to learn more about food and have enough to eat while she was unemployed. She also began volunteering at an organic farm in rural Maryland.

“I was doing a lot of weeding and transplanting and more weeding,” Taylor said. “I loved it. I was like ‘Oh my gosh, I never have to turn on a computer again.’”

(Photo © Lise Metzger.)

A dozen years later, her passion for farming has become her profession. “My favorite times this year were when I went to the farm on a Saturday afternoon, locked myself in the fence by myself, and worked until the sun went down,” she says.

Corn harvested at Three Part Harmony Farm. (Photo © Lise Metzger.)

With farmers on both sides of her family tree, Taylor’s connection to the land runs deep. But Taylor doesn’t see her pivot into agriculture as unique to her personal family history. Rather, it’s something she shares with many African Americans, who despite family histories of farm life that include exploitation, are rediscovering the land, redefining their role in the profession, and recognizing the power of food production in revitalizing their communities.

“I’m in part of this return generation—young Black farmers who are returning to the land after having skipped a generation,” she says.

But in order for Taylor to make her newfound mission to provide organic fruits and vegetables to her adopted community in D.C. a sustainable operation, Taylor also had to rely on her diplomacy skillset.

The “I Want D.C. to Grow” Campaign

During her years as a farm hand, Taylor rose from volunteer to member of the vegetable crew to co-manager for the farm. In that time, she learned the most successful strategies for growing vegetables in the D.C. region, where warmer temperatures alter the growing season, as well as how to run that farm’s 485-member CSA.

But after five seasons, Taylor grew tired of the 90-minute round-trip commute. With ideas on starting her own organic farm that she could bike to, she found a two-acre plot of unused land owned by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a Catholic order of missionaries.

Within D.C.’s 68 square miles, small plots of land then were being cultivated to grow food to donate to low-income residents. There also were gardens set up to teach people how to grow vegetables. “But at that time in 2012, we didn’t have a farm in D.C. that was dedicated solely to production,” Taylor says.

While the Oblates supported her mission, their attorney worried that leasing the land for a commercial farm could subject them to a property tax assessment. Passed down to Taylor, the bill could make it hard for her to get a farm up and growing.

“We needed a lower property tax rate on land that was in agricultural use, which actually is a model that people have done all over the country since the ’70s to save family farms,” Taylor says.

(Photo © Lise Metzger.)

While hauling in compost to build up the farm’s soil, Taylor simultaneously worked with Councilmember Grosso, students at a pro bono legal clinic, and food and farming advocates on “I Want D.C. to Grow,” a policy campaign designed to support her own goal as well as others interested in farming in the city.

Their efforts led to the passage of the D.C. Urban Farming and Food Security Act, which allows a 90 percent reduction in property taxes to owners of vacant lots who create partnerships with independent urban farmers. Known locally as the “D.C. Farm Bill,” the legislation allows property owners who are exempt from taxation to pass the exemption to the farmer. It also allows would-be growers to submit proposals for leases to cultivate unused public land.

When the D.C. Farm Bill took effect in April 2015, Three Part Harmony became the first farm to benefit. Now, the policy is poised to clear a path for more urban farming in D.C. In 2020, the city’s tax and revenue department will implement the abatement procedures for property owners, says Ona Balkus, food policy director at the D.C. Office of Planning. Balkus is excited about the potential more production farms on unused city property, and even on rooftops.

“Once the urban farming tax abatement goes into effect, private properties will be eligible for the tax credit if they lease their land or their rooftops to urban farms,” Balkus says. “Given the high price of land in D.C., rooftop farms on new real estate developments are a promising way to bring more fresh food to District residents.”

A year after requesting proposals, the city is expected to finalize five-year lease deals with two applicants this fall. Jeremy Brosowsky, who since 2010 has run a business that provides compost to urban farms, is one of those applicants. He credits the “I Want D.C. to Grow” campaign for making his idea possible.

“If this program didn’t exist, the farm couldn’t exist,” Brosowsky said. “Gail is an important advocate for the community and a talented and relentless urban farmer.”

Organic Production in the City

During the years she spent working on the D.C. Farm Bill, Taylor couldn’t sell any of the vegetables she was growing on the Oblates’ property. To earn start-up money, she built a greenhouse in her backyard and began supplying starter plants to local hardware stores and neighbors operating community gardens. She also launched a small, porch-style CSA, which she ran by growing vegetables in her backyard and in the backyards of friends and neighbors.

Taylor watering plants the first year she did a backyard CSA by riding her bike around to three different plots each week. (Photo by Helina Chen.)

Heading into its eighth season, Three Part Harmony offers pesticide-free vegetables, herbs, and cut flowers. Designed as an “edible landscape,” the cultivated rows on the farm’s two-acre plot feature three-foot walkways to allow visitors to “get up close with their food.” Taylor’s technique also includes the companion planting of crops that enhance each other’s growth. She might plant a row of bunching onions and come in three weeks later with romaine lettuce.

“We’re constantly putting in things that can share space together,” Taylor says.

To add nutrients and organics to the soil and allow it to rest between plantings, Taylor also plants a third of the farm with oats, rye, and crimson clover as cover crops, or “green manure.”

A Group Effort

Three Part Harmony takes its name from her father’s often-repeated description of the collaborations her family of musicians created together. Its organic growth is due to efforts of the community of friends and neighbors Taylor has cultivated who come together and do their part, she says.

In addition to volunteers who help with the harvest, some CSA members donate their front porches to Taylor to help with distribution.

Gail Taylor and a helper work on the farm. (Photo © Lise Metzger.)

They also help build the farm’s online presence and offer professional bodywork to help Taylor and her two part-time farm hands recover after long days of planting and harvesting. A family member created the farm’s logo, which pays homage to the Monarch butterfly and Taylor’s family’s path during the Great Migration.

Taylor has enlisted nearby orchards and farms run by women and farmers of color to add variety—products like fruit, cheese, honey, rice, herbal items, and eggs—to her weekly CSA menu.

“Two years ago, when we went from under 100 members to over 100, my staff and I went around to all of those farms and said, ‘We want to scale up. This is what we need,’” recalls Taylor.  “That was the first time [other farms] started setting aside some of their acreage and growing just for us.”

One of those growers is Gale Livingstone, a former government IT contractor, who met Taylor at a conference for new farmers. They bonded over the novelty of being young African American women launching production farms. Livingstone began providing organic eggs and vegetables for Taylor’s CSA.

This season Livingstone has relocated to a three-acre plot of land closer to D.C. “My long-term plan is that I’m trying to buy some land in Maryland—a much larger piece of land—so that I can incorporate animals into my operation,” Livingstone says. “I’m hoping to have Gail become an integral part of that—she’s super-organized and is great at managing people, which is one of the areas that I tend to need help with.”

A Deeper Connection

In addition to scaling up her CSA, Three Part Harmony has also donated food to soup kitchens and food pantries. Through her efforts at the farm and within the community, Taylor aims to build an operation that disrupts the historical racism and oppression upon which food systems have been operated, provide alternatives to corporate-based food production, and meet the community’s needs on a deeper level.

(Photo by Cassie Chew.)

As residents within cities like D.C. seek greater food options and policy makers look to urban farming and community supported agriculture to solve challenges such as malnutrition, health disparities, and disinvestment in urban communities, Taylor’s work can serve as a model of urban farming that’s innovative and member-driven.

“People are going out of their way to support this CSA. They’re not saying, ‘I paid this much and this is what I’m getting out of it,’” Taylor says. “A lot of people are saying ‘I paid this much money, and I’m supporting these Black women farmers.’ We’re two right now, but maybe one day there will be more.”

Top photo © Lise Metzger.

The post The Woman Leading the Way for Urban Farming in the Nation’s Capital appeared first on Civil Eats.

Open for business every Sunday between the hours of 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., the Takoma Park farmers’ market makes it easy for recipients of food-assistance benefits—including Maryland’s Independence Card, and Washington, D.C.’s DC EBT card—to shop for healthy food.

At the center of market, surrounded by farmers’ stands, a high school student runs table where shoppers can swipe their cards to convert Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) dollars into tokens that they can use to buy locally grown produce and pasture-raised meats from the market’s dozen or more vendors.

Although the market will match SNAP users’ first $5 dollars, less than 1 percent of its 2,000 or more Sunday visitors are SNAP shoppers. Even at larger markets that match more SNAP funds, in Maryland and around the country, farmers’ markets are distant competitors to the roughly 250,000 big food retailers authorized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) to accept SNAP funds for purchases. While the 3,600 authorized farmers’ markets nationwide redeemed nearly $16 million in SNAP benefits in 2017, the nearly 51,000 authorized grocery stores, supermarkets, and superstores redeemed nearly $52.7 billion in SNAP benefits through the program.

Photo CC-licensed by Seacoast Eat Local

The USDA has refused to share with the public the individual SNAP sales data from those food retailers, although the outcome of arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court this session could raise the curtain on that information. Some advocates hope to shine a light on just how much companies like Kroger and Walmart are benefiting financially from the SNAP program, while also employing many SNAP users. If made public, this data might offer a clearer picture of the challenges associated with food access across the country.

The case, Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media, pits the trade association for chain and independent food retailers against the Sioux Falls, S.D.-based Argus Leader newspaper. The case has been brewing since 2011, and in its oral arguments the Food Marketing Institute (FMI) asked the Supreme Court to reverse a November 2016 district court decision that, under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), required the USDA to disclose individual store sales data on its retailers authorized to accept SNAP funds for purchases.

In the wake of two decisions in favor of the Argus Leader, the USDA in January 2017 announced that it would comply with the court ruling and promptly begin releasing the data to the public. The FMI then intervened, first taking the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals, then appealing its loss there to the Supreme Court. In its opening statement, the FMI asked the Court to reverse the decision and keep its members’ SNAP food sales confidential.

“Our injury in fact is the disclosure of our members’ store-level sales information that they keep secret,” argued Evan Young, an attorney for the FMI, which represents 33,000 retail food stores and 12,000 pharmacies. Young, along with an attorney for the Department of Justice, told the nation’s highest court that retail sales from taxpayer-funded SNAP should be considered trade secrets and confidential financial data that the USDA, in their more than four-decade long partnership with retailers, has to date agreed not to disclose.

“We are exercising our discretion in a matter of good government,” Anthony Yang, Department of Justice (DOJ) assistant to the solicitor general, told the Court. “The government is trying to keep its word, given over 40 years, in the most official form possible, that we’re going to keep this information confidential.”

Meanwhile, the Argus Leader argued that SNAP sales data are agency records under FOIA and presumptively open records.

“How the government spends its own money is critical information that the press and the public need to know,” Richard Loeb, attorney for the newspaper told the Court. “It’s the type of information that FOIA has been used for decades to reveal.”

The USDA has said that FOIA exemptions prohibit it from disclosing data that retailers have shared with the agency in confidence. But since the information the newspaper has requested is automatically stored in USDA’s Store Tracking and Redemption database, the Argus Leader says USDA’s argument is misleading.

“USDA’s imprecise use of the term ‘redemption data’ … creates the misimpression that USDA must depend on retailers to furnish SNAP payment information,” the Argus Leader wrote in court filings. Further, the newspaper’s lawyers say the agency’s claims are “disingenuous” since it already has the data.

SNAP Fights Hunger, but Should it Also Support Healthy Eating?

The difference between using SNAP for purchases at farmers’ markets and using them at a Walmart Supercenter are significant—farmers’ markets rarely offer much in the way of processed, packaged foods. And while the overarching goal of SNAP is to reduce food insecurity, there’s a growing interest in simultaneously improving people’s health. Governments and health advocates at all levels are increasingly advocating the design of food assistance programs that will boost nutrition, improve health, and maybe even reduce the cost of healthcare associated with the chronic illnesses that arise from an unhealthy diet.

To food access advocates, keeping secret the data about where SNAP dollars are being spent doesn’t make sense.

Takoma Park and other Maryland farmers’ markets receive funding through statewide grants, partnerships with private business and fundraisers at individual markets like Takoma Park’s annual pie contest. Despite the fact that Maryland has among the highest per capita household income in the country, as many as one out of eight residents experience food insecurity. Food access advocates have been active in developing programming that promotes greater consumption of healthier foods by creating incentives for SNAP shoppers at individual farmers’ markets and say they don’t keep their work a secret.

“It’s very unfortunate when we have a program that’s fairly transparent [while] large food retailers don’t have to share the same amount of information,” said Amy Crone, founder and executive director of the Maryland Farmers Market Association (MDFMA).

At the Takoma Park farmers’ market. (Photo by Cassie Chew)

Since 2014, Crone and the MDFMA have raised more than $700,000 in funding, which they’ve used to increase food access and farmer sales through its statewide farmers’ market matching program for SNAP shoppers.

“We found that 90 percent of SNAP shopper purchases go toward fruits and vegetables,” Crone said. “We know our incentive program is making a difference.”

With a $65 billion budget supporting food purchases of 40 million people in 2018, roughly one out of every seven Americans, food access advocates and scholars at the intersection of agriculture, economics, and policy have long wanted to use SNAP to improve health status among individuals at the lower end of the economy.

Getting more data on nationwide SNAP purchases could help achieve that goal. In its 2011 FOIA request, the Argus Leader asked for five years of store-level data; two years prior, the USDA’s own research suggested more data on consumers’ connection to stores would improve analysis of the availability of nutritious food.

“The data would definitely help, so that we can incentivize healthy eating,” said Crone.

Experts at the intersection of food access and health say there needs to be greater innovation in food assistance policy.

“SNAP is an effective program for reducing hunger in the United States … Yet, compared with both income-eligible nonparticipants and higher-income individuals, SNAP beneficiaries have significant disparities in diet quality and diet-related health outcomes,” wrote cardiologist Dariush Mozaffarian and two of his colleagues at Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science & Policy in a March 2019 paper published in JAMA.

Expressing disappointment with what he says is a lack of SNAP policy innovation in the 2018 Farm Bill, Mozaffarian wrote that the current $1 per person per year food insecurity nutrition incentive (FINI) grant program that subsidizes low-income Americans’ produce purchases is too low.

“Expanding FINI to allow a 30 percent subsidy for all SNAP fruit and vegetable purchases would have cost $11.5 billion over five years—a far larger expenditure, but one that is estimated, based on a modeling study, to be cost-effective over a lifetime for reducing cardiometabolic diseases.”

Agricultural economist Parke Wilde, also at Tufts’ Friedman School, says that SNAP sales data might be useful to help identify food desserts, understand how SNAP contributes to healthy food environments and determine whether policy innovations in retail could increase the beneficial impact of SNAP.

“It seems to me it is useful to understand all of the retailers in the vicinity of where people live. We spend a lot of time thinking about how far it is to the closest supermarket, but I often find myself curious about how far do people travel to the supermarket that’s actually getting a lot of their business. So you can see how knowing the SNAP sales is potentially helpful,” said Wilde, who focuses on U.S. food and nutrition policy, consumer economics, and federal food assistance programs.

What We Learned from the Supreme Court

With the disclosure of SNAP retailer sales data hinging on how the court interprets FOIA exemptions, it is unclear how the Court, with its conservative majority, might rule on the case.

Conservative justices on the Court were less active in their questioning. Justice Neil Gorsuch asked the attorney for the Argus Leader for greater insight into how the word “confidential” has been interpreted in the prior cases and Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked the DOJ attorney about the legal threshold for keeping the sales data from disclosure.

“Can it be deemed confidential even in cases without government assurance?” Kavanaugh asked, exploring the potentially broader implications of the Court’s decision.

In one of her questions to Young, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg discussed whether the USDA can avoid sharing the data just because of its agreement with retailers. “To say the government can control this by making a promise that it won’t disclose, that seems to run counter to the whole idea of FOIA,” she said.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the most active in questioning the attorneys, reminded the attorney for FMI and DOJ that the USDA has lost two prior cases for keeping retail data confidential, and asked whether FMI had standing in the case—the requirement to bring a lawsuit in court based upon a stake in the outcome—especially after the USDA announced that it would comply with the district court’s November 2016 decision.

When Yang told the Court that USDA would not release the data as a matter of good governance, Sotomayor responded, “Mr. Yang, you are going to tell me that you were going to be in contempt on the order?”

More questions came when the attorneys discussed whether the FOIA exemption required retailers to show releasing the data would have a “competitive harm”—or negative impact—on their business.

Loeb argued that courts in the past have ruled that companies must demonstrate harm in order to request an exemption from disclosing information under FOIA. “We know trade secrets required under the common law a showing of competitive harm,” Loeb said, adding, “confidential business information also required a showing of competitive harm.”

But unlike the attorneys from the two prior court proceedings, who argued on behalf of the USDA that revealing store sales information would lead to “substantial competitive harm,” the FMI asserted that that food retailers didn’t have to demonstrate competitive harm to prevail in this case.

The line of questioning from the justices hinted at the case’s larger implications: Should the Court decide that businesses can withhold data without showing competitive harm, it could set a precedent for companies across industries to withhold any and all data.

While the Court is expected to announce its decision at the end of June, food policy analysts reiterate that, in keeping with the spirit of the goals of the SNAP program, the information should become available.

“This is really a public investment,” Wilde said. “The public has made an investment in preventing hunger through the SNAP program. I think of this as being not so much the government sharing [companies’] trade secrets but really about sharing the government’s own investment in food retail by location.”

The post Supreme Court’s Ruling on Making SNAP Retail Data Public Has Broad Public Health Implications appeared first on Civil Eats.