farmers' market

Last Sunday, I had the pleasure of lending a hand as a volunteer at Rooftop Farms in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The name says it all: it is a 6000 square foot urban vegetable farm on the roof of an industrial building, growing rows inter-cropped with lettuces, tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers, kale and much more, which they sell directly to restaurants and at a farm stand inside the building every Sunday from 9am – 4pm.

Annie Novak and Ben Flanner are the farming minds behind the project. Both are passionate about how food gets to our table (Novak works with farmer Kira Kenney of Evolutionary Organics at the Greenmarket, and works as the Children’s Gardening Program Coordinator at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. Flanner is new to farming but seems to get a kick out of hawking produce). Chris and Lisa Goode of Goode Green, a green roofing company, found the roof and funded Rooftop Farms as a test. With this project, the team hopes to determine what is possible in terms of scale for growing on rooftops in the city.

Posted by Lexi Van de Walle

New York State is leading the way in improving access to fresh, locally grown and nutritionally dense fruits and vegetables for low-income mothers and their children. Beginning July 1st, New York is the first of hopefully many states to allow pregnant women and mothers who are enrolled in the Women’s Infants and Children’s Supplemental Nutrition (WIC) program to use their monthly checks at farmers’ markets to buy eligible fruits and vegetables.

Until last month, when Governor David Patterson announced the addition of farmers’ markets as an approved outlet for WIC mothers to add to their shopping routine, a WIC participant living in New York could only buy locally grown produce if either their supermarket sold locally grown fruits and vegetables or she received one of the $24 Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program coupons good from Juy-November from their local New York WIC agency.

Now, with the new program, not only does a mother have greater choice where she buys produce, but she also has a lot more money to spend at the vibrant and bustling markets featuring local farmers.

A mother with two children under five years old, for example, is eligible to receive $20 a month that can be spent at farmers’ markets which adds up to $240 a year versus only $24 per year with the Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program (FMNP) coupon – an eleven-fold increase of spending power at the estimated 1,300 farmers’ markets in the state authorized to accept WIC checks as she is still eligible to receive the $24 FMNP coupon for a total of $264 per year to spend on local, farm food.  

Posted by Lexi Van de Walle

New York State is leading the way in improving access to fresh, locally grown and nutritionally dense fruits and vegetables for low-income mothers and their children. Beginning July 1st, New York is the first of hopefully many states to allow pregnant women and mothers who are enrolled in the Women’s Infants and Children’s Supplemental Nutrition (WIC) program to use their monthly checks at farmers’ markets to buy eligible fruits and vegetables.

Until last month, when Governor David Patterson announced the addition of farmers’ markets as an approved outlet for WIC mothers to add to their shopping routine, a WIC participant living in New York could only buy locally grown produce if either their supermarket sold locally grown fruits and vegetables or she received one of the $24 Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program coupons good from June-November from their local New York WIC agency.

• Are you interested in how state legislation can impact healthier food in low-income neighborhoods?
• Do you believe there is room for growth in our farmer’s market programming?
• Do you believe mothers and their children should get up-to-date nutrition advice and services?

If you answered yes to any of the above, attending this months FSNYC’s Open Networking Meeting is a must.