摘要：Although farmers’ markets offer healthy foods for purchase, many lack the equipment necessary to process convenient, card-based transactions. We assessed the impact of providing wireless terminals to 5 markets on overall sales and redemption of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. Sales increased significantly at 4 of the 5 markets after implementation of the terminals, and overall sales increased above and beyond SNAP redemption alone. Implementation of wireless terminals may be important for improving the financial stability and accessibility of farmers’ markets. With the increased popularity of the “buy local” movement, demand is growing for venues selling locally grown foods, such as farmers’ markets. 1–4 These venues offer the potential to expand access to fresh, healthy foods for a variety of consumers, in particular low-income consumers. 5,6 Farmers’ markets, for example, can become certified to accept benefits from food assistance programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). 7,8 However, barriers exist that limit the full use of such benefits. For instance, many farmers’ markets operate in temporary locations that lack electricity, making card-based transactions requiring plug-in terminals difficult to process. 9,10 This can limit both the convenience of card-based purchasing for all consumers and accessibility of markets to SNAP participants. With the conversion of SNAP benefits from paper coupons to electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards, SNAP redemption at markets dropped from $6.4 million in 1994 to $3.8 million in 1998. 11 SNAP redemption has since increased, with more than $7.5 million in benefits redeemed in 2010. 12 Despite this increase, only 0.01% of all SNAP benefits were redeemed at farmers’ markets that year. 12 In this pilot study, we investigated the impact of wireless terminal use on overall and EBT sales at farmers’ markets. We hypothesized that implementation of wireless terminals would increase SNAP redemption and overall sales at these markets.
