Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company  
The New York Times
March 17, 2002, Sunday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section 1; Page 32; Column 3; National Desk 

LENGTH: 1070 words

HEADLINE: Farmers Market Program Wins Support but Loses Subsidy

BYLINE:  By ELIZABETH BECKER 

DATELINE: BIRMINGHAM, Ala.

BODY:
They arrive in busloads, usually an hour before the market opens so they can be the first to sort through the greens, cradle the tomatoes and snap the peas -- expertly choosing the pick of the crop.

Then these pensioners linger, telling the farmers how these vegetables taste as robust as they remember from childhood.

"It is a great day just to go the farmers market and buy food that fresh," said Arcelle Ellison, 77. "In the country we were sent out to the field to pick greens for supper, and I haven't tasted food that good since."

Ms. Ellison and a dozen of her friends from the Pratt City Senior Garden, a social center, discovered the Birmingham Farmers Market late in life, encouraged by a federal program that gives 2.6 million low-income people coupons worth an average of $40 for the summer redeemable only at farmers markets.

The intention is to improve the diet of the elderly and, in a similar program, that of poor mothers and children, supplying them with fresh produce from local farms.

It has also proved to be a boon to small farmers, who needed steady customers for their fruits and vegetables beyond fancy restaurants and urban families. Crops like these are ineligible for the $20 billion in subsidies that go to grain and cotton farmers each year, and the markets that sell them are largely frozen out of the food stamp program because they do not have the equipment to process its electronic debit cards.

Across the country, the farmers market coupons have helped 14,400 small produce farmers increase their business simply by providing guaranteed customers. Here in Alabama, the money helped farmers keep their land.

But in the new era of budget deficits, the Bush administration has eliminated the farmers market program for older people from next year's budget. Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman cut the financing in half this year to $10 million, saying there was no more money in the department's $73 billion budget.

Eric Bost, the under secretary of agriculture for food and nutrition, said in an interview: "The program is admirable, but the issue for us and the president is that we are not able to fund everything we wanted. We care for the elderly, but we don't have the money for this."

Danny Jones, the farmer who heads the Birmingham Farmers Market, sells tomatoes, snow peas and cucumbers to the restaurants of Frank Stitt III, a leading chef in the state. But Mr. Jones said that until the federal coupon program began to bring in a steady stream of lower-income mothers in 1992 and older people last year, the 200 farmers who are members of the cooperative business had a hard time staying in business.

"It's been a blessing," Mr. Jones said, standing among the market's vegetable stalls. "It was tough for us patch farmers to make a living. We'd raise a product and have to throw it to the hogs because there was no one there to buy it."

There is sympathy for the program in Congress. In negotiations over the final farm bill, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, presented a proposal to make the program a permanent entitlement, like food stamps. In the House, Representative Marcy Kaptur, Democrat of Ohio and ranking minority member of the Agricultural Appropriations Subcommittee, will move to increase financing to $35 million.

"It is a public embarrassment to drop this program," said Ms. Kaptur, who organized a bake sale in her home state last year when Gov. Bob Taft canceled matching money for the farmers market coupons. Eventually, the money was restored.

But the troubled history of this small program reflects the strong pressures buffeting American agriculture, where the sentiment is with the small family farmer but the money goes to the big commercial operations. In her major policy statement last year, Ms. Veneman said crop subsidies were lopsided in favor of large farmers and argued that "a new farm policy must be tailored to reflect the wide difference in farms today."

The growing network of farmers markets is important for "insuring that small acreage farmers make a reasonable living," she said in an interview.

But as Congress and the administration decide how to spend $171 billion in the new 10-year farm bill, those ideas have come under fire by big agribusiness concerns. The formula for paying commodity crop subsidies will continue to give the top 10 percent of the farmers half the payments, and a provision to limit individual subsidies to $275,000 could falter.

In Alabama, the only state with an independent agency to promote farmers markets, the maneuvers in Washington are viewed with dread.

For Don Wambles, 47, director of the farmers market agency, the elimination of the program would cut the core from a network he is creating to provide farmers markets for the 50,730 Alabamians who shop with the coupons.

"What is so heart-wrenching is we have counties lining up to join the program, but there is no money," said Mr. Wambles, a former peanut and cotton farmer. "I've been to Washington and they're talking out of both sides of their mouth, saying this is a fine program but there just isn't any money for it."

Mr. Wambles succeeded in matching farmers to markets, convincing many farmers to revive their old patch gardens and grow as great a variety of vegetables as possible.

Clarence Dixon, 60, who farms 200 acres in Clanton, needed little prompting to plant even more plum and peach trees and grow sweet corn, okra, tomatoes, greens, squash, melons, peppers and all manner of peas -- English, crowder, lady finger and purple hull.

Since the farmers market coupon program began, Mr. Dixon said, his sales have increased nearly 40 percent and his profits have risen even more because he sells directly to the customer at the market, picking up the profit normally pocketed by a wholesaler.

"There's no middleman," Mr. Dixon said, "just us and the customer."

Since the program began, not only are Ms. Ellison and her friends from the Pratt City center eating foods fresh from the fields, they are also canning tomatoes and peas for the first time since they were young parents.

"The doctor said I needed to change my diet, and I put up four jars of tomatoes and five pounds of peas last summer," said Roy Price as he played dominoes at the center.

"Nothing tastes better," Mr. Price said, "and, God willing, this summer I'll do the same."
 

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GRAPHIC: Photos: Roy Price, Mattie Burrell, center, and Ella May Beasley all used coupons to buy fresh produce at the Birmingham Farmers Market last year.; Danny Jones, the Birmingham Farmers Market manager, said the market struggled until a federal coupon program began bringing in customers. (Photographs by Jamie Marin for The New York Times)

LOAD-DATE: March 17, 2002