The province has thrown a lifeline to a struggling food currency program.
In a recent announcement, the government said it would provide $1.1 million over the next three years for Direct Farm Manitoba’s Community Food Currency Program.
“We are thrilled to see the program expand, building on its previous success, with this support from the province,” said Kristie Beynon, executive director of Direct Farm Manitoba.
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“With the price of food skyrocketing, an increasing number of Manitoba households are struggling with food insecurity. This program increases access to healthy, local food for those who need it most while supporting our local farmers and farmers markets and building stronger communities. It really is a win-win-win.”
In May, various grants that backed the operation had dried up and organizers were concerned about the program’s future. A small number of generous private donations kept it going.
“We were able to run the program at the same level as we had in 2021 so that was fantastic,” said Beynon. “We even went into a new market.”
But the group worried about long-term sustainability.
This year, the program was able to serve more than 240 households, working with eight community partner organizations and five farmers markets in five rural and urban communities. Coupon redemption rates are strong, with more than 98 per cent of distributed vouchers in 2021 spent on fresh, local food from Manitoba producers.
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The program provides community food currency to participants to spend directly on Manitoba farm products at farmers markets. Direct Farm Manitoba works with farmers markets and community social service organizations to increase access to healthy local food.
Community-based social service organizations identify families disproportionately affected by inflation that need healthy food. Each family receives $28 in food currency per week for 14 weeks ($392 in total) during the summer market season from late June to early October.
“They are able to spend it like cash,” said Beynon. “Then those redeemed vouchers get sent back to us from the participating markets, and then we reimburse those markets and farmers.”
The model for the program was borrowed from a similar one in British Columbia.
“One of our farm members brought it up at our annual town hall in 2018 and we decided to work on creating our own program in Manitoba,” said Beynon.
She went to B.C. and met with organizers, took notes and came back with a plan.
“In 2020, we launched our pilot here and it was really successful.”
Direct Farms has made several funding proposals to the province since the program’s inception. Beynon was told in early November that one of them had been accepted.
“We were working closely with Manitoba Agriculture throughout the process,” she said. “They’ve always been big supporters of the program. So, we were really excited when I got a call last week. We’re really grateful for the great work that Manitoba Agriculture has done to support this program all the way along.”
The accepted proposal was a request for $360,000 annually.
“We were happy to see that it would be multi-year, which helps the program solidify and allows us to plan appropriately,” Beynon said.
Plans include program growth. Beynon said the $360,000 in annual funding quadruples the program’s previous budget.
“Fortunately, the program is pretty easily expandable. We’ll take what we’ve been doing already. The infrastructure is there.
“In the new year, when everything gets put together, there will be an intake where we’ll be accepting applications from farmers markets along with community partners in their neighbourhood,” Beynon says.
“We will prioritize working with the partners who already have a good track record with the program, and then we’ll be looking at areas in the province that don’t have access right now.”
She doesn’t expect any growing pains from program expansion.
“We’ll be looking to see how we need to grow that in all ways,” she said. “It’s a pretty new announcement, but we feel really positive that we’re going to continue to offer an excellent program and adapt our organization to meet those needs.
“It will be an excellent few years to be running this, and we hope that the program will continue on after that.”
