By Will Atwater
On a warm, sunny Saturday morning in late September, The Corner Farmers Market in Greensboro’s Lindley Park neighborhood was an inviting place to be. Throngs of people — some with kids or dogs in tow — drifted from one tent to the next, browsing tables filled with fresh vegetables, baked goods, cut flowers and handmade crafts.
Beyond the friendly atmosphere and fresh offerings, the market offers another important benefit: shoppers who receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits can not only use them here — they can get double their value.
SNAP participants can visit the manager’s booth to swipe their benefits card, and the market matches the amount — up to $50 — by issuing tokens that can be used to purchase any SNAP-eligible food, market manager Kathy Newsom said.
“They can buy meat, eggs, any sorts of produce [or] prepared foods if they’re cold,” Newsom said.
While the U.S. Department of Agriculture reimburses the amount spent through SNAP, Corner Market must raise separate funds — through grants, community donations and frequent fundraisers — to cover the cost of the match, Newsom said.
“We have to raise about $50,000 a year to match the amount of demand that comes into our market.”
Market regular Dianne, 67, who preferred to use only her first name, said she appreciates that the market offers a discreet, respectful way for SNAP users to shop without stigma.
“Shopping at the market is a win for all of us,” she said. “We need the vendors, and the vendors need us.”
But cuts to the SNAP program embedded in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act recently passed by Congress threaten to jeopardize access to farmers markets for millions of Americans like Dianne. In 2024, nearly 42 million people — about 12 percent of the U.S. population — received SNAP benefits each month, according to USDA data.
Because of the OBBBA, those benefits are due to shrink, with consumers and farmers taking the hits.
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We’re looking to put a face to the people who are going to be affected by cuts to SNAP (also known as EFT or food stamps).
Mixed messages
As concerns mount about the scheduled program cuts, U.S. Health and Human Services Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has pledged to “Make America Healthy Again.”
A statement on the HHS website reads: “Under the leadership of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., HHS is taking bold, decisive action to reform America’s food, health, and scientific systems to identify the root causes of the chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again.”
Yet in September, the USDA announced it would discontinue its annual Household Food Security Reports, also known as the Food Insecurity Survey — the tool used to measure how many U.S. households struggle to put food on the table. Without the survey, it’ll be hard to track how well people are doing in getting access to healthy food.
SNAP is a key federal tool for reducing food insecurity. Without it, millions of Americans would be at greater risk of hunger or be forced to eat cheaper, lower-quality food.
In North Carolina, more than 1.4 million people — across more than 700,000 households — receive SNAP benefits each month. More than 600,000 children, 159,000 adults over 65 and more than 46,000 North Carolina veterans rely on SNAP, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services.
In response to the federal government shutdown, the state health department assured residents that October SNAP benefits would not be affected. The agency encouraged households to continue applying for services and said it will post updates as new information becomes available from the USDA. Those with additional questions are urged to contact their local county department of social services, according to information provided on the agency’s webpage.
Mutual benefits
Maggie Funkhouser, the North Carolina Farmers Market Network program coordinator, emphasized the dual purpose of accepting SNAP benefits at farmers markets: expanding food access and supporting the local farm economy.
“[We] estimate that SNAP incentives make up about 20 percent of total sales at farmers markets — and 20 percent is huge,” Funkhouser said.
“If incentives get folks into that market to be able to buy highly nutritious, fresh, culturally relevant food — to support our farmers [and] connect them with our consumers who use SNAP — that’s the goal,” she said.
“We’re able to accept SNAP through the farmers market,” said Brittany Peters, who with her partner, Richard Raggi, operates Sun and Soil Farm in Madison, about 25 miles from Greensboro. The couple sell fruits, vegetables and flowers at the Corner Market.
“It’s a huge deal, because it makes our food more accessible to everybody,” Peters said.
That kind of accessibility — and the income it generates — is especially valuable for small farms, many of which operate on tight margins and face limited funding options.
The support is essential, said Roland McReynolds, executive director of Carolina Farm Stewardship Association, a nonprofit that advocates for sustainable, local and organic food systems. He explained that the federal government — primarily through the USDA and the farm bill that’s reauthorized every few years — has historically provided the main safety net for U.S. agriculture. State governments, including North Carolina, rarely step into this role, he said, and when they do, it’s typically on an emergency basis, such as providing disaster relief after Hurricane Helene.
With growing budget pressures from programs like Medicaid and SNAP, most states are unlikely to fully absorb the burden if federal support declines.
Still, McReynolds said, the state can play a vital role in the event of future SNAP cuts.
“If the state can step in to provide funding for SNAP Double Up Bucks programs — [that] will absolutely be important for helping a lot of small farms stabilize their revenue into next year,” he said.
In addition, in some parts of the state where the now-defunct Healthy Opportunities Pilot was buying produce from local farms to provide to Medicaid recipients, growers will be losing another revenue stream.
“In the Helene-impacted part of the state, there are a lot of farmers who got hit really hard last year,” McReynolds added. “They’re trying to make it this year, but when they run their numbers at the end of this year, we may be looking at a significant number of farmers who don’t come back for next year’s growing season.”
Uncertainty going forward
In response to questions about how North Carolina will support the more than 1 million residents who rely on monthly SNAP benefits, DHHS explained in an email that starting October 2026, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act includes provisions that would significantly reduce federal reimbursement rates to states for administering SNAP. That shift will force North Carolina’s 100 counties, which handle SNAP applications and eligibility, to absorb a greater share of administrative costs.
“NCDHHS will continue to work with county partners to drive down error rates, which determine the state cost share amount,” a department spokesperson said in an email. “Despite these challenges, the mission of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services remains unchanged — we will continue to work to improve the health and well-being of all North Carolinians.”
With the federal government shut down, combined with SNAP funding under pressure, questions persist about the future of SNAP — and what could happen to access to fresh produce at places like the Corner Farmers Market.
Reflecting on her experience shopping at the Corner Farmers Market, Diane said it’s her “happy place.”
“There’s wonderful vendors …It’s always fun to go there.”
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I believe your EBT story is misinformation!! RFK Jr is making the food stamp program healthy and no one that is disabled veterans or the elderly are getting any EBT programs cut! Why do you scare the public with this false article?? President Trump took the EBT programs away from the illegal criminals and if you are able bodied you have to work so many hours a month in order to receive EBT! And RFK Jr is making so no one can buy junk food with EBT anymore! Please stop spreading lies!!!
Ms Poarch,
The article accurately references three different sets of changes regarding SNAP EBT implementation and other government funding, and accurately demonstrates the connection between cuts in SNAP benefits and reduced farmer income. While the article focuses specifically on farmer income through farmers markets, it stands to reason that reduction in the amount of money that people have to spend on food, specifically the reduction of $187B from the SNAP budget over the next 10 years in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 20205,” will also reduce the revenue of those who grow and sell food.
No estimate of fraud or improper payments comes anywhere near the $187B to be cut. These cuts will result in people, significantly children, having less to eat. There is no way to accomplish those cuts without it.
The official purposes of SNAP not only include benefits to individual families that might be caught in an economic downturn, like the one we are in now, and preventing hunger, but also that spending goes directly into local businesses, stimulating the economy. Benefits to low wealth individuals are shown to provide economic stimulus and stabilization of the economy far more effectively than tax breaks to wealthy individuals. Every $1 spent on SNAP generates $1.85 in local economic activity according to USDA, especially in rural areas which generally have a higher percentage of the population receiving SNAP.
Your statement of SNAP benefits being taken away from “illegal criminals” is just not borne out by long-term studies of SNAP. Individuals in the country illegally are not and have not been eligible for SNAP benefits (same as with the Affordable Care Act). People who are in the country under asylum or refugee status were eligible previously, but that eligibility was eliminated under the OBBBA.
No program has been audited or had the integrity of payments scrutinized over time as much as SNAP. Long term studies show that intentional fraud of benefits is approximately 1%, the equivalent or lower than many comparable programs. Of course no one supports fraud, but we have to make sure that the steps we take balance fraud prevention with the number of eligible individuals who might be excluded because of increased paperwork and application requirements. How many hungry children are you willing to take food from to prevent one undeserving person from receiving benefits? Ironically, in 2024, under the previous administration, the overall improper payment rate for all government programs was the lowest in history.
You are correct that the OBBBA increased work requirements. SNAP has a 3-month time limit unless working at least 20 hours/week, but had previously had a series of limits and exemptions to this requirement, and the increase in work requirements was an elimination of many of these exemptions. The OBBBA eliminated blanket exemptions for veterans (and so did reduce benefits for a significant number of veterans,) people experiencing homelessness, young people transitioning out of foster care, and extended the time limits to include individuals between ages 55 and 64 instead of stopping at age 54. The administration also severely limited the ability of states to apply for a waiver to the time limits for areas where there is limited job availability, essentially eliminating this important flexibility.
Another major change which is likely to have significant impacts on benefits was to transition a portion of the cost of the program to states, an “unfunded mandate.” States have not included these costs in their budgets, and many are facing budget constraints with the significant economic damage caused by the tariffs implemented by this administration, and so may be forced to implement further cuts. It also introduces the potential for significant variations of benefits between states, which is a violation of basic equal protection principles.
The administration has also cut a wide range of programs to help people on SNAP make healthier food choices, and connect to healthy local food like the farmers markets in the story. Cancelled programs include SNAP ED, which provides nutritional education for SNAP recipients to make good nutritional choices, Local Food Purchasing Agreements, and a reduction in the Emergency Food Assistance Program.
These programs are complicated, and there is a great deal of misinformation out there, so it is not surprising that you might come to some incorrect conclusions. If you are interested, I am happy to share my sources for this comment, most of which are either USDA or OMB publications.
But, most of all, Mr. Atwater’s article is accurate. I hope this is helpful.
Editor’s note: the author of this comment is a former USDA official