Today the Baltimore Sun ran an opinion piece co-authored by CLF director Robert Lawrence, Holly Freishtat, and Tom Albright. The piece proposed a win-win for farmers and SNAP (food stamp) participants: Supply farmers’ markets with electronic benefit transfer (EBT) machines so that people can spend their SNAP dollars at those markets. The essay makes an appeal especially to Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who sits on the Super Committee that may have sway over Farm Bill re-authorization.

To read the op-ed in the Baltimore Sun, click here. FarmPolicy.com, a daily agricultural news review excerpted the op-ed.

Tom Albright, a longtime Maryland farmer with family-run Albright Farms, has been selling at the Baltimore Farmers’ Market since 1979 and was able to accept food stamps until the program went digital. CLF partnered this year with Albright through its community supported agriculture (CSA) project. Holly Freishtat is Baltimore’s food policy director in the Office of Sustainability, Department of Planning.