NYC GREENMARKETS by CECILIA DEPMAN

Roughly one third of these entitlement dollars were spent at NYC Greenmarkets. The expansion of SNAP/EBT at Greenmarkets helps to increase food access for low income New Yorkers and increase incomes for regional farmers--goals central to the objective of contemporary food system reform and imperative to both ending food insecurity and mitigating climate implications for agriculture.

This project visualizes each of those goals to better understand which producers and growing practices are bolstered by increased spending, and inversely, the degree to which EBT customers have acess to sustainably produced food. The market map shows market access for EBT cusomers in NYC. The producer map shows how those EBT dollars contribute to rural economies in the Northeastern U.S. and how Greenmarket producers are impacting soil quality through their growing practices (crop diversity and percent cultivated land). A spatial understanding of these relationships is of interest to farmers market opertors whose understanding of EBT spending patterns helps them to support their vendors in pursuit of more sustinable land management. It is also of interest to stakeholders in the food justice movement who want to advocate for food system reform through the lens of sustinable production and equitable consumption.