In 2019, the Floyd County Farmers’ Market became eligible to accept the Kentucky Department of Agriculture’s Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program Vouchers. The Floyd County Extension Office became the distributor for this program and has continued through 2021 with the Family & Consumer Science and SNAP-ed Nutrition Education Program. The Kentucky Department of Agriculture’s Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program provides redeemable vouchers for fresh, unprocessed local fruits, vegetables, herbs, and honey through approved Farmer’s Markets vendors to low-income seniors. This helps increase fruit and vegetable consumption for low-income seniors in Kentucky as well as encouraging them to shop local and support local Farmers.

This program provides low-income seniors with $48 vouchers to spend at the Farmers’ Market. In 2019, the redemption rate was less than 60%. In 2020, the redemption rate grew to 76.26% and in August 2021, the redemption is above the state average at 50%. In 2020, the Farmers’ Market brought in a total of $10,245 and the Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program contributed $2,631 of the earnings. In August 2021, the Farmers market has already earned $9,550.50 with the Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program contributing $1,725.

Over the years, this program has had returning seniors to redeem their annual vouchers and have vouched for this program. One of the local vendors also stated, “This program has helped out our local Farmers’ Market tremendously with sales.”