Kevin Concannon

About 79 percent of people eligible for food stamps now participate in the program, Agriculture Undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services Kevin Concannon said today.

In a speech to an obesity conference sponsored by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, Concannon noted that when he was a state official in Iowa and Maine, only about 50 percent of people eligible for food stamps, now formally called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP, got benefits.

He attributed the change in the participation rate to federal and state efforts to make low-income people aware of their eligibility. Some Republicans have criticized USDA for advertising the availability of food stamps.

Concannon cited the SNAP statistic as one piece of evidence that USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service “is strongly positioned” to help in the fight to reduce obesity. He also noted that USDA is continuing research to find out what would lead SNAP beneficiaries to buy healthier food. The Hy-Vee grocery stores in the Midwest and the H-E-B stores in Texas, he said, are providing coupons for healthier items to food stamp customers to encourage their purchase.

In an interview after the speech, Concannon said that a customer who pays with an electronic benefit transfer card and is also a member of the store’s customer loyalty program buys white bread, that customer may be given a coupon for a dollar off on whole grain bread. A similar customer who buys pizza may be given a coupon to reduce the price of produce, he added.

The stores are bearing the cost of the coupons, he said, noting that this experiment follows an earlier project in western Massachusetts that showed that food stamp beneficiaries will take advantage of incentives to buy fruits and vegetables.