Community Farm Alliance’s 2025 Healthy Communities Impact Report brings together powerful stories and new data to highlight the real, person-level impact of increased food access. Across Kentucky, participants in programs like Kentucky Double Dollars and Fresh Rx for MOMs are eating more fruits and vegetables, experiencing greater food security, and building healthier habits for themselves and their families.
Dive into the report to see how access to fresh, local food is translating into meaningful health improvements in communities across the Commonwealth.
Accepting SNAP and Kentucky Double Dollars (KDD) at your farm stand or farmers market is a powerful way to grow your customer base and increase your sales. With Kentucky Double Dollars, SNAP customers can double their spending power by up to $20 per day—meaning more dollars flowing directly into your business.
Why offer SNAP and SNAP KDD?
Earn More Income: Every Kentucky Double Dollars redemption translates into real revenue from your products
Attract New Customers: Position your farm or market as a reliable source of affordable, healthy food
Support Your Community: Help families access fresh, locally grown produce while strengthening Kentucky’s food system
If you’re ready to get started but aren’t sure how, we’ve got you covered.
Join the SNAP Cohort
The SNAP Cohort is a free webinar series for Kentucky farm stands and farmers markets interested in accepting SNAP. In this first session, you’ll learn:
How to apply for a SNAP permit
What to expect during the application process
What equipment you’ll need, including free point-of-sale options
This is the first of three sessions in a yearlong cohort, where you’ll also receive hands-on technical assistance and connect with peers working toward the same goals.
Building Community Resilience, One Market at a Time: Red River Gorge Farmers Market and Kentucky Double Dollars
When the Red River Gorge Farmers Market (RRGFM) opened in 2019, it began with a vision: grow a farmers market that not only serves the local community, but strengthens the people growing the food. Nestled in Slade, Kentucky, a region better known for its natural beauty than access to fresh produce, the market became a gathering space and a lifeline.
But like many small rural markets, RRGFM faced a challenge: How do you serve a low-income community while still sustaining your vendors?
That’s where the Kentucky Double Dollars (KDD) program made a difference.
Meeting the Moment
In 2023, as RRGFM planned for its third season, the team applied to join the KDD program, which matches SNAP, WIC, and Senior nutrition benefits for fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, and more. They were accepted, and immediately began the work of onboarding vendors, setting up outreach, and integrating the program into market operations.
Fast forward to 2025—now in their fifth season and third year as a KDD market—and the results speak volumes. Sales are up. Farmer participation is strong. And most importantly, more people in the community are able to access the food they want to eat.
As Market Leader Jann Knappage puts it:
“I see KDD as a program that helps bolster community resilience while making the work of small-scale growers more sustainable. It’s about neighbors supporting neighbors.”
Shared Success
In 2025, RRGFM offered multiple KDD-eligible products—from fruits and vegetables to meats, eggs, and dairy—through SNAP and other KDD matching. This not only gave customers more choices, it also helped farmer vendors expand their income, improve predictability, and feel more invested in the long-term viability of the market.
The market used KDD not just as a financial tool, but as part of a broader strategy to center food access and farmer well-being together.
Customers using SNAP, Senior Nutrition, and WIC could stretch their dollars
Farmers could sell more of what they grow, knowing their customers could afford it
The market could measure impact, helping to secure local support and funding
This is the power of KDD—not a one-time boost, but a platform that markets can build from.
A Note of Thanks
This success story was possible because of collaboration—from the farmers and organizers on the ground to the funders who believe in long-term investment in local food systems.
CFA and RRGFM extend deep thanks to:
USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA)
Kentucky Agricultural Development Fund
Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky
Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky
And individual supporters—people like you, who believe in the future of Kentucky’s farmers and communities.
What’s Next
As markets across Kentucky prepare for 2026, stories like Red River Gorge show what’s possible when markets are trusted with resources, and farmers are seen as key players in food access work—not just producers, but community leaders.
Programs like KDD don’t just grow sales—they grow stability. They grow relationships, and they grow a food system rooted in dignity.
Want to support markets like Red River Gorge and help expand KDD across the state? Become a member of CFA today!
Farmers Markets all over the state will be starting back up in the next couple of months. Lexington’s downtown farmers market is open year-round outdoors, and that’s where folks can find CFA’s Kentucky Double Dollar’s Coordinator, Brittany Steffey most Saturdays during peak season. People like Brittany helped Holden Dillman utilize the Kentucky Double Dollars (KDD) program while he was a student at Berea College, which gave him the capability to double the first $10 of his SNAP benefits that he used at the Berea Farmer’s Market putting more money in the pockets of the farmers at that market and more produce, meat, and dairy in Holden’s fridge. In this hour, we travel the state to hear from farmers like Michelle and Nathan Howell of Need More Acres in Scottsville, James and Leta of the Letcher Co. Farmers Market, and Seth Long of Southdown Farm.
Above: Need More Acres Farm, Michelle, Nathan, and children Below: Michelle Howell at Farm Store
Below: Shelby Wheeler interviewing Southdown Farm’s Seth Long
Below: James & Leta of the Letcher County Farmers Market
Farmers Markets are vital to creating healthy communities and supporting our farm economy. Adventure with us to the Berea Farmers Market where you will hear from Market Manager, Faye Adams-Eaton and Berea College Student, Gerald Thomas about how they support their local farmers. You will also see marketing strategies they used to increase their Kentucky Double Dollars participation.
Created by Elijah Manning, Madison County Community Ambassador
