Come summer, the Town Commons will be awash in juicy tomatoes, deep purple eggplant and peppers of every hue.

But, up until now, if you've wanted to buy local, you've had to do it the old-fashioned way: in cash. The market did not take plastic.

Starting May 1, customers will be able to use credit, debit and EBT (food stamp) cards to buy wooden tokens that can be spent like cash.

The idea is to grow the local economy and give people regardless of income an opportunity to buy fresh food from area farmers.

It's not the first time Carrboro has reached out to recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly called food stamps.

Four years ago, the market, along with markets in Hillsborough and Durham tried a pilot program that ended when the money ran out.

Now, the Carrboro market has received a $17,000 grant from the Rural Advancement Foundation International-USA and become one of four markets accepted into the N.C. 21st Century Farmers' Markets program run by Chapel Hill-based nonprofit Leaflight.

It and the other three - Piedmont Farmers' Market Inc., Lexington Farmers' Market, and Western Wake Farmers' Market - join 11 markets already in the program.

One of them, Asheville City Market, did about $2,000 worth of business, or about 10 percent of total sales, in plastic last Saturday, manager Mike McCreary said.

Last year in just a few months, the market did about $20,000 in credit and debit card sales and $6,000 in EBT or electronic benefit transfer sales.

"We were very pleased," McCreary said. "We are promoting it. We expect it to increase significantly this year."

The program comes as SNAP enrollment has surged in Orange County, as it has across the state.

As of March 31, there were 4,731 cases in the food assistance program, up 29 percent from the year before, according to the Department of Social Services.

How it works

Robert Andrew Smith, executive director of Leaflight, says the nonprofit provides services like training and bookkeeping that local farmers markets often can't provide. The agency worked on the 2006 pilot and has designed the current version.

Here's how it will work:

If you want to pay with your card, you will tell a cashier how many tokens, or "truck bucks," you want. The cashier will give you $5 tokens if you're paying by credit or debit and $1 tokens if you're paying by EBT card.

As an incentive to SNAP customers, the Carrboro market will offer a limited-time program that doubles the value of their benefits. Customers who spend up to $20 on their EBT card will receive another $20 in free truck bucks, said market manager Sarah Blacklin.

The new program would not have happened without Leaflight, RAFI-USA's Tobacco Reinvestment Grant and partners like UNC's Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention and The Splinter Group, which provided free graphic design, advertising and marketing services to the Common Currency program, Blacklin said.

"We have a lot of community support," she said. "We think it's something the community is going to embrace."

New customers

Wild Hare Farm has participated with government assistance programs, like the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) coupons, said owner Leah Cook, president of the market's board of directors.

"Programs like these bring in new customers who otherwise might not shop at the market," she said in a release.

The Carrboro market is already planning outreach to the Latino, Burmese and ethnic Karen communities.

Sabrina López, a master's degree student at UNC's School of Journalism and Mass Communication, is studying food system reform and will be the program coordinator.

"Public markets have historically been places where changes in agriculture and immigration have overlapped," she said in the release. "Our project addresses these needs and interests that everyone values."

Having a single cashier keeps individual farmers from having to swipe cards and process electronic bills. Even so, the program will require those used to a cash and personal check only business to "wrap their minds around a whole new way of doing things," Smith said.

He's confident any hesitation will disappear, however, as farmers welcome new customers.

"SNAP is huge," he said. "We're looking at significant sales and revenues for farmers markets."