Giving Compass' Take:

• Pacific Standard reports on a Colorado food program that gives SNAP recipients extra cash to spend in local farmer's markets.

• There are mutual benefits to this effort: lower-income people get more nutritious food, while the local agriculture community receives support. Could this be a model for other areas around the country?

• Here's a closer look at the details of SNAP and how it removes people from poverty.

A program in Colorado that allows federal food aid recipients like Tamara Anne to double the amount they spend on locally grown produce is transforming impoverished families' eating habits. Fittingly, the program is called Double Up Food Bucks.

"My teenager said to me recently: "Hey, mom, I want you to know I really like fruit more now," recounted Anne, as she plopped reddish-orange Palisade peaches into a cream canvas bag.

"With Double Up Food Bucks, we've been getting a few starters, and he's watching lettuce grow," she added, as she traversed a farmer's market in suburban Denver on a sunny July day. "It's so crazy. He will even clip it and eat it."

Anne is one of 5,755 federal-food-assistance recipients who, in 2017, used the program to buy Colorado-grown fruits and vegetables in 96 locations across the state. On top of that, the purchases support local farmers, many of whom grapple with drought and rising costs.

In the Centennial state, Double Up provides Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, recipients $1 for every $1 they spend, up to $20 per market visit per day. Farmer's market managers swipe food-aid participants electronic benefit transfer cards and hand them $20 in colorful vouchers and $20 in SNAP benefits to redeem at participating vendors.

Read the full article about increased access to local produce for SNAP recipients by Jennifer Oldham at Pacific Standard.