Every day, Marc James sees blatant income inequality in the LeDroit Park neighborhood of Washington, D.C.

“To the north, you have the Kelly Miller housing projects, where about 94 percent of residents are below the federal poverty limit and most are unemployed,” says James, who worked as the farm programs manager at Common Good City Farm until early January. “To the south, you have people who had the chance to get their master’s degrees or are captains of industry and can afford million-dollar homes.”

The half-acre nonprofit farm is caught in the middle of these two economically divergent communities and offers a “pay-what-you-can” farm stand for residents in both neighborhoods with the hope that one group will help pitch in to feed the other.

“Some people have the means and some don’t,” James admits. “I started looking around, and I said, ‘What can I do to get the south side of the park to help support the people that live on the north side?’”

D.C. isn’t the only place where this kind of model is proving useful. People from all walks of life have been impacted by the pandemic and recent record-high inflation, which peaked at 10.4 percent for food prices last summer—the largest increase since 1981. And increased SNAP benefits just dropped at the end of February, leaving households to receive at least $95 less in benefits each month. As a result, sliding scale produce is playing an increasingly important role in keeping communities around the country healthy. But it hasn’t been an easy few years for farms using the pay-what-you-can model.

Produce for the ‘Common Good’

For nearly a decade, Produce Plus, an enrollment-based assistance program funded by D.C.’s health department, began providing low-income residents with $40 each month to spend at farmers’ markets and farm stands from June to September. It’s meant to buttress food budgets for families and individuals while compensating local growers, particularly first generation and BIPOC farmers.

Yet more than an estimated one-third of all D.C. area residents are still food insecure. Ward 1, where Common Good City Farm is located, houses an estimated 88,800 residents, or more than a tenth of the total D.C. population.

Among them, 11 percent fall below the federal poverty line. A fifth of all households earn less than $49,999 annually, an economic problem intensified by race. White households, on average, earn $155,497 compared to $66,506 among Black households.

The sliding scale business model is a response to this inequality. Shoppers are told the full price of the food and given the opportunity to pay 25, 50, 75, or 100 percent of that price for a maximum of $30 off their total purchase. Roughly 35 to 40 percent of all the farm’s customers now accept a discount, and that’s twice the number that did during the market’s first pay-what-you-can season in 2021. That year, Common Good City Farm received $255,600 in foundation and government grants, according to Josephine Chu, the farm’s interim executive director.

It has taken a while for the farm’s managers to arrive at this approach. When Common Good first launched the model, James says the math equation at the heart of the farm was changing week to week. At one time, more people were getting food at zero-cost than actually paying for it, forcing the nonprofit to start asking for donations at the register, he says.

“We definitely felt [the impact of inflation], but I had to keep my finger on the pulse of the market and adjust from week to week,” says James.

Although the urban farm grew 3,800 pounds of produce last season, James still had to purchase fresh food from outside vendors to properly stock the stand. It also meant that he never hesitated to accept free produce—even when the calls from his charitable network of farms would take him hours away to pick it up.

“I remember picking up a thousand heads of lettuce, 600 dozen eggs, whatever it takes to keep it going,” adds James. “I care about my community, so I made that drive—[I was] probably a little overcommitted sometimes.”

Last year, Common Good City Farm spent more than $40,000 on food from outside vendors, slightly less than the previous year, says Chu. And some varieties were more available than others on any given week, depending on the season and the purchasing costs.

“Imagine if I had to pay my salary, cover the cost of the assistants and of all the program materials and do a pay-what-you-can market. I’d be filing for bankruptcy within three months,” says James. “We have support from a lot of our community that helps us keep things going.”

‘Pe’ah-What-You-Can’

The operation was part of a larger nonprofit, the Leichtag Foundation, in 2014, before it splintered off to become its own nonprofit two years later. Backed by community grants, it donates three-quarters of its annual harvest directly to a plethora of strategic local partners combating food insecurity. The stand also provides a way for the public to purchase their regeneratively grown produce twice a week.