Program that doubles dollars at farmer’s markets may be slashed
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On a typical Thursday, Katy Alaniz Barnhill goes to the Mission Community Market on 22nd Street to get her week’s worth of produce. These days, she fills her basket with greens, mushrooms and plums — but soon, her weekly market budget may be slashed.
Alaniz Barnhill, like some other 500,000 Californians, uses Market Match, a program that allows shoppers enrolled in CalFresh benefits, the state’s food-assistance program for low-income individuals, to double a portion of their allowance to spend on produce at farmer’s markets.
For $15 of her CalFresh dollars spent, Alaniz Barnhill gets $30 worth of food. But come later this year, she may have to pay from a shallower pocket, without the extra $15.
In January, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed state budget cuts that would virtually eliminate the funding for the California Nutrition Incentive Program, which funds Market Match. It may also leave additional funds on the table: The program has drawn in over $30 million in matching federal funds since 2017.
“It would be a killing cut to the Market Match program,” said Minni Forman, who oversees it and works at the Ecology Center, a health and environment nonprofit based in Berkeley.
It is another blow to low-income households. In 2023, some 70,000 San Francisco households, constituting around 100,000 people, had their CalFresh budgets reduced by an average of $160 per month, when pandemic-era food-benefit augmentations expired.
“Programs like Market Match are even more critical now,” said Forman. For 15 years, the program has been a statewide safety net that has given low-income households access to affordable, local produce.
Since January, Forman and her colleagues have been working to lobby against the budget cuts. “We have since been in some kind of a desperate scramble,” Forman said.
Every Thursday, anywhere from 80 to 100 shoppers stop by the Foodwise stall at the Mission farmer’s market to deposit their EBT payment in exchange for wooden tokens: Green ones (the matched funds) for fruits and vegetables, red ones for any food.
Over the last three years, the Mission market has distributed more than $73,000 in the matched funds alone.
“No Market Match? No customers. No customers? No sellers. No sellers? No market,” said Andrea Akers, who is the Associate Director of Market Operations at Foodwise, the nonprofit that runs the Mission farmers market.
The budget cut would be detrimental to the market, agreed Akers. It not only allows customers to stretch their dollars, but it also is an incentive for them to show up in the first place, which is important for the sellers, too.
Sergii Gavelovskiy sells 17 varieties of tomatoes and some peppers and zucchini at his stall, Gavel’s Farm. In just an hour and a half into the market on Thursday, he had already received $38 in wooden tokens.
It has really helped their business, Gavelovskiy said. It was only his second time selling at the Mission’s farmer’s market; usually he sets up shop at the Ferry Building. But he already noticed more Market Match shoppers in the Mission, compared to areas frequented by tourists.
While the matching funds can only go to produce sellers, for the others, the program brings in more foot traffic and overall sales.
“It does impact the market as a whole,” said Phil, the vendor at Winter’s Fruit Tree.
Phil sells a variety of nuts and nut butters, and some fruits. For the most part, CalFresh customers can only use the red tokens at his stall, which represent direct spending from an individual’s EBT allowance and not the matching funds. Still, he gets some income each Thursday, $50 or so. That adds up if you count the 17 markets his farm sells at per week, he said.
Seventeen of the some 290 markets that offer Market Match are in San Francisco. The Heart of the City Market, by Civic Center, is the largest in the state, in terms of CalFresh dollars spent. In 2023, $2.57 million was distributed and an additional $1.91 million in Market Match funds, according to Steve Pulliam, who manages the market.
During the pandemic, when office workers vacated downtown, the program attracted customers and kept them afloat, and still does, Pulliam said. “It’s super important for us,” he said.
And, at the Mission farmer’s market, likewise. If some come to double their money, some also stay for the community and atmosphere. On Thursday, the street was packed with shoppers holding bunches of kale and baskets of strawberries, to the backdrop of live music, dogs and even a group of fire department employees offering CPR training.
“There’s a good energy at this market,” said Pamela Osgood, a regular customer at the market.
That energy is one Forman and others are trying to maintain. They will keep lobbying in the hopes that the state budget will be revised next month. “We’re all holding our breath until the May revise,” said Forman.
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