State lawmakers aim to keep farmers market funding intact

As California faces a looming budget deficit and looks to tighten its belt, thousands of low-income San Franciscans and several farmers markets could lose a state benefit that increases access to fresh produce for food-insecure families and provides extra funds to small farms throughout the state.

But now, the Legislature is fighting to keep the Market Match program, operated through the California Nutrition Incentive Program in its most recently proposed budget. Lawmakers must pass a budget bill by Saturday under the state’s Constitution.

“Without this vital program, over 100,000 San Franciscans who receive CalFresh benefits would lose the opportunity to increase their spending power on healthy fruits and vegetables,” Supervisor Dean Preston said of state legislators’ latest proposal, released May 29, in a statement Monday. “It’s absolutely essential to the health and well-being of my constituents.”

Market Match operates at nearly 300 sites throughout California and in seven farmers markets in San Francisco, with the largest in the Heart of the City Farmers’ Market in Civic Center, said Minni Forman, the food and farming program director at Ecology Center, the lead organization for Market Match.

“It not only 1) addresses food insecurity; 2) it addresses getting money to small farmers,” she told The Examiner on Tuesday. “It moves federal and state money into rural areas that don't usually see these benefits.”

Forman said in a recent statement that CNIP has brought more than $30 million of federal matching dollars into California in the last seven years.

Some of that funding has gone to support the Heart of the City Farmers’ Market, which serves many low-income or unhoused residents in and around Civic Center who otherwise lack easily accessible, healthy grocery options.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed cuts alarmed Preston, whose district includes Civic Center, the Tenderloin, and other food-insecure neighborhoods. In response, Preston introduced a resolution calling on the State legislature to keep the program in place , which the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in unanimously passed in April.

Others on the state level have also supported such efforts, including San Francisco Assemblymember Phil Ting, whose 2017 legislation created CNIP.

"We must preserve this vital program to ensure these health and economic benefits last in our underserved communities. Without our continued investment, we’d lose the important gains we’ve made in improving health and stimulating small business growth,” Ting said in a statement on Monday.

But Newsom could still veto that one line item — a possibility that concerns Forman.

“It's a tight year, and there are other programs competing for funding,” she said.

Preston told The Examiner he was encouraged by state lawmakers’ support but that “it’s definitely too soon to declare victory.”