The Market Match program doubles the amount of money that CalFresh recipients can spend on fruits and vegetables at farmers markets. The state renews the funding for this program every few years.
The current allocation is supposed to be available until June 2028, but it’s expected to run out by early 2027.
Last year, 650,000 people used the benefit. Martin Bourque is the Executive Director of the Ecology Center, which oversees the Market Match program in California and runs the farmers markets in Berkeley. He says that’s equivalent to 50 million servings of fresh food.
"The program provides just a tremendous amount of benefit from a strictly food insecurity perspective, just putting more food on people's tables. But that same dollar then goes directly to farmers. At a supermarket, only 16 cents on every food dollar actually goes to the farmer, whereas at a farmers market almost 100% of that money is going right back into that farming community."
Maria Gonzalez, Operations Specialist at Greenthumb Organic Farms in San Juan Bautista, says they have a strong client base in San Francisco, and most of those shoppers rely on Market Match funds to help make ends meet.
"As farmers, we do this type of work to give access to people to food. We have been spreading the word out with our customers, that they can contact their local politicians, and just let them know about their concern about them losing funds to purchase food."
Governor Gavin Newsom’s office unveiled a revised budget last week that has no additional funds for the program. The budget will be finalized before the next fiscal year starts on July 1st.
