At a time when Congress is trying to cut food security and healthy entitlements, the Ecology Center’s Market Match program offers thousands of families facing hunger the ability to overcome high food costs, by doubling their purchasing power for California’s fresh, healthy, and local foods. In 2024, the Market Match program matched almost $10M in federal food benefits at nearly 300 California farmers’ markets and farm-direct sites. Families with limited incomes redeemed these benefits for fresh fruits and vegetables from California’s leading organic, sustainable, resilient family farms.
This program didn’t fall from the sky: it was won over the past 15 years, with efforts at the local, state, and national levels. The Ecology Center has led Market Match as a national leader and part of an active and engaged national coalition.
This past May, that coalition gathered at the National Nutrition Incentive Hub Convening in Minneapolis. There, the Ecology Center team, represented by Executive Director Martin Bourque and Food & Farming Program Director Josefina Lara Chavez, joined food access leaders, advocates, and policymakers. Over three days, they discussed today’s challenges and advances to healthy food incentive programs, like Market Match, and food as medicine programs in California and other states that support the most vulnerable in our communities.
Market Match is a statewide program that matches CalFresh EBT food benefits for fruits and vegetables at farmers’ markets, thereby doubling the purchasing power of CalFresh recipients. It is one of the largest and longest-running programs in the country, and a national leader in the field.
The National Nutrition Incentive Hub Convening created space for peer learning, strategy-sharing, and strengthening the national movement for food and health equity. Hot topics were:
- sharing information and insights regarding recent federal grant contract terminations by the new administration,
- ongoing federal funding for incentives in the reconciliation bill that is currently before the Senate,
- proposed cuts to SNAP Education, and Medicare funding,
- where these programs fit relative to new Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) priorities,
- technological innovations, and best practices.
Unlike many other programs offered in traditional retail environments, which provide increased access to fruits and vegetables from the industrial food system, Market Match is a Farmer First program focused on direct farm sales from small family farms at farmers’ markets, farm stands, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs, and Mobile Markets.
Our Executive Director, Martin Bourque, participated in two featured panels:
- Successes and Challenges of State Funding – sharing insights from the Ecology Center’s efforts in securing and sustaining state-level investments in nutrition incentive and food access programs.
- Challenges and Opportunities with EBT Integration: Feedback from Farmers and Markets – highlighting on-the-ground experiences from farmers and market operators navigating SNAP/EBT implementation, and advocating for more farmer- and community-informed solutions.
In the first panel discussion, there were shared experiences in organizing a broad coalition to secure ongoing state funding that would match the funding from the Federal Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program, alongside success stories from Texas and West Virginia.
In the second session, Martin presented findings from the California Fruit and Vegetable EBT Integration Pilot at farmers’ markets, which put the incentive dollars back on the EBT card as a supplemental benefit for shoppers. The Ecology Center ran this pilot for a year at seven markets across the state, including large and small, urban and rural, and northern and southern California markets.
The pilot also combined all funding in one large state-operated pot that simultaneously funded the pilot at 80 WIC stores and a handful of other smaller retailers. While the pilot solved many problems for retailers, it presented many challenges at farmers’ markets, and all but one of the markets dropped out of the pilot. The Ecology Center shared a two-page summary of findings and recommendations with attendees to help guide the program development in other states.
Throughout the convening, the Ecology Center team connected with other leaders advancing food justice and took away key strategies for storytelling, coalition building, and deepening impact through policy. Following the formal sessions, there was an informal gathering to discuss advocacy for the program in the current context. We provided insights and leadership from California and learned a lot about how others are faring in other states. We’re especially grateful to the Nutrition Incentive Hub for holding space for authentic dialogue and collaboration.
We are also profoundly grateful to our members and donors for their support of our advocacy work, which has enabled us to campaign for government funding. We cannot use state or federal funds for advocacy, so individual donations are the central source of funding for leveraging significant change. Next year, we will seek a substantial increase in state funding for this program and plan to activate our networks to support a proposal to make that funding an ongoing, regular part of the state budget.
