{"id":728,"date":"2016-06-30T22:11:47","date_gmt":"2016-06-30T22:11:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cdfa.ca.gov\/TalesFromTheField\/?p=728"},"modified":"2016-07-01T14:07:17","modified_gmt":"2016-07-01T14:07:17","slug":"governor-brown-approves-bill-that-could-improve-access-for-needy-families-from-the-san-jose-mercury-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cdfa.ca.gov\/TalesFromTheField\/?p=728","title":{"rendered":"Farmers Market Program Aiming to Help Low-Income California Families Gets New Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

From San Jose Mercury News, <\/em>By Annie Sciacca\u00a0 (asciacca@bayareanewsgroup.com)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"black<\/a><\/p>\n

California Gov. Jerry Brown has approved a bill that could boost a program increasing access to healthy food for low-income families through farmers\u2019 markets that has already grown considerably in the Bay Area.<\/p>\n

The governor has approved a state budget that includes $5 million for the California Nutrition Incentives Act, which sets up a program to discount fresh produce at farmers\u2019 markets for low-income shoppers. Signing the bill allows the state to take advantage of federal matching money through the U.S. Department of Agriculture\u2019s Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentive program and thus double the impact of its investment in the program.<\/p>\n

The largest operator of that program is Market Match,<\/span><\/a> which has so far been funded with a grant from the USDA. But that grant will run out in one year. The Ecology Center, which administers the program statewide, will have to apply through the USDA to get the matching funds, according to the center\u2019s food and farming director, Ben Feldman.<\/p>\n

More than 200 nonprofit organizations and individuals including Roots of Change, Latino Coalition for a Healthy California, American Heart Association and California Pan-Ethnic Health Network have worked to secure funding for the program over the last three years and consider the new approval a success after Gov. Brown cut the $2.5 million that the legislature requested for the program in 2015.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith this funding, the state of California has put its money where its mouth is in terms of supporting healthy eating for low-income families,\u201d said Martin Bourque, executive director of the Berkeley-based Ecology Center, in a statement. \u201cThe demand for Market Match has consistently outstripped the supply of funds. The additional $5 million will allow us to expand the program towards our goal of offering Market Match at every farmers\u2019 market in the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under Market Match, which was established by nonprofit Roots of Change, shoppers using federal assistance benefits can go to the farmers\u2019 market manager, indicate how much they want to spend using their Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) card, and get tokens to be used at stands with fruits and vegetables. If a shopper wants to spend $10, the program matches it to $20, giving them double the credit to use at the market.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s important because it not only increases people\u2019s access to local, fresh produce, it gets them actually more for what they\u2019re spending,\u201d Cristal Banagan, a Richmond resident who uses Market Match at Oakland and Richmond farmers\u2019 markets, told Bay Area News Group earlier this month.. \u201cIf you use EBT \u2026 you don\u2019t have the finest food, and you\u2019re in need of this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Market Match is on track to connect nearly 240,000 low-income shoppers with 2,200 of the state\u2019s small farms through farmers\u2019 markets, generating $9.8 million in fruit and vegetable sales. In the Bay Area, local farmers have earned $1.1 million directly from the program.<\/p>\n

***Cross Posted from Planting Seeds Blog<\/span><\/a>***<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From San Jose Mercury News, By Annie Sciacca\u00a0 (asciacca@bayareanewsgroup.com) California Gov. Jerry Brown has approved a bill that could boost a program increasing access to healthy food for low-income families through farmers\u2019 markets that has already grown considerably in the Bay Area. The governor has approved a state budget that includes $5 million for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ca-farm-to-fork-website"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4z2wv-bK","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdfa.ca.gov\/TalesFromTheField\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdfa.ca.gov\/TalesFromTheField\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdfa.ca.gov\/TalesFromTheField\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdfa.ca.gov\/TalesFromTheField\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdfa.ca.gov\/TalesFromTheField\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=728"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdfa.ca.gov\/TalesFromTheField\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":738,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdfa.ca.gov\/TalesFromTheField\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728\/revisions\/738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdfa.ca.gov\/TalesFromTheField\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdfa.ca.gov\/TalesFromTheField\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdfa.ca.gov\/TalesFromTheField\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}