The Market Match nutritional program managed to secure $15 million in the California state budget, which officially took effect Wednesday. Used by 650,000 Californians, the program expands access to locally grown produce for recipients of food assistance benefits by matching up to $15 of CalFresh dollars at participating farmers markets statewide.
An earlier proposal from Governor Gavin Newsom’s office in May allocated zero dollars to the nutritional program as part of an effort to lower the state’s record-high deficit.
Program administrators originally hoped to get $20 million for the 2026-27 year and $30 million for the year after, which is more funding than what had been previously allotted for the program. In 2024, the state allocated $35 million, which is set to run out in early 2027. There has been no permanent or ongoing General Fund appropriations towards Market Match since it started in 2009, meaning that the program is subject to fluctuations in — or elimination of — funding every two-year budget cycle.
“We plan to continue the program as is for now and hopefully have some small expansions in the next year, but most likely not a significant growth in the number of sites [offering Market Match] with this funding level,” said Portia Bramble, Ecology Center’s food and farming program director.
“If other funding sources are secured, our highest priority does remain expansion of the program statewide to all certified farmers markets who operate with [CalFresh] and wish to include a Market Match program,” she said.
Facing the possibility of zero funding, organizations including Berkeley-based Ecology Center, which oversees the Market Match program, and Foodwise, which manages farmers markets in San Francisco, lobbied to lawmakers to get any amount of money they could.
The California Assembly and Senate wrote in a one-time allocation of $15 million for the program, which falls under the California Nutrition Incentive Program (CNIP), in its joint Legislative budget proposal on June 11. (The funds are for the 2026-27 fiscal year, though administrators say the funds may not necessarily be paid until 2028 per the language of the bill.) The Legislative budget amounted to $356 billion, while Newsom’s proposed budget came in at just under $350 billion. Faced with federal budget cuts from President Donald Trump’s H.R.1 (aka Big Beautiful Bill), Newsom’s plan sought cuts, especially in social services and healthcare. Newsom ultimately signed a $352 billion budget after two weeks of negotiations, the last of his tenure as governor.
June’s panic to secure funding came amid big changes to California’s food assistance benefits prompted by H.R.1. In June, California began enforcing expanded federal guidelines that require CalFresh recipients to work an average of 80 hours a month and a stark reduction in benefits for those who don’t. The new requirement was projected to put half a million Californians at risk of losing food assistance. H.R.1 also cut food benefits for humanitarian immigrants, impacting some 34,000 people in the state.
“There's a lot of need,” Martin Bourque, executive director of the Ecology Center, told Gazetteer SF in May. “These recent general cuts to CalFresh through H.R.1 not only push a large number of people out of CalFresh and SNAP through eligibility requirements, but also have reduced the amount of benefits that people are getting. So it's even more critical to them that they can double that money at local markets — otherwise, they’re totally priced out of fresh foods.”
Market Match administrators will now be tasked with stretching the $15 million to fund a program they say needs at least $20 million to operate. While the program no longer faces an existential threat, expansion is mostly off the table.
Still, administrators are relieved that there will be no pauses in service.
“These one-year allocations can be frustrating and sometimes folks feel a little dismayed when we don't see multi-year allocations, but it's pretty typical and very few programs in the state have continuous funding,” said Ecology Center’s Bramble. “I think our momentum is stronger than ever and we feel a great sense of relief and excitement to move into this next phase.”
