Every Thursday at the Fairfield Farmers’ Market, many customers don’t pay for their fruits and vegetables with cash, credit card or Apple Pay. Instead, they go to the information booth, swipe their CalFresh EBT card and receive paper vouchers to spend on produce.
Under Market Match, California food aid recipients get as much as $10 in matching money — meaning they have at least $20 to spend every week at their local farmers’ market.
“We already spend $200 on meat and cheese at Costco,” said Mitzi Castillo, who lives in Fairfield with two young daughters. “If I didn’t have Market Match, they would have to wait ’til next week to eat fruits and veggies when my husband gets paid.”
Castillo buys cherries, strawberries and blueberries from one of the many farmers who also reap benefits from the program, which brings customers and more cash to more than 270 farmers’ markets across the state.
“For me, I get more money, and for the people who use it, they can feed their family more,” said Salvador Navarro, a farmer from Stockton who said he makes as much as $300 from Market Match at the Fairfield Farmers’ Market, more than enough to cover the cost of his stall.
Together with his stalls across the Bay Area, Navarro says he makes $50,000, or a fourth of his income every season, from CalFresh customers and Market Match.
About Market Match
Market Match is the largest funding beneficiary of the California Nutrition Incentive Program, which is run by the California Department of Food and Agriculture. In 2022, the program provided about 38 million servings of fruits and vegetables to CalFresh participants, accounting for $19.5…
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