San Francisco’s Market Watch program faces funding cuts due to state’s budget deficit
By John Ramos
With California facing a massive deficit, lawmakers are looking for places to cut spending. One of those facing the budget ax is a program called Market Match, which helps low-income people buy produce, while supporting the farmers who grow it.
Right now, the plan is to cut all funding to the program, which could affect the availability of healthy food in some areas of San Francisco.
The Civic Center and Tenderloin districts in San Francisco are often referred to as “food deserts” because of a lack of a full-service grocery store in the area.
So, on Wednesdays and Sundays, rain or shine, the Heart of the City Farmer’s Market is a gathering place for small farmers to sell their produce to people who desperately need it.
One of those is Tony Mellow, who, at age 70, has been growing fruits and vegetables his entire life on family land in Santa Clara County.
“We don’t come out here just to talk. We come out here to sell it, get rid of it,” he said. “It makes you happy to see that your stuff is not going to waste and being used. Because there are a lot of things that there is no outlet for anymore. They are closing down the canneries and a lot of other things. So, you want to do something with the product that you’re growing.”
It’s a perfect match for the Civic Center area because of all the people who have no other place to buy the stuff. On Sunday, the market’s executive director, Steve Pulliam, said, for that reason, Heart of the City is also the single largest user of the Market Match program in the entire state.
“Last year we used about $2.5 million in Market Match, at this market,” said Pulliam. “And recognize that that’s money that’s going to the customers to buy fruits and vegetables and going straight to the small farmers that are struggling out here.”
The program works like this: for each dollar spent on a SNAP EBT card, a voucher for an additional dollar is given, up to $30 per month, which can only be spent on fruits or vegetables at the market. The Heart of the City market purposely keeps its prices low, so in a time of high inflation, the match program can be important for low-income people and elderly folks on fixed incomes.
“Eight hundred and fifty customers use it per day,” said Pulliam. “That’s a huge impact. And it’s just sort of a shame that each year we have to go and fight to get it put back into the budget.”
That’s happening right now. The Market Match program, which is part of CalFresh, has been cut entirely from the current state budget proposal. Since federal funding is given as a match with state funding, if the state drops the Market Match program, so will the federal government.
“It’s such a big part of our market that to lose that funding, and to lose those customers, it could be very detrimental to the market,” Pulliam said.
And with that, almost as a warning, the skies opened up and the market was pounded with rain. But for Tony, dealing with Mother Nature is just one more unpredictable aspect of being a farmer these days.
“I think of farming as competition,” he said. “I am competing against the environment. And I like to win. So, that’s why I like to do what I do. It gives me energy that way.”
So, whether that environment is natural or political, he will use his energy to continue growing food for the people who need it the most. And he will leave it up to state and federal leaders to decide whether it is a high enough priority that people can actually afford to buy it.
