Advocacy really can work.

A note: if you aren't interested in all the details, you can jump to The Takeaway at the bottom of this article to find the thoughts I most want to share.

The Crisis

As 2023 drew to a close, it was clear that the State of California 's years of surplus had come to an end, with a budget deficit on the horizon in 2024. In the January budget proposal, we were alarmed to see proposed cuts of $33.2 million to the California Nutrition Incentive Program (CNIP), leaving just $1.8 million of the $35 million the California Market Match Consortium had successfully advocated for months earlier. These cuts would have amounted to the extinction of CNIP, ending the multiple programs that depended on it such as Market Match and other nutrition incentives for WIC and Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program.

The Work

Participating organizations in Market Match across the state immediately mobilized, beginning the conversation and hard work of advocating to oppose this cut within hours of the announcement. The Save Market Match Coalition took shape quickly, with incredible member organizations up and down California signing on to our coalition letter, joining weekly organizing meetings, and taking action throughout the week. NextGen Policy committed to supporting this work, providing us with the expertise of Tiffany Germain and Michael Jarred .

Our coalition grew rapidly, eventually reaching more than 220 organizations, including those beyond the realm of farmers' markets like American Heart Association , the California Food and Farming Network (CFFN), Nourish California , Community Alliance with Family Farmers , and Pesticide Action & Agroecology Network . Food banks joined in, such as Los Angeles Regional Food Bank , Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County , River City Food Bank , SF-Marin Food Bank . Local governments spoke up, such as the City of Santa Monica and the City of Sacramento (special thanks to Katie Valenzuela , Mai Vang , Caity Maple , and Consuelo Hernandez ). Supervisor Patrick Kennedy wrote state elected officials on behalf of Sacramento County . Thousands of Californians sent a message to their representatives and to the Governor's office, letting them know how important this program was.

Assemblymember Phil Ting authored and circulated a budget letter to save CNIP, garnering the signatures of Assemblymembers Cecilia Aguiar-Curry , Kevin McCarty , Lori D Wilson , Alex T. Lee , Assemblymember Miguel Santiago , Pilar Schiavo , Matt Haney , and Blanca Pacheco. Our coalition hosted a lobby day at the Capitol, including a rally on on the Capitol steps, with the American Heart Association sponsoring lunch and Assemblymembers Damon Connolly and Kevin McCarty offering important words of support. Coalition members held meetings with Senate and Assembly offices. In a state with so many programs, these meetings usually required our coalition members to introduce and explain the program to legislative staff who hadn't previously encountered it but were great listeners with pertinent questions.

We attended budget sub-committee hearing after budget sub-committee hearing to testify about the importance of saving this program. Senator Josh Becker chaired many of these meetings and we appreciated his careful attention even as many of us returned again and again to speak on this subject. Throughout the state, coalition members met with their local Senators, and I know appreciated the concern we found with the office of Angelique Ashby .

The Result

A few weeks ago, Senate Pro Tem Mike McGuire and Speaker Robert Rivas announced their proposed budget, which called for protecting CNIP from cuts. Just a few days ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the 2024-25 California State Budget into law, with all proposed cuts to the California Nutrition Incentive Program (CNIP) removed! This is an incredible victory for shoppers of low-income and California's small-to-midsize farmers, and we are so grateful for all of these elected representatives who saw the value in this program in the midst of an incredibly difficult budget process.

The Takeaway

When the Save Market Match Coalition took shape at the beginning of this year, we were met with pretty consistent feedback that communicated, "Good luck, because you're going to need it." The message we received was clear: it was going to be a painful budget and this small program didn't have much chance once it had been nominated for the chopping block. CNIP had little name recognition outside of the farmers and CalFresh customers who experience its benefits every week and the organizations who care most passionately about it are small local non-profits without staffing or funding for state-level advocacy work.

What many people did not realize, though, is that we also had some significant strengths:

• Existing organizational frameworks: the California Market Match Consortium, the California Alliance of Farmers' Markets, the California Food and Farming Network, and the California Food Policy Council have all been around for years and provided existing webs of connection between organizations who were likely to care about CNIP and Market Match.
• Recent collaborative advocacy: in the past few years, the farmers' market community in California has been mobilized more often and with more opportunities for direct involvement than it had in some time. The effort to create the Local Equitable Access to Food (LEAF) program in 2022, the push to fund CNIP for $35 million in early 2023, and the Farmers' Markets for All coalition to influence Farm Bill policy in late 2023 had strengthened the ties among like-minded organizations working in the space where anti-hunger and pro-small farm policies overlap. All of these initiatives built up expertise in organizing and direct advocacy, identified successful communication strategies, identified the strengths of different members, and fostered relationships with elected officials and their staff.
• Compelling data and narratives: because Market Match operates in a highly regulated space with significant data-reporting requirements, the coalition had robust numbers to draw from in highlighting the importance of the program. Because the advocating organizations leading the charge are intimately involved in the program on the ground and experienced with compelling grant-writing, the ability to explain the program and its impact at the human level was baked in from the start. We also benefited from years of studies released by state and federal institutions, ranging from 美国加州大学戴维斯分校 to the USDA .
• Intersecting benefits: while the complexity of CNIP presented challenges in explaining it to those who are not familiar, that same complexity was one of its greatest strengths. This one program benefits low-income, food-insecure households and California's small farms; blue-leaning cities and red-leaning rural areas. It also combines local resources with state funding and matching federal funds, meaning that every dollar invested has clear compounding benefits.

Taking all of this into account, I find myself encouraged. Not only do we have tangible evidence that advocacy can directly impact policy against the odds, but we can see that activism builds upon itself and even small acts of participation can help grow into major impact. It is unlikely that the Save Market Match Coalition would have been successful if it was not able to build on the work that had been accomplished in previous years, whether that work was advocacy, direct-service, network-building, or data-collection.

At a time when political developments can make it easy to despair, we need to bear these lessons in mind and remember that even small acts have the potential to grow like snowballs rolling down a hill.

Special Thanks to Save Market Match Coalition members including:

Agricultural Institute of Marin (AIM), Ecology Center, Berkeley, HUNGER ACTION LOS ANGELES, Coastside Farmer’s Market, Pacific Coast Farmers' Market Association, North Coast Growers Association, Napa Farmers Market, Center for Land-Based Learning, Heart of the City Farmers' Market , Los Angeles Food Policy Council , Roots of Change , Riverside Food System Alliance , Valley Vision , Food Access LA , Urban Village Farmers Market , California WIC Association , Sierra Harvest , Alchemist Community Development Corporation , Petaluma Bounty , and many others whom it won't let me tag. https://savemarketmatch.org/supporters

#SaveMarketMatch #MarketMatch #FarmersMarket #FarmToFork #FarmToEveryFork #FoodJustice #CALeg #CABudget