We rely on this farmers market program. Newsom wants it cut
When we think of a farmers market in California, we usually picture vibrant displays of beautiful, albeit expensive, fruits and vegetables, and perhaps a tempting array of pricier prepared foods. However, the roots of farmers markets in California trace back to the late 1970s, when they first emerged in low-income areas.
They were designed to facilitate a direct connection between farmers and consumers, an arrangement that proved to be a win-win for both smallscale farmers and those seeking affordable, fresh produce.
Today, farmers markets may be more prevalent in affluent neighborhoods, but a key program has been working diligently to uphold their original spirit, making fresh fruits and vegetables accessible to all Californians. The Market Match program has successfully placed fresh produce into the shopping bags and kitchens of low-income Californians at more than 293 farmers markets across the state. Since 2010, this program has empowered shoppers who receive CalFresh benefits, allowing them to double their funds for exclusively California-grown fruits and vegetables.
Frank Tamborello, the executive director of Hunger Action Los Angeles, aptly describes the Market Match program as a “win-win-win.” It helps fight hunger while promoting healthy eating habits and supports California farmers, boosting the small-farm economy and contributing to environmentally sustainable agriculture.
Despite its evident benefits, the program faces a looming threat from budget cuts as state leaders work to close a multibillion-dollar deficit.
Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed a $33.2 million cut from the three-year, $35 million California Nutrition Incentive Program, a move that would effectively end Market Match once the remaining funds dry up. Since 2015, the state has supported the program by matching federal funds through a grant from CNIP, enabling substantial expansion over the past nine years.
Market Match has routinely reported increases in low-income shoppers using their benefits at farmers markets. Last year, 9% of the roughly 574,000 visits were first-timers, underscoring the program's positive impact on both consumers and local farmers.
The potential loss of this program threatens low-income Californians' nutrition, especially those who live in food deserts where corner stores and vacant lots are more prevalent than full-service grocery stores. In such neighborhoods, an orange can cost more than a soda, highlighting the disparities in accessing affordable, nutritious food.
The proposed cuts would also significantly impact rural farmers who rely on the revenue generated from weekly market sales. It's a steady source of income in an era defined by its unpredictability.
In the wake of the pandemic, the number of food-insecure households in California surged as costs for fresh produce increased.
A USC study last year revealed that 1 in 3 households in Los Angeles County experience food insecurity, indicating a dire need for programs like Market Match. Cutting this essential program would exacerbate the challenges faced by low-income shoppers in bringing home nutritious food for their families, compounding the intense pressure to simply put food on the table.
Access to healthy, affordable and culturally appropriate food is a fundamental human right.
As Californians confront the potential loss of the match program, we must recognize its profound impact. In a state known for its agricultural abundance, we cannot allow budgetary decisions to compromise the well-being of others in our community.
In January, I had the odd experience of nodding along with Sen. Lindsey Graham, RS.C., who can usually be relied on to be wrong, as he berated supervillain Mark Zuckerberg, head of Facebook's parent company, Meta, about the effect its products have on kids. “You have blood on your hands,” Graham said.
That evening, I moderated a panel on social media regulation whose participants included New York's attorney general, Letitia James, a progressive crusader and perhaps Donald Trump's single most effective antagonist. Her position wasn't that different from that of Graham. There is a correlation, she pointed out, between the proliferation of addictive social media algorithms and the collapse of young people's mental health, including rising rates of depression, suicidal thoughts and self-harm.
“And I've seen that for myself,” she said, describing helping the family of a young girl find a scarce psychiatric bed during the pandemic. “She talked to me a lot about social media.”
Because alarm over what social media is doing to kids is broad and bipartisan, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt is pushing on an open door with his important new book, “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.” The shift in kids' energy and attention from the physical world to the virtual one, Haidt shows, has been catastrophic, especially for girls.
Female adolescence was nightmarish enough before smartphones, but apps like Instagram and TikTok have put popularity contests and unrealistic beauty standards into hyperdrive. (Boys, by contrast, have more problems linked to overuse of video games and porn.) The studies Haidt cites — as well as the ones he debunks — should put to bed the notion that concern over kids and phones is just a modern moral panic akin to previous generations' hand-wringing over radio, comic books and television.
Meeting spots for kids
But I suspect that many readers won't need convincing. The question in our politics is less whether these ubiquitous new technologies are causing widespread psychological damage than what can be done about it.
So far, the answer has been not much. The federal Kids Online Safety Act, which was recently revised to allay at least some concerns about censorship, has the votes to pass the Senate but hasn't even been introduced in the House. In the absence of federal action, both red and
Opinion:
925-977-8430, dborenstein@ bayareanewsgroup.com blue states have tried to enact their own laws to safeguard kids online, but many have been enjoined by courts for running afoul of the First Amendment. Lawmakers in New York are working on a bill that tries to rein in predatory social media apps while respecting free speech; it targets the algorithms that social media companies use to serve kids ever more extreme content, keeping them glued to their phones. But while the law seems likely to pass, no one knows whether courts will uphold it.
There are, however, small but potentially significant steps local governments can take right now to get kids to spend less time online, steps that raise no constitutional issues. Phone-free schools are an obvious start, although, in a perverse American twist, some parents object to them because they want to be able to reach their kids if there's a mass shooting. More than that, we need a lot more places — parks, food courts, movie theaters, even video arcades — where kids can interact in person.
Safe inside, and yet not
In “The Anxious Generation,” Haidt argues that while kids are underprotected on the internet, they're overprotected in the real world, and that these two trends work in tandem. For a whole host of reasons — parental fear, overzealous child welfare departments, car-centric city planning — kids generally have a lot less freedom and independence than their parents did. Sitting at home in front of screens may keep them safe from certain physical harms, but it leaves them more vulnerable to psychological ones.
As I was finishing “The Anxious Generation,” a book that partly overlaps with it arrived in the mail: “Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be.” The author, Timothy P. Carney, is a conservative Catholic father of six who wants to encourage other people to have lots of kids.
He and I agree about very little, but we're in complete accord about the need for communities to be “kid-walkable and kid-bikeable” so that children will have more realworld autonomy. Carney cites a 2023 paper from The Journal of Pediatrics concluding that a “primary cause of the rise in mental disorders is a decline over decades in opportunities for children and teens to play, roam and engage in other activities independent of direct oversight and control by adults.”
If we want to start getting kids offline, we need to give them better places to go instead.
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