CalFresh Families Would Receive Extra Money for Fruits and Veg Through Statewide Nutrition Incentives Program

Anti-hunger, farm and food system advocates have been pushing for California to adopt a nutrition incentives program to draw down federal funds to give CalFresh recipients a bonus when they spend money on California-grown fruits, nuts and vegetables at farmers markets. The California Nutrition Incentive Act would attempt to get the program incorporated into the state’s budgets. Such nutrition incentive programs have proven popular in California, and this bill will help address the issue of funding the bonus dollars. Currently, it is on the Assembly Appropriations Committee suspense file (meaning it will be compared against the cost of other funding priorities later in the budget process to determine which bills will move forward to the Assembly floor and which will not).  We should have a good sense by the end of the month whether we were successful.