Announced today by the USDA, the California Market Match Consortium will receive one of the USDA’s first ever Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentive (FINI) grants, totaling $3.7 million over two years.

The grant will help to expand the Market Match Consortium, coordinated by The Berkeley Ecology Center. For their full press release, click here. California’s healthy food incentive program, also known as Market Match, will bring CalFresh incentives to additional farmers’ markets and other outlets across the state. Through the grant, the statewide farm-to-fork incentive program expects to connect nearly 240,000 food-insecure shoppers with 2,200 of the state’s small farms, stimulating $9.8 million in fruit and vegetable sales.

In Sonoma and Marin County, Petaluma Bounty will be coordinating Market Match incentive efforts in 12 markets including all three Petaluma Markets, Cotati, Rohnert Park, Santa Rosa Vets Building, Sebastopol, Healdsburg, Marinwood, Novato, and Fairfax. Partner agencies include Agricultural Community Events, Sebastopol Farmers’ Market, and Healdsburg Farmers’ Market. For markets interested in learning more, please email Suzi.

This grant required a dollar for dollar in-kind and cash match from non-federal sources. We would not have been able to accomplish our part without the generous support of the Kaiser Permanente, Petaluma Healthcare District, Petaluma Poultry, Rotary Club Santa Rosa, Sonoma County Human Services Department, Sonoma County Health Services Department, St. Joseph Health, Slow Food Russian River, and other private funders.

For more information on Farmers’ Market L.I.F.E., please click here.