Funding Secured for California Program Providing Fruits and Veggies to Low-Income Families

The CalFresh Fruit and Vegetable EBT Program provides recipients with up to $60 of free produce each month, in addition to their regular benefits.

The program works like this: When customers purchase food at participating markets, like Arteaga’s Food Center in San José, they just swipe their Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) card. For every purchase of fresh fruits and vegetables with that card, customers receive an instant rebate each month, applied to their card. The rebate money can be spent on any food or goods covered by CalFresh, like meat, eggs and dairy. But it is not limited to fruits and vegetables alone.

In the month of May alone, the CalFresh Fruit and Vegetable program disbursed over $5 million through EBT cards and served just under 100,000 California households, according to Grecia Marquez-Nieblas, senior manager at the food policy nonprofit Fullwell, which has backed the program.

But last month, food security advocates expressed concern over the program’s possible termination, pointing to the limited, one-time allocation of $36 million from the 2025-2026 state budget, which was beginning to dwindle

“Overwhelmingly, folks have been telling us that they want it to continue, that it’s made a really positive impact on them,” Marquez-Nieblas said to KQED in early June. “Their diabetes is better managed, their high blood pressure is better managed.”

According to Lee’s news release, the program was paused at the end of June.

Fullwell’s deputy director, Lena Brook, explained in an email to KQED that the CalFresh Fruit and Vegetable EBT Program’s restart date hasn’t been set yet. Brook estimated that the new funding will support the program for around four more months.

“Given that low-income Californians are facing unprecedented economic challenges, this investment in our nutrition safety net could not have come at a better time,” Brook said in the Wednesday news release.

The $20 million still falls short of the $100 million that food advocates at Fullwell hoped to see poured into the program, which would sustain it  “for a full year and allow it to expand to additional retail locations to serve more CalFresh families in new regions of the state.”

Fullwell’s May fact sheet estimated that $55 million would keep the program active for a full year without interruption.

Food security advocates like Brook have emphasized the need for the state to support CalFresh recipients after the effects of President Donald Trump’s H.R.1 cuts dawned on California.

In April, most humanitarian immigrants in California lost eligibility for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. Two months later, for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, California began enforcing new and more rigorous federal guidelines that require some CalFresh recipients to work 20 hours a week, or an average of 80 hours a month — with a stark reduction in food benefits for those who don’t fulfill those requirements.

“This $20 million in program funding will help bridge the significant gap created by H.R. 1 spending cuts and ensure that California’s most vulnerable populations are able to afford the nutritious food they need and want,” Brook said.