Project Update

The Market Basket Program: A Strategy to Strengthen Community Food Security

by Michelle Mascarenhas

[Editor's Note: This paper contains excerpts from the report "Community Food Systems For All: Learning from the Market Basket Program" by Robert Gottlieb and Michelle Mascarenhas. For a full copy of the report contact the Pollution Prevention Education and Research Center at (213) 259-2566 or e-mail mm@oxy.edu]

On a recent Wednesday afternoon at the West Vernon Elementary School, Maria Esparza, Delia Ramirez and Paulina Flores marveled at the small, fresh nopales (cactus leaves) which farmers Maria and Joel Espino had carefully picked just a few hours earlier at their farm in Ontario, Calif. "When they are small and new," Ramirez and Flores explained, "they are much more tender than those in the supermarket." These community members from a neighborhood in South Central Los Angeles are strengthening their food security through a pilot project called the Market Basket.

Market Basket is a project of the Southland Farmers' Market Association and the Community Food Security Project of the Pollution Prevention Education and Research Center which seeks to 1) increase revenues for farmers who sell at farmers' markets without increasing their transport or time-related expenses; 2) increase access to fresh produce in low-income communities where access is limited; 3) provide access to farmers' market produce to people of all income levels who cannot shop or have difficulty shopping at the farmers' market; and 4) to encourage farmers to reduce their pesticide use as well as try different production and post-harvest handling methods.

The program was launched with funding from UC SAREP in 1995 and 1996. Since then, additional funds have been provided by Region IX of the US-EPA, California Community Foundation, Food for All, and the California Endowment.

As initially designed, the program was structured in the following ways:

Step 1: Households and organizations would sign up to purchase a basket of farm-fresh fruits and vegetables at least one week in advance (and more likely, one to three months in advance) of the Saturday pick-up date. Participants would purchase the basket at one of three prices, depending on the subscriber's ability to pay.

The growers participating in the program would then agree in advance of the Saturday Gardena Farmers' Market to sell a portion of their harvest to the Market Basket program, at a price 15 percent below farmers' market prices, with the amount of produce to be sold determined by the number of subscribers for the week.

Step 2: Each week, the growers and the Market Basket coordinator would decide, based on crop quality, quantity, and the need for diversity and variety in the basket, which produce should be included in the baskets. By combining the harvests of several farmers from different (though nearby) growing regions, it was assumed that the Market Basket would be able to offer a wide variety of locally grown, seasonal produce to participants.

Step 3: The produce, purchased in bulk, would then be assembled into "shares" and distributed at drop-off points, such as community centers or child-care centers, where they could be picked up by participant subscribers.

By the first anniversary of the Market Basket Program, several strengths and weaknesses of the project could be identified and its capacity to serve as a new model for direct marketing could be assessed. The program's strengths included its providing additional revenues for farmers and increased support for the farmers' market overall; possible incentives for reduced pesticide use and other changing practices; greater access and opportunities for the purchase of high quality, fresh produce by low-income residents; and new kinds of community food partnerships that also had the potential to enormously enhance opportunities for direct marketing.

Program weaknesses included erratic subscriber patterns; modest participation levels on a weekly basis; the need to strengthen access through more drop-off points and/or a delivery service; difficulties in attracting and/or maintaining subscribers who have been participating in existing food assistance or free food programs; and the need to strengthen the program's ability to attract middle- and upper-income participants to help generate revenue to support low-income participation as well as program costs. As it now stands, the future viability and expansion of the Market Basket program will depend on program organizers' ability to incorporate the lessons learned, in part by extending the project to new sites and by exploring other opportunities for direct marketing development.

Future Directions

Based on the analysis of the Market Basket program's first year of operation, project organizers have established a series of new goals and directions. These include:

• Establishing opportunities for greater access and increased participation by linking a Market Basket program to a weekday farmers' market in order to establish drop-sites at schools, child care centers, WIC clinics, workplaces, and other community or institutional settings.
• Developing additional Market Basket sites in middle and upper-income communities in order to provide a stable funding source for program operations and subsidies for low-income households.
• Identifying methods to increase subscriber choice, meet the need for culturally acceptable food, and enhance the community- building nature of the program.
• Increasing community participation in the development and revision of the program.

Other Direct Marketing-Related Strategies:

• Investigating the potential of developing a farmers' market transport/Market Basket delivery program.
• Exploring the potential for new kinds of institutional partnerships in direct marketing, such as a pilot Farmers' Market Salad Bar at a predominantly low-income elementary school.

While the Market Basket program needs to develop further before it can be identified as a model for other areas, information about the limits and opportunities for expansion of this exploratory direct marketing program still provide crucial signposts for the development of a community and farmer-based food system. The first year of the Market Basket offers important though cautionary lessons in that development.