[Scpg] In Produce Paradise, Farm workers can finally eat their own harvest/California Watch

Wed Jul 27 11:09:55 PDT 2011

<http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/produce-paradise-farm-workers-can-finally-eat-their-own-harvest-11703>http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/produce-paradise-farm-workers-can-finally-eat-their-own-harvest-11703 

In produce paradise, farm workers can finally eat their own harvest

July 27, 2011 | 
<http://californiawatch.org/user/patricia-leigh-brown>Patricia Leigh Brown

[]
Patricia Leigh Brown/California WatchAuscencio 
Perez, who is originally from Oaxaca, Mexico, 
sells aromatic Mexican herbs and other 
specialties, as well as bananas and other fruits.

Every Saturday morning, Auscencio Perez can be 
found beneath the shade trees at the county 
fairgrounds in Merced, presiding over a colorful 
cascade of melons, peaches and strawberries, as 
well as pipicha, an aromatic herb similar to 
cilantro, and verdolaga, a long-stemmed green used in salads.

“Over there, we work with our culture,” Perez 
says of theremates, or markets, of his native Mexico. “Here, it’s the same."

Perez is one of 60 produce vendors at the Central 
Valley Farmers Market, an open-air oasis of 
fruits, vegetables, and fresh and dried chilies 
of every description embedded within the 
Merced/Atwater Flea Market. Each week, 5,000 to 
8,000 residents, the majority of them Latino farm 
workers and their families, make their way to the 
Saturday market, where Hmong farmers selling 
lemongrass and bitter melon add an Asian twist to 
this bit of Mexico and Central America in California.

The valley’s two dozen or so flea markets are 
vibrant fixtures of the community – the place to 
buy jeans, ranchero boots, bandannas, lingerie, 
Betty Boop purses, Oakland Raiders piñatas. But 
with unemployment hovering at 21.4 percent in the 
county and widespread poverty in the region, the 
Merced market and others like them are playing an 
ever more crucial role: places to buy affordable 
fresh produce using CalFresh nutrition benefits, formerly known as food stamps.

Since supplemental nutrition benefits were 
accepted at the market two years ago, produce 
vendors like Perez have seen their business rise 20 to 30 percent.

“People don’t have money,” Perez said. “So the food stamps help us out."

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Patricia Leigh Brown/California WatchBefore 
shopping, customers stop at the market's main 
office to exchange amounts on their electronic 
benefits card for tokens to use in the market.

Food stamps are not technically stamps: 
Qualifying customers swipe their electronic 
benefits card at the market’s main office before 
shopping. The amount charged, typically around 
$40, is then exchanged for wooden tokens, used as 
currency to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables 
(no churros, soda or prepared foods allowed). The 
vendors exchange the tokens for cash at market’s 
end – a much more streamlined process than in the past.

General Manager Michelle Mineni said that since 
the market began accepting benefits, there has 
been a steady uptick in annual produce sales: 
from $112,000 in 2009, when the program started, 
to $143,000 last year. Mineni and her father, 
Dennis, who owns the market, are projecting sales of $170,000 for 2011.

[]

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Access to fresh produce in one of America's most 
verdant valleys is extremely limited.

“Even though farm workers do the planting and 
harvesting and cut our cauliflower and our 
lettuce and our asparagus, they themselves are 
deprived of the same foods they harvest,” said 
Hugo Morales, founder of Radio Bilingüe, the 
Fresno-based nonprofit international Spanish media organization.

Juan Vicente Palerm, an anthropologist at UC 
Santa Barbara, notes that “the small towns in the 
San Joaquin Valley are without economic 
infrastructure, lacking formal supermarkets. 
There are lots of liquor stores, but no Safeways 
or Albertsons.” The remates represent a new 
retail system, based on a cultural preference for 
open-air markets, he observes.

According to a 2006 report by the Latino 
Coalition for a Healthy California, 35.2 percent 
of children between the ages of 2 and 4 in Merced 
County are overweight or obese, compared with the 
state average of 32.9 percent. Roughly 40.4 
percent of the county’s children ages 12 to 17 
are at risk or are overweight or obese, compared 
with 29 percent of the state as a whole.

Unlike traditional farmers markets, which often 
have a language barrier, the flea markets along 
Highway 99, the state’s main agricultural artery, 
offer relative bargains – say, $1 for a bag of 
lemons or 2 pounds of red onions. In addition, 
“it’s where you run into your comadres” 
–  godmothers – says Claudia G. Corchado, a 
program manager for the Central California 
Regional Obesity Prevention Program in Merced.

For instance, Ana Barajas, 43, who is married to 
a field worker, embraced a steady stream of 
friends and relatives while shopping with her 
CalFresh tokens. She painstakingly sorted through 
bins brimming with produce, plucking out the best 
tomatillos for her salsa and tamarind pods for 
her agua de tamarindo, or tamarind-flavored water 
(peel the pods; boil; pull out the large seeds; and add sugar, ice and lime).

Over the past five years, there has been a 49 
percent increase in supplemental nutrition 
assistance program redemptions at farmers markets 
nationwide, representing 1,611 farmers markets 
and individual farmers and a total of $7,547,028 
worth of benefits, according to the U.S. 
Department of Agriculture. In California, more 
than 110 farmers markets are accepting electronic benefits transfers.

Genoveva Islas-Hooker, regional program 
coordinator for the Central California Regional 
Obesity Prevention Program, said using nutrition 
benefits at alternative outlets like flea markets 
helps to “de-stigmatize” their use. It also offers new eating patterns.

“Fast food is everywhere,” Islas-Hooker said. “We 
need to make healthy food just as ubiquitous.”

Jody Rasmussen, operations manager of Denio’s 
Farmers Market and Swap Meet in Roseville, an 
80-acre flea market outside Sacramento, has seen 
demand for produce increase markedly since the 
market began accepting benefits in June.

“The economy has been tough on everybody,” she 
said. “At the market, people really have an 
opportunity to stretch their purchasing power. 
There’s a huge trickle-down effect, especially 
for the vendors. It’s been just tremendous.”

<http://californiawatch.org/category/free-tagging/california-lost>California 
Lost is an occasional series examining challenges 
facing neglected communities around the state.

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