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For the past four decades or so, the Florin farmers market has been a source for affordable produce for many living in the small suburb in Sacramento, California. According to Sam Greenlee, executive director of the Sacramento-based food justice group Alchemist CDC, the market鈥檚 vendors take steps to meet the needs of the community. 鈥淭hey tend to set their prices a little bit lower here than at other markets,鈥� Greenlee tells Sentient. Of the 196,524 households in Sacramento, around 40 percent rely at least in part on California鈥檚 food assistance program.  

Helping communities eat more plants has many benefits鈥攈ealth and food justice among them鈥攂ut it鈥檚 also good for the climate. Food production accounts for a . According to Brent Kim, a researcher at Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, the largest source of these food-related emissions comes from the farm itself, not food miles. 鈥淲hat we eat and how it was produced matter more for the climate than how far it travels.鈥� Eating a plant-based diet, even for just one day a week, can have a greater positive impact on greenhouse gas emissions than , Kim says.

While the largest source of food-related emissions stems from meat from methane-belching ruminant animals, namely beef and lamb, successful grassroots initiatives, like community gardens and farmers markets, play an important role too when they help shift what people eat. Local programs encourage sustainable and healthy food choices, but also offer a path for addressing challenges important to each community. Elizabeth Bowman, former executive director at Food Access LA, sees these local efforts as part of a broader vision for sustainable food that includes but also goes beyond greenhouse gas emissions.  

鈥淭o me, sustainability is very holistic, bottom up, top down, and allows people to have access to healthy foods without barriers,鈥� Bowman says. Transparency and food sovereignty are two very important goals in the work. And, Bowman adds, making food choices from the 鈥渟oil up鈥濃�攕tarting with healthy soil but also thinking about whether farm workers have good working conditions.  

Bowman鈥檚 work with Avenue 33, a small hillside farm in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, illustrates this approach. Avenue 33 partners with Los Angeles Leadership Academy (LALA) to operate LALA Farm, which offers opportunities to zero in on different aspects of food systems. Classes held on the farm include hands-on topics like composting and its climate impacts to science students learning about photosynthesis. Lessons also include the history of agriculture, the farm labor movement, and how farming practices of some Indigenous populations compare to contemporary farming.

Both Avenue 33 and LALA farms provide fresh produce to farmers markets that are  (an electronic system that enables people to use government assistance dollars for food purchases) as well as a free weekly food distribution at a nearby school. Food grown on the LALA farm, like tomatoes and peppers, are added weekly to the high school鈥檚 salad bar, sometimes alongside a nutrition lesson. 

California supplies nearly half of the fruits and vegetables eaten in the United States. Yet a significant portion of the population,  The issue is not only economic鈥攖hough affordability is a key factor鈥攂ut also one of access, rooted in land-use policies. These policies have contributed to a disparity in food access, with larger supermarkets concentrated in wealthier neighborhoods. This is known as 鈥溾�� and forces people to rely on convenience stores or fast-food outlets as their main source of food. A 2008 study found that were 25 to 46 percent less likely to maintain a healthy diet.

Farmers markets, supported by federal, state, and private food assistance programs, are helping to bridge the gap by offering a direct distribution model. While there are systemic abuses that stem from a system of 鈥�,鈥� these programs are at least an effort to get more produce at competitive prices in markets close to food insecure communities, at prices lower than those in chain grocery stores. 

A 2021 study highlighted the  noting that by 2019, around 50 percent of farmers markets accepted some form of federal food assistance. Access alone does not address all of the challenges associated with dietary change, programs like California鈥檚 Market Match, where EBT value is doubled, can help improve the affordability of fresh, local food. The Florin market has become one of the top 10 EBT markets in the country, with around $300,000 in EBT and Market Match funds spent in 2023. 

鈥� have an abundance of fast food and heavily processed foods,鈥� Bowman writes, yet 鈥渃ommunities are responsive when fresh produce is simply made available and especially when incentivized with programs like Market Match.鈥�

鈥淚 think that when people have access to fresh produce, they will buy it,鈥� Bowman told Sentient in an email. There are many reasons they might make a change in what they eat. 鈥淚n general fresh produce is less expensive than meat products, so there is evident economic value there,鈥� writes Bowman. 

Earlier this year, budget cuts in California threatened the program鈥檚 success when California Governor Gavin Newsom proposed a . The threat was averted after advocacy groups, including Alchemist CDC, were able to  budget. 

There are other challenges however, says Kim Bowman, who worked on food security for decades in Southern California. 鈥淎ccessing healthy food in Los Angeles can be really challenging. While grassroots initiatives are making strides, there is a lack of infrastructure to support these efforts comprehensively.鈥� 

Bowman stresses the need for policies that not only help younger generations enter agriculture by making land acquisition easier, but also support farmers adopting regenerative practices. Subsidies for such practices could help reduce reliance on synthetic chemicals and build a more sustainable agricultural sector. However, these efforts must be paired with broader systemic changes. This can mean subsidies for farmers like Bowman mentions, or in other cases could be .

鈥淯ltimately there鈥檚 no one silver-bullet recipe for a sustainable food system鈥攁nd we benefit from a diversity of different scales, including local, regional, and, sometimes, national or international,鈥� according Johns Hopkins鈥檚 Brent Kim. 鈥淭he important thing is approaching what we grow, how we grow it, and what we eat with an eye toward kindness, conservation and equity.鈥�

This story is part of an ongoing series of reporting on a just and climate-friendly food system produced in collaboration with ,听,听,听and聽Yes! Magazine聽with funding from the聽, advisory support from Garrett Broad (Rowan University), and audience engagement through聽.