Hi Friend,

When we last connected, the state legislative season was just beginning. Now, we are past the halfway point, with an FY 26-27 State Budget finalized and many of our priority and ally bills still alive – an incredible feat considering the sheer number of bills and budget items we endorsed this year.

Below you’ll find our analysis on the state budget, priority legislation updates, and more!

In a challenging budget year — amid significant HR 1 cuts to safety net programs, USDA program cancellations, and a climate of fear placed on immigrants — California’s budget became even more crucial in protecting our people and demonstrating our values.

We were pleased to see funding for several state programs that simultaneously support food access and farmers, including the Local Food Purchase Assistance program (LFPA), the California Nutrition Incentive Program (CNIP), and Farm to School. A smart use of state dollars that has a double impact on both small farmers’ livelihoods and food for food-insecure families. Alongside these, food access programs, including the CalFresh Fruit and Vegetable Supplemental Nutrition Benefit, CalFood, CalFresh Outreach, and the Kitchen Infrastructure and Training program, also received funding.

However, the Governor abandoned immigrants as they became targets of the federal government. There are no new investments to expand the California Food Assistance Program to humanitarian immigrants cut off by HR 1 — leaving them, along with hundreds of thousands of other Californians, without support.

Farmworkers may see some relief: extreme heat enforcement received new investment, along with a new study on CalOSHA’s field inspector vacancy rate. We’re still waiting to see what the state will do for additional agricultural programs funded through Proposition 4 — those conversations resume when lawmakers return from recess in August.

Movement building, especially in this day and age, is about piercing through the noise and providing complex and polarizing issues with a steady, nuanced voice centered on people and planet. Our members are excellent at this. Here are a handful of recent pieces that showcase our work and storytelling strength.

• Farmworker Advocate for the Central California Environmental Justice Network, Yelisa Ambriz, shares her experience as a child of farmworkers in this op-ed featured in the Sacramento Bee.
• Highlighting a first-of-its-kind public market, this Upworthy story demonstrates why Alchemist Public Market has been a game-changer in Sacramento and how it’s impacted the micro food industry.
• The Berkeley Food Institute highlighted the importance and timeliness of our priority bills by connecting them to BFI’s reports and webinars that deep dive into the bill’s issues at hand.
• Farm2People highlighted Impact Justice’s report and effectively explained how prison food is a food justice issue that we should all care about. 
• Our Network members at the Agriculture Institute of Marin and Fullwell co-authored a piece in Civil Eats explaining what’s at stake if the Market Match Program and the CalFresh Fruit and Vegetable EBT Program go unfunded in this year’s budget. 

In April 2026, the National Right to Food Community of Practice submitted an updated report to the United Nations as part of the Universal Periodic Review of the United States. As a member organization of the Right to Food Community of Practice, the California Food and Farming Network is proud to endorse the letter along with many food system councils across the country.

Read the Report HERE

If you’re interested in endorsing the report alongside us, complete this form to add your voice and share this flier with your networks.

Our movement is constantly learning, growing, and evolving. This can only happen when we continuously challenge our assumptions. Here are some of the pieces our staff has been reading this past summer that have made us go “hmmmm…”

• IPES-FOOD or the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems, released its latest report on the new geopolitics of food.
• Assemblymember Celeste Rodriguez highlights the importance of Food4All regardless of immigration status at a particularly hostile time for mixed-status families.
• In his poetic melancholy, Mark Arax draws comparisons between California’s gold rush and the modern fervor for AI and data centers in this story featured in The Guardian.
•  East LA  suffered a massive warehouse fire last month, an area that is unfortunately all too familiar with environmental justice issues. As the community moves through clean-up efforts, the smell of rotting food in the neighborhood persists. We must continue to reckon with our built and natural environment and use the tools at our disposal to make our communities more resilient and safe for everyone. 

Thank you for taking the time to catch up with us at CFFN. Follow us on X and BlueSky!

Until next time!

The California Food and Farming Network is building a movement centered on racial equity to transform the food and farming system through state policies.

CFFN envisions an inclusive, equitable, and ecologically regenerative food and farming system that has recognized and repaired injustices to Black, Indigenous and people of color workers, producers and communities, and which generates healthy, affordable, accessible, nutritious and culturally appropriate food and other agricultural products.