Although Guadalupe is surrounded by agricultural fields, what they produce doesn’t often make its way into local households.
“We find ourselves in this position in North Santa Barbara County and Lompoc where food is grown all around us,” said Shelby Wild with Route One. “There’s very few, if any, opportunities in those communities where people can purchase that food and take it home. The vast majority of the food that is grown here is shipped out of our county.”
Because of that, she said, there’s a “last-mile” distribution issue: “There’s no system where you can purchase that food locally.”
That’s where farmers markets like Route One’s come into play. Since 2019, Route One has run a farmers market in Vandenberg Village. In 2022, Route One started a mobile market—a giant produce truck—that sets up in Lompoc. The organization connects local growers with local residents and accepts CalFresh benefits, which is California’s name for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
Now, Wild is helping to get a farmers market started in Guadalupe.
“Our mission is equally local-food access, both in the community’s ability to access the food and in our farmers’ ability to sell the food to the community and make a living,” Wild said. “Markets don’t happen very often. … It’s been great to use our learning to benefit other communities, so they don’t have to start from scratch like we did.”
Stephanie Krouse, who’s spearheading the Cosecha Guadalupe Farmers Market effort, said she’s leaned on Wild’s experience starting Route One to lay the path to follow, including applying with the state to become a certified farmers market, which is currently in the works.
Both became involved in the project through FRESA (Food Resilience, Sustainability, and Action), a coalition founded by Alhan Diaz-Correa, Mireya Piña, and others before the pandemic to talk about rising food insecurity issues in North County. Diaz-Correa said FRESA held community meetings to both relay information and learn about what residents needed.
“At these first meetings, we invited anyone who wanted to talk about food issues, distribution. It was kind of an open agenda,” Diaz-Correa said. “It was just kind of a space to talk about … food generally in North Santa Barbara County.”
FRESA included the Community Environmental Council, Family Services Agency, Santa Barbara County Food Action Network, and other nonprofits dedicated to tackling the issue. After attending a CalFresh presentation highlighting farmers markets around the county, Diaz-Correa said there was an obvious difference between the northern and southern parts of the county and the number of farmers markets that accepted CalFresh benefits.
“It just seemed crazy to me that you had six to eight options if you lived in South County, and one for North County, and it had just started,” he said of Route One. “It was really obvious that there was a discrepancy, and I wasn’t the only one who thought this.”
FRESA conducted a survey of 500 Guadalupe residents who picked up food at distribution sites to find out where and when they get food, what kind of food they buy, how far they have to drive, how much they spend, whether they attend farmers markets, etc. The push to have a farmers market in Guadalupe that accepted CalFresh benefits grew from the results of that survey.
Piña, who oversees the Family Service Agency’s Little House by the Park-Cedillo Community Center in Guadalupe, said that 34 percent of the children in Guadalupe have parents who qualify as being at the poverty level. Little House operates one of the food distribution sites in Guadalupe, handing out a mix of food at the end of every month to about 90 families.
That distribution includes canned food such as vegetables, tomato sauces, and tuna; dry goods such as pasta, rice, and beans; and fresh produce such as carrots and cabbage or pears, apples, and oranges.
“It’s very unpredictable what we’ll get,” Piña said. “For those of us who work in the community and see all levels of hardships and complexities and challenges that families face, it’s like, we need to provide additional avenues for people to access fresh food.”
About 58,000 individuals in Santa Barbara County were enrolled in CalFresh as of May 2025, according to the CalFresh Data Dashboard. A little less than half of those individuals were under the age of 18. Access to those benefits will change with the recent federal legislation that was passed, Piña said, and some of the new criteria will likely make it more difficult for some people to renew benefits.
In Guadalupe, Masatani and La Esperanza markets do offer groceries, but they’re limited and can be a little pricey, Piña said. Most households have to travel to Santa Maria to shop for groceries with their CalFresh benefits. The Cosecha Guadalupe farmers market, Wild said, could change that.
A certified farmers market authorized to accept CalFresh Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) means that instead of families spending those federal dollars at Walmart, the money can stay local and go to local farmers, Wild said. Once markets have had EBT for a year, they can apply for something called Market Match, a healthy food initiative led by the Ecology Center that matches up to $15 in CalFresh benefits at farmers markets and other farm-direct sites.
In addition to creating community and giving residents another food option, being able to provide Market Match to residents on CalFresh is one of Cosecha Guadalupe’s big goals, Krouse said. While the farmers market that will eventually take up a Sunday residency at LeRoy Park is still a ways off, Piña said the group of advocates is determined to make it happen.
“Momentum has been up and down due to the fact that most of us who serve on this committee are volunteers,” Piña said. “We really want to meet the finish line on this project.”
Editor Camillia Lanham is willing to wait or local produce. Send some to clanham@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Aug 7-17, 2025.
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