You may have noticed changes lately in some little food stores tucked into your neighborhood strip mall or main street, stores with names like "Prime Time Nutrition" or "Fiesta Nutrition." These stores are now offering enticing displays of fresh fruits and vegetables along with the infant formula, breakfast cereal, eggs, cheese and other foods that have been offered to mothers, infants and children through the WIC program since 1972.

The UC Small Farm Program and Cooperative Extension advisors in three California counties are piloting a new "Farm to WIC Program" with the stores to make sure that some of the fresh produce on the shelves comes directly from small-scale local growers,...