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Issue #34 | Sept 2022
Supporting collective action
toward an equitable, sustainable, resilient, and connected local
food system in Massachusetts.
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Things you can do right now to
support systemic policy change.
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Register for the 2022 MA Food System Forum: Reconnecting, Celebrating, and Moving Forward
The 2022 MA Food System Forum will be on Wednesday, October 12 from 8:30am - 4pm at the Sturbridge Host Hotel & Conference Center, located at 366 Main St in Sturbridge, MA.
Join hundreds of advocates, farmers, and other food system stakeholders in celebrating the innovative work and positive changes in the Massachusetts food system since the completion of the MA Local Food Action Plan in 2015, and in planning our next steps as we continue to work together toward an equitable, sustainable, and resilient local food system. Back in person for the first time since 2019, the Forum will offer ample opportunities for people to meet and re-connect, to help build strong working relationships.
Workshops and discussions will include the following:
- Sustaining agriculture: Production management practices
- Inequity in agriculture: What is it and how do we address it?
- Between the farm and the plate: Supply chain innovations
- From the front lines to no lines: Emergency services and systemic solutions to food access
- Inputs and outputs: Enhancing natural resources in the food system
- Expanding food system education in K -12 Schools in MA
- Massachusetts farmland: Protecting the resource, ensuring access for all
- Sustaining local food system businesses
- How food policy councils can engage with municipal and state policy
- The MA Urban Agriculture Coalition's next steps
Registration is $40 until September 15 and includes a locally sourced breakfast and lunch.
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Highlights of the
Collaborative's work.
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The food system is on the ballot!
The Massachusetts primary has concluded, and the winners of statewide and legislative contests have moved on to the general election. Many candidates responded to the Collaborative’s questionnaire about food system issues, and many voters used those responses to guide their decisions at the ballot box. The guide remains online, with responses from candidates who will be on the ballots in November.
Community-based organizations in districts with competitive races should continue to reach out to the remaining candidates to ask them to fill out the Collaborative’s questionnaire, if they have not already done so, so they can be included in the guide.
Candidates’ responses to the survey demonstrate that they have heard what advocates have to say, and that they are basing their policies on what they learn from them. In response to a question on supporting farmers in adapting to climate change in the Collaborative’s questionnaire, for example, some candidates responded:
- “I will support farmers through research, education and funding around green agriculture methods such as no-till farming, high tunnel greenhouse usage and crop diversification, including diversifying by adding solar panel “farms” to part of their land with native pollinator plants sprinkled between to encourage native bees and other pollinators. In addition, I would incentivize restaurants and grocery stores to work with local farmers to cut down on emissions created by out of state vendors. Farmers also need more state assisted access to crop and disaster insurance.”
- “Climate change is damaging many of our farmers’ livelihoods and limiting the amount of food produced for their communities. This in turn leads to mass amounts of food insecurity and a plethora of food deserts in our communities. If elected, I will strive and sponsor legislation pertaining to protecting our environment and combating climate change. I will also co-sponsor and work to pass the current iteration of the Green New Deal before the Massachusetts Legislature.”
- “Create relationships with representatives from our farming communities to build connections between urban and farming areas, to understand the impacts and ways to reduce climate change on both sides. Support the UMass Center for Urban Sustainability in Waltham and its development as a research and education resource. Support regional and seed libraries and other programs, both locally and with other areas that have climate similar to what Massachusetts might be moving towards, to address impacts of climate change. Regulation: ensure it is transparent and accessible, and that regulation supports farmer's efforts to be sustainable and address climate change rather than hinder it. Work with farmers - although I will represent a very urban area, I will partner with farmers to make sure their voices are heard at the State House, and that they feel a connection with our neighborhood, and that our urban district feels a connection with them.”
- “I think funding is the biggest issue in helping farmers adapt to climate change. We need to ensure that all farms, large and small, use healthy soil practices and increase crop rotation. This can be difficult for farms that depend on cash crops year after year. They need assistance from both state and federal governments to ensure they can implement carbon sequestering practices and still make a profit. We also need funding to go into research and education on best practices and looking into how farmers can be allies in the fight against climate change. In previous budgets, I signed on as a cosponsor to the Healthy Soils amendment and both Farm and Climate Change Resiliency amendments.”
You can also learn more about candidate education at a training being offered by the National Farm to School Network on September 12 at 4:00 pm. This is part of NFSN’s developing values-aligned universal school meals campaign. Register here.
And candidates for Lieutenant governor participated in a Project Bread forum, answering questions about their positions on food insecurity. You can view it here.
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A Note from Jeff Cole
I will be retiring from my position with the MA Food System Collaborative in mid-September, passing the baton of the Collaborative’s agricultural work to younger and more diverse agriculture advocates. After September 16, please connect with Winton Pitcoff for farm and climate topics. And remember, the Collaborative, through support from the MA Society for Promoting Agriculture, created an online resource supporting farmers though climate change. I hope you will refer to it often and pass along new information to share.
One of the first tasks I had after being hired by the Collaborative was to work on exploring the impact of climate change on farmers and fishermen, and convene a broad group of experts and support organizations to talk about the projected impacts and solutions needed. The pandemic required a shift of focus for all of us and exposed a number of issues and flaws in our food system and related supply chains. But local farmers and their supporters stepped up in a big way, allowing me to return to working on exploring climate change and farming. Even as they struggled with the pandemic, many farmers and most advocates and experts indicated that climate change continued to pose a major threat to our food system, and that the Collaborative’s attention on the issue was well-placed.
Issues with long-term drought in the western and southwestern USA are likely to force significant shifts in our food supply chain, and though overall the northeast is not predicted to be water deficient, seasonal droughts, as we’ve experienced this year as well as in many recent years, are expected to increase in frequency and severity, along with increased periods of excessive precipitation in the fall and winter. The stress this will place on local food production requires continued attention to and support of local farmers in adapting, if we are to avoid an even greater food security crisis than that caused by the COVID pandemic.
Here's a brief high-level summary of what I’ve learned. I hope it helps guide continued work in dealing with climate change.
The MA Local Food Action Plan is still relevant. A number of farmers and farm support organizations have been concerned about climate change for a decade or more. These concerns influenced the MA Local Food Action Plan in 2015. Then, as it is still the case now, strengthening support systems for agriculture by increasing funding for government programs; making loans and grants more accessible; increasing public-private investments in food system related infrastructure, education, and workforce training and expanded crop insurance programs; and more technical assistance to help farmers adapt were seen as key supports. This is why, along with our push to increase funding for MDAR grant programs, we advocated to continue funding the pandemic-induced FSIG program, and to fund it at higher levels.
UMass Extension must be funded to operate as a key regional partner. This is why we continue to advocate for increased funding for UMass Extension and worked intensively with legislators to add more than $600,000 to their funding in FY23. We will continue to advocate for increased funding and hope you will join us. Our work over the past year strengthened and further defined the call for supporting farmers, and highlighted the critical need for local on the ground research and education so that farmers do not bear 100% of the risk of implementing new systems designed to address the impacts of climate change, while also supporting the state’s climate change mandates and goals. Without a Massachusetts focus included in regional Cooperative Extension work, other states’ priorities will dictate what Extension supports are available in the Commonwealth.
There are clear and direct connections between land, food production, carbon sequestration, renewable energy generation, and other climate initiatives the State is focused on. Effective policy and programs require systemic visioning and cooperation, along with strong collaboration between the public and private sectors, especially farmers and fisher people. We know that “siloing” and the resulting lack of coordinated efforts were identified as one of the most significant barriers to success in addressing climate change. But programs like the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness projects, meant to help cities and towns build resilience in the face of climate change, are most effective when they include food system planning.
Farmers, fishermen, and foresters have land assets and other resources critical to addressing climate change, and they stand ready to help. Creating mechanisms to compensate farmers and fishermen for the environmental services they provide will help producers remain viable and providing both healthy food and the public benefits of more healthy environments. Competition with the industrial food production sectors, which intensify climate change, remains strong and skewed in those corporations’ favor by national and global policies, but wise policy decisions can help counter those impacts at the state and local level.
The Collaborative is not alone in this thinking. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) states that “the food system can positively impact climate change adaptation and mitigation, as well as reduce poverty and improve public health. [Considering the needs of our local food system] generates social, ecological, economic and development benefits that contribute to eradicating poverty and which foster livelihoods that are more resilient for those who are vulnerable.”
I will continue to work part time for The Carrot Project so, if you want to talk about business financial planning and capital, including support around climate change, reach out to me at jcole@thecarrotproject.org. As my time working for the Collaborative comes to a close, best wishes for good health and success in your endeavors to all of you.
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Inspiring work being done by some
of our friends in Massachusetts.
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LEAF and the Mass Food Trust expand access to healthy foods
The Local Enterprise Assistance Fund (LEAF) lends to businesses across the country, with a focus on community-owned natural food cooperatives, low-income cooperative housing developments, worker-owned firms, and social purpose ventures. This article will highlight the work they do with the Massachusetts Food Trust program (MFT); LEAF manages the program in the eastern part of the state, while the Franklin County CDC offers the program for the central and western parts. The MFT provides loans, grants, and business assistance for increasing access to healthy, affordable food in low-income, underserved areas. The program was started with funding from the state in 2018 through MDAR.
In the four years since the program began, LEAF and Franklin County CDC have given grants and loans to small and large projects, including farmers markets, mobile markets, coops, and grocery stores. They have also provided technical assistance and connected projects with additional funding sources.
LEAF, through the Mass Food Trust, provided a small amount of funding to Stop and Compare, a grocery store founded in Chelsea by a family that immigrated from Cuba. The money was used to upgrade refrigerated cases in their Lynn store, a Gateway city. When they planned to open a second, larger store in Lynn, LEAF funded some of the project and introduced them to another funder, the Healthy Neighborhoods Equity Fund, which enabled them to meet their goal and open a beautiful store where a closed grocery store had been.
LEAF also helped Mill City Grows to fund the renovation of their commercial kitchen which enables them to provide culinary education and process food they grow on their farms to sell at mobile markets in Lowell. They also funded Coastal Foodshed in New Bedford to study the best use of a food hub in their community. The organization now buys produce from local farms and sells it at mobile markets.
LEAF provided a small loan to enable a group to open a grocery store in Nubian Square, in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston. When the now-rebranded Nubian Markets project stalled during the pandemic, LEAF provided technical assistance to help overcome barriers, including the new owners’ desires that the funding align with their Islamic beliefs.
As the program begins its fifth year, advocates are looking to strengthen the program. As of June 2021, the Mass Food Trust has funded 48 projects in 10 out of 12 counties and there is more demand than they are able to meet with their current budget. Currently the program is funded at $5 million and has dispersed $1 million every year, most of which is in loans which will be paid back into the fund. There is currently advocacy to expand the state funding to $11 million. Advocates are also looking into how other organizations and businesses which help improve food access and are not currently eligible for this funding, such as local restaurants that accept SNAP and food is medicine programs, could receive funding through the Mass Food Trust.
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Thoughtful insights about
food system issues.
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A fight for chickens in Worcester: Resident petitions city to allow chickens in backyards
After a Worcester resident who keeps chickens in her backyard received a notice that keeping chickens was prohibited, she has been petitioning the city to create an ordinance that would allow residents to raise chickens in their yards. Though Amanda Shearstone has collected more than 50 signatures, some city officials worry that chickens could attract rodents and coyotes and that the ordinance could force Worcester to devote resources to monitoring residents’ coops.
But Shearstone believes that keeping chickens would enable residents to have access to a low-cost source of protein. In addition, they would have a positive impact on the environment as chickens eat food scraps and having a local source of eggs eliminates the transportation from farms.
As of 2020, 71 Massachusetts localities — including Somerville, Boston and Newton — already have some form of a policy that permits people to raise chickens, according to NOFA/Mass. Shearstone said she wants to model Worcester’s ordinance on Somerville’s, which mandates that people regularly clean their coops and prohibits them from owning roosters, which tend to be noisier than hens. “If Somerville can do it as the most densely populated city in the state, there’s no reason why Worcester can’t do it,” said Edward Moynihan, a member of Worcester planning board.
Photo courtesy of Sam Turken / GBH News
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Upcoming Food System Events
Know of another great source of events or jobs? Let us know!
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Job Posting Sites
Job Listserv
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The Massachusetts Food System Collaborative envisions a local food system where everyone has access to healthy food, to land to grow food, to good jobs, and to the systems where policy decisions are made. Read more about our vision and our work.
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