Issue #31 | June 2022







Supporting collective action
toward an equitable, sustainable, resilient, and connected local
food system in Massachusetts.
Advocate
Things you can do right now to
support systemic policy change.
Thank senators for food system support

The Senate’s FY23 budget includes lots of good news for the local food system. Learn more here, and thank your senators!

Participate in climate discussions

Farmer and other food system voices are needed in upcoming state discussion sessions about climate change priorities.

Reach out to your legislators about priority legislation

Some of the Collaborative’s priority legislation has made progress in the last few months. See updates here, and contact your legislators and committee chairs to urge these bills’ passage!
Collaborate
Highlights of the
Collaborative's work.
A New Report about the Campaign for HIP Funding

A new report from the Collaborative, Healthy Families, Sustainable Farms: Lessons Learned from the Campaign for Healthy Incentives Program Funding, offers takeaways from the past five years of HIP advocacy. This report is intended to be a resource for food system advocates in Massachusetts and nutrition incentive advocates across the country.

The report highlights several components of the Campaign for HIP Funding which has contributed to the state dedicating $57 million to the program since 2017. Based on conversations with many members of the Campaign, the themes discussed include: the value of sharing personal stories to build an equitable narrative; ensuring Campaign members were well-prepared to speak with legislators; sharing toolkits and fact sheets with the latest data; and building strong relationships among advocates, and between advocates and legislators.

The report emphasizes that the success of HIP is due to the hundreds of advocates who have educated policymakers about the value of this program. "From individual HIP users who responded to a survey or sent in a postcard, to farmers who got to know their legislators and invited them to come to their market booths and see the program in action, to organizations that signed on to letters and participated in events at the State House, every voice and every action has made a difference, whether connected to the Campaign or not."

The Collaborative will continue to advocate for full HIP funding that allows the program to operate year-round without interruption, add new farmers to the program, and serve more SNAP households. Sign up here to join the Campaign. Please click here for HIP outreach materials. For more information please reach out to Becca Miller, rebecca@mafoodsystem.org.
Apply Now to Become a HIP Farmer

Farmers who are not currently part of the HIP program can now apply to become a HIP vendor through DTA’s HIP Notice of Opportunity. The application process closes on June 8th. Applications can be done in about 30 minutes over the phone with DTA staff and the form is available online in multiple languages. DTA is looking to increase access for Black SNAP clients and SNAP clients with disabilities to ensure HIP is equitably reaching SNAP users. Farmers do not need to be previously SNAP authorized to apply. More information about the opportunity can be found here. Farmers, please consider applying!
A Network for New Food Policy Councils 

Since June 2021, the Collaborative has been facilitating regular conversations among a small group of emerging food policy councils. These groups are each working to form a food policy council in their community for the first time or are transitioning their council from an existing network such as an anti-hunger network or agriculture committee, into a more formal body that focuses more on broader food system network building, education, and advocacy. Through these meetings, groups have identified common questions: how to structure and fund their work, how to genuinely include people with lived experience with food insecurity, how to publicly launch a new group, how to determine the goals and priorities of their council, whether to create a regional or city-wide group, and how to communicate about the importance of their network. The emerging food policy councils have been able to create relationships with other councils and learn from others' successes and challenges. Eight groups currently participate and the group grows with every meeting as more regions start food policy councils. There are currently emerging food policy councils in: Hampshire County, Lowell, Malden, Medford, Metrowest, Plymouth, Revere, and the Southcoast. Please reach out to Brittany Peats at brittany@mafoodsystem.org if your community is considering a food policy council and would like to get connected to this network.
2022 MA Food System Forum: Back in Person!

Please save the date for the 2022 MA Food System Forum on Wednesday, October 12 in Sturbridge. 

This year’s Forum will be an opportunity to celebrate the innovative work and positive changes that have occurred in the Massachusetts food system, despite many challenges, since the completion of the MA Local Food Action Plan in 2015. We will also work together to develop and refine proposals for policy changes that we would like to see, and create plans to move those forward. And there will be ample opportunities for people to meet, or re-meet, each other to help build strong working relationships. Discussion topics will include equity, agriculture, food access, and the supply chain. Watch for more details, and registration information, in the coming months.
New England Feeding New England Quarterly Update Meeting 

The next New England Feeding New England Quarterly Update Meeting will be on June 21 from 3 - 4:30pm. The Collaborative is a partner in the New England Feeding New England project, which is researching how to reach the goal of having 30% of the food consumed in New England produced in New England by 2030.

Emily Spiegel from the Center For Agriculture and Food Systems at Vermont Law School will share a draft version of the Food Systems Resilience Assessment Tool. This resource is designed for municipal and regional planners, community organizations, and other food system advocates to plan and prepare for food system disruptions within a broader resilience framework. We look forward to hearing your questions and feedback about this draft tool on June 21. Please register here.
Celebrate
Inspiring work being done by some
of our friends in Massachusetts.
Brookwood Community Farm

Brookwood Community Farm, founded in 2006, currently farms on two sites owned by DCR and the Trustees in Canton. Brookwood prioritizes food access. By working with the Mattapan Food and Fitness Coalition, they have brought produce to the Mattapan community and provide subsidized CSA shares. Brookwood has a CSA program that accepts SNAP and HIP payments and has grown from 8 members to more than 250 households per season. During the height of the pandemic in 2020, a few CSA members partnered with SNAP CSA members to provide direct delivery of biweekly shares. In 2021, Brookwood partnered with community-based organizations in Dorchester to offer two new CSA pickup sites where a majority of the 20 weekly customers used their SNAP and HIP benefits to pay for their shares. 

The farm was recently featured in an article in the Boston Globe:

“‘In general, we as a society are not conditioned or trained to see the true value of food that is being produced,” said Hannah Helfner, interim farm manager at Brookwood Community Farm in Canton. “The grocery store model means that there’s a disconnection from the process of growing food. Every year, some customer will say to me, ‘I can’t believe kale costs $3.50.’ But I’m not sure what they think it should cost, or why.”... “People should value and invest in local agriculture at all times, not just in times of crisis … Pandemics, wars, natural disasters, tension and conflict, overpopulation: All of these problems are going to persist. Investing in your own local community, in your own local food system, regardless of what else is going on, will only continue to benefit all of us.’”

Photo courtesy of Brookwood Community Farm
Discover
Thoughtful insights about
food system issues.
Find Food is Medicine Programs in Massachusetts

The Food is Medicine Massachusetts Service Inventory provides information on Massachusetts-based nonprofit Food is Medicine programs. Food is Medicine programs represent a spectrum of nutrition services that recognize and respond to the critical link between nutrition and chronic disease. This map presents the results of a 2021 survey to catalog four types of Food is Medicine programs in Massachusetts: medically tailored meals, medically tailored food packages, nutritious food referrals, and community level healthy food programs.

Participate

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.