In this Issue
Building a Resilient Local Food System in the Wake of a Crisis
HIP Updates
Local Food Policy Councils Respond
Urban Agriculture Organizations Share Resources
Food Rescue Organizations Adapt
Policy Update
New Solar Regulations will Impact Farmland Preservation and Farm Sustainability
Food System News and Resources
Upcoming Food System Job Postings and Events
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Building a Resilient Local Food System in the Wake of a Crisis
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The COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of the actions taken to protect public health highlights the fragility and interconnectedness of many complex systems. The food system is no exception. Disrupted logistics, including all inputs and outputs, labor, distribution, and all associated activity is the principal cause of the current challenges faced by the food system, as highlighted by
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
.
Food system planning in Massachusetts, beginning with the first statewide food plan in 1974 and extending through the 2015 Massachusetts Local Food Action Plan, has consistently underscored the need for adaptability and resilience. The current crisis is testing how well public and private stakeholders have done in working to meet that need, and an assessment and analysis of the food system’s response and recovery will highlight where we have succeeded and where more efforts and investment are needed to weather future disruptions.
While we are still in the early stages of this crisis, there are some clear signs of resiliency.
- Many local farmers have shifted to online sales, remote delivery, boxed pick up, and shifts in CSA distribution processes to adapt to physical distancing requirements. Some have begun to use on-line ordering and sales platforms, and others are offering curbside pick up, launching virtual farmers markets, and developing other creative solutions.
- Farmers’ retail sales are booming, made possible because of the public's understanding that our local food supply is safe.
- Farmers have quickly implemented food, worker, and consumer safety practices, aided by guidance from our state’s Departments of Health and Agricultural Resources.
- Shuttered businesses are repurposing their infrastructure to meet demand, such as restaurants and shared-use kitchens pivoting to prepare meals for low-income families and front line workers.
- Hundreds of schools have stepped up, not only preparing food for the hundreds of thousands of children who rely on school meals, but developing innovative ways to deliver those meals to those who need them.
- State, federal, and philanthropic supports have been quickly mobilized to increase access to food and to mitigate financial stresses due to labor disruptions.
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HIP Suspension Cut Short Thanks to State Investment
After being suspended on February 23 for what was expected to be three months, HIP restarted just two weeks later thanks to a supplemental budget that passed on March 4 with $2 million for the program. About $200,000 of incentives were earned in March.
With an influx of 39,000 new households joining the SNAP program in March alone due to the response to the public health crisis, the Collaborative is working to determine how much funding we will request for the program in the next fiscal year. HIP is clearly a recovery program, providing families in need with fresh, healthy food and helping to sustain farms so they can continue to employ people and contribute to the local economy. We will urge policymakers to fund the program fully so that it can carry out its mission.
HIP Alternative Delivery Models
Although the main growing season is getting started in earnest now, many HIP retailers are quickly adjusting their business models to serve their communities while following social distancing and food safety guidelines.
After working with the Lynn Department of Public Health, The Food Project hosted a
socially distant farmers’ market
in early April, and has continued to do so almost every week since, providing an important source of fresh local food to community members. Their safety protocols include
briefing vendors on the procedures before the market, creating intentional traffic flow, having staff to direct customers, and posting instructional signs in numerous languages.
In Somerville, the
winter farmers market
has a pre-order system and people are able to use SNAP and HIP to pay when they pick up.
REC in Worcester is offering a
HIP To Go
which enables HIP users to order and pick up a $20 fruit or vegetable share.
Groundwork Lawrence has
started offering a virtual farmers’ market
and is encouraging customers to sign up for a (HIP eligible) CSA share in partnership with Farmer Dave’s.
Mill City Grows in Lowell is offering an
online mobile market
with some delivery options for those who are quarantined. Just Roots in Greenfield has extended their
winter CSA program
, allowing customers to pay for the produce boxes with SNAP/HIP.
Mass Food Delivery
, launched by Mycoterra Farm and others, is bringing locally grown, HIP-eligible produce to many parts of the state. CISA created a
page of delivery options and closures
in the Valley that is regularly updated and many of these farmers accept HIP. Many other Buy Local organizations have similar lists of where to source local food.
These bright spots in our local food system show how quickly local farmers can adapt, and how hard they are willing to work to meet the needs of their communities. But challenges remain that highlight food system inequities, such as the lack of
curbside pickup options
and online ordering for SNAP recipients. As more funding for SNAP and other federal food benefit programs are made available to the state, steps must be taken to ensure that households who need those supports are able to access them, and that farmers and other local food producers are able to capture those sales in order to serve their communities, remain sustainable, and continue to support the local economy.
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Local Food Policy Councils Respond
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Over the last month, the Collaborative has hosted two conference calls with local food policy councils. We heard from groups across the state that are connecting organizations and people in their communities, doing outreach about the food resources that are available, and creating new programs - or redesigning existing programs - to help get food to those in need.
Many communities are working to ensure the most vulnerable households are able to access healthy food through distribution models that enable consumers to use HIP (See HIP article above), while others are supporting new programs to deliver food to seniors. In Salem, a culinary education program is utilizing their space and staff to prepare meals for seniors who aren’t eligible for Meals on Wheels. Greenfield is using a
Village Model
to check on seniors and provide meals, and Medford has implemented an R U Okay program whereby volunteers call seniors and connect them to resources or make a plan to check in regularly.
Other programs are adapting to get food to those in need using creative methods. In the Berkshires, people can pre-order local food, much of which is subsidized by a COVID incentives program. In Chelsea, a program enables people who are diagnosed with COVID to be sent home with food.
Organizations are using new ways to communicate the ever-changing information to their community. Lawrence is aggregating information on a central website,
wearelawrence.org
, where schools, hospitals, and other providers are posting updates to their programs, and Salem’s mayor set up a similar central page called
Salem Together
.
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Urban Agriculture Organizations Share Resources
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The Collaborative, Mill City Grows, and the Springfield Food Policy Council organized a skill share call among urban ag organizations. Groups shared how they are continuing their work to increase access to healthy food in their communities through alternative produce distribution models, and how they are working with mayors and public health departments to create protocols to ensure the safety of their staff, volunteers, and customers and to design safe gardening and farmers markets guidelines. The group also discussed the need for additional resources on safe operating guidelines, alternative distribution models, and ways to ensure safe backyard gardening.
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Food Rescue Organizations Adapt
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The Collaborative and the Center For EcoTechnology, which administers RecyclingWorks in MA, virtually brought together local food rescue organizations and regional and national policy and advocacy organizations for two discussions about responses to the public health crisis as it relates to diverting surplus edible food from the waste stream.
During the two calls, food rescue organizations noted two primary challenges: they are receiving an inconsistent amount of food from grocery stores, and many of the agencies where they typically deliver food are closed to protect at-risk volunteers. They have also seen increased demand from the agencies that are operating and new partners have reached out about receiving food. In addition, the food rescue organizations are readjusting their operations to ensure their staff remains healthy. General disruptions in the availability of food and the means to transport it, store it, and distribute it will continue to have an impact on food rescue organizations.
Massachusetts food rescue organizations have responded quickly to the increased need for food.
Island Grown Initiative
is processing surplus and gleaned food to make soups and is delivering meals with the help of social workers.
Food For Free
is delivering food directly to people’s homes, while
Boston Area Gleaners
is assisting with transportation and storage to support other hunger relief organizations.
Community Servings
has doubled the number of meals they are providing. Responding to a 50% increase in demand, the
Greater Boston Food Bank
is working to supplement school meal programs and add mobile market distributions.
CommonWealth Kitchen
has transformed their kitchen to create prepared meals for hundreds of families to be distributed at a nearby health center.
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As the legislature and administration has been focused on response and recovery efforts related to the public health crisis, there has been little activity on unrelated legislation. Many of the Collaborative’s
legislative priorities
for this session were making progress prior to the crisis, and we will be working to ensure that progress continues when regular business resumes.
State actions include:
Farming
: Agriculture and farmers markets have been declared essential services by the state, and some grant and reporting deadlines have been extended. Guidance related to safe operation of farmers markets, fruit and vegetable growers, beekeepers, and other issues related to agriculture has been issued by MDAR and is collected
here
.
Federal benefits
: An estimated $200 million per month in federal food benefits will be directed to Massachusetts households for the next few months, mostly through increases in SNAP benefits, the Pandemic-EBT program, and other programs administered by the Department of Transitional Assistance. The Mass Law Reform Institute has developed
this excellent resource
, aggregating all of the information needed to help navigate each of these programs.
School food:
As schools have closed, more than 1,200 meal sites have ramped up to provide food for 500,000 students who rely on free and reduced meal programs, with funding coming from USDA through a waiver request submitted by the
Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
.
The Collaborative continues to update our
COVID-19 resources page
, with updates on policy, organizational activity, and thoughtful readings, as well as resources such as maps of local emergency food providers.
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New Solar Regulations will Impact Farmland Preservation and Farm Sustainability
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New solar siting regulations support the Massachusetts Local Food Action Plan’s recommendations to protect farmland from conversion to solar use, but threaten to reduce sustainability for farms by limiting the amount of land that farmers may use to generate revenue from solar projects.
The updates
to the Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target (SMART) Program (225 CMR 20.00) were filed on April 14 and went into effect the next day. Changes include expanding the definition of agricultural land to include “Important Agricultural Farmlands,” defined as soils found to be Important Farmlands as defined in
Federal regulation
7 C.F.R. § 657.5
in its entirety.
The key change is that now all land used,
or that could be used
, for the production of high value food and fiber crops, are included in the agricultural land classification, essentially, regardless of location or actual use. The net effect is restrictions on a much larger percentage of Massachusetts’ agricultural lands, requiring them to conform to the lower energy generation limits and maximum shading restrictions imposed by agricultural solar regulations.
Continue reading on our website.
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Food System News and Resources
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COVID-19 and the Food System - Call for Journal Submissions
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The Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development
is seeking submissions for their special issue on COVID-19 and the Food System. They are soliciting two types of submissions: Voices from the Grassroots Essays should be from front-line food and farm organizations and are an opportunity to share challenges, suggestions, needs, and innovations in the face of the pandemic; and Research Papers should examine the impacts on the food system as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic or consider future crises, revealing weaknesses of and opportunities for the system and informing strategic food system planning and public policy going forward. Submissions are due by Sept 30. To learn more,
see this link
.
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Tufts Graduate Students available to assist food organizations
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Graduate students from the
Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy
are offering their time and technical expertise to support food system organizations as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to unfold. Students are available for one-time, short-term, or long-term projects using skills including the following: research, communications, volunteer coordination, and GIS mapping. Learn more
here
and communicate your needs through this
brief form
.
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Racial Equity in the Food System - Database of Resources
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EPA Awards for Food Waste Reduction
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Four Massachusetts-based organizations received awards from the
Environmental Protection Agency
for their work to reduce food waste. The
Island Grown Initiative
was recognized for their program to support residents, schools and businesses to separate and reduce food waste; now all town transfer stations accept food waste. A fifth-grade student-led project at
Katharine Lee Bates Elementary School
in Wellesley led to a program in the cafeteria to separate and send the liquid waste to be anaerobic digested and the unopened food to be donated to the food pantry.
Signature Bread
in Chelsea has been measuring their food waste, donating frozen loaves to food pantries, and making animal feed from other surplus.
The Center for EcoTechnology
, which administers RecyclingWorks in MA, worked with Connecticut state agencies to create the guidance document, “
Food Donation by Connecticut Schools
.”
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Upcoming Food System
Job Postings and
Events
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Job Posting Sites:
Job Listservs:
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Upcoming Food System Events:
Know of another great source of events or jobs?
Let us know
!
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Massachusetts Food System Collaborative |
www.mafoodsystem.org
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