News

The Hilltown CDC’s mobile market is in its third year, and purchases local produce from a number of small area farmers who would otherwise be traveling between up to 45 minutes to markets in Northampton or Pittsfield. There are few access points for local food in the Hilltowns, 22 towns between the Pioneer Valley and […]

Brockton Public Schools has 16,000 students, 4,000 of them at the high school. As part of a local collaborative that included members of the community, the city’s farmers market manager, school teachers, and administrators, they applied for an FSIG grant to purchase a Freight Farm and were awarded $118,000 to do so. Freight Farms are […]

Quincy Asian Resources Inc. (QARI) was formed in 2001 to fill a gap in culturally and linguistically relevant social services. At the height of the pandemic in the summer of 2020 they began thinking about ways to connect consumers with local farms. They came up with an idea for an online ordering platform where customers […]

Chelsea was one of the hardest hit communities in the Commonwealth from the disproportionate impacts of the pandemic and is home to GreenRoots, an environmental justice organization with a 20+ year history of community organizing for an improved urban environment and public health. GreenRoots partnered with Revival Church and the Salvation Army, both which operate […]

Lindsay and Charlie Sayer have been farming in Brimfield for more than 10 years, where they have a small herd of cattle on 28 acres. They sell their meat at farmers markets across the state and have a home delivery community supported agriculture (CSA) program. Lindsay applied to the FSIG program to purchase a second […]

The Framingham Housing Authority (FHA) found out about the FSIG program from a city employee sharing the notice on their COVID food security collaborative email group. FHA used their $6,000 grant to partner with For the Love of K, a gardening nonprofit, to install 20 irrigated raised beds on one of their properties. The garden […]

In 2000, after years of experimentation, Island Creek Oysters finally began harvesting enough oysters to operate on a full-time basis. Today, Island Creek is a vertically integrated farm that includes a shellfish hatchery, a distribution company, retail shops and restaurants, and an international development NGO. Island Creek Oysters saw the FSIG grant opportunity and considered […]

Bree-Z Knoll Farm got its start in 1968 when Warren and Sandy Facey bought two cows for their three children as part of a 4-H project. Today the Leyden farm milks 120 cows on 650 acres, and is operated by their son, Randy, and his wife Angie. Bree-Z Knoll uses rotational grazing in the spring, […]

Valley Malt was founded in 2010 when Andrea Stanley started to talk with local farmers about the grains they were growing and began to select varieties of barley to malt for local brewers. In early 2012 they upgraded their equipment to a system capable of malting four tons of grain per week. For the past […]

Massachusetts lawmakers are beginning to debate how to best invest billions of dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). They need to hear from YOU about the importance of supporting a resilient local food system. Last year, the Food Security Infrastructure Grant (FSIG) program received more than $200 million in requests for funding from […]