News

Do you want to: Understand how to read legislation? Learn advocacy tips to help bills get passed? Help build advocacy efforts around key bills? Then join the Collaborative for our upcoming series of Advocacy 102 sessions on key local food system bills under consideration in the Massachusetts Legislature. The Zoom-based workshops begin on April 22 […]

Massachusetts’ local food system has been vital to the response to COVID-19.When the national and global food supply chains failed, local farmers,fishermen, processors, and distributors stepped up to help fill the gaps. When the crisis increased demand for the emergency food system, food banks, pantries, schools, and other community-based organizations developed and implemented innovative ways […]

The Massachusetts Food System Collaborative (www.mafoodsystem.org), which has led the Campaign for HIP Funding (www.hipma.org) for four years, opposes Governor Baker’s plan to dramatically cut support for healthy families and sustainable farms by reducing funding for the Healthy Incentives Program (HIP) as proposed in yesterday’s release of H1. HIP is a vital program for nearly […]

For Massachusetts farmers to feed the Commonwealth, land must be available and affordable.  There are a number of laws, programs, regulations, and an executive order seeking to maintain our agricultural land base, but they do not coordinate, or do not coordinate well with each other, leading to , reduced effectiveness, economic and administrative inefficiency, and […]

Participants in the 2020 listening sessions that led to publication of Massachusetts’ Local Food System: Perspectives on Resilience and Recovery repeatedly raised the need to build up awareness of the local food system at the municipal level. There were many ideas put forward toward that goal: engaging municipal leaders in food system advocacy; building coalitions […]

In June, 2020, the Collaborative began interviewing stakeholders about changes to their operations in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. The three completed case studies serve as a record of that extraordinary time, illustrating how local groups were able to adapt and what they learned about what's needed to ensure resiliency in the face of future […]

In June, 2020, the Collaborative began interviewing stakeholders about changes to their operations in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. The three completed case studies serve as a record of that extraordinary time, illustrating how local groups were able to adapt and what they learned about what's needed to ensure resiliency in the face of future […]

In June, 2020, the Collaborative began interviewing stakeholders about changes to their operations in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. The three completed case studies serve as a record of that extraordinary time, illustrating how local groups were able to adapt and what they learned about what's needed to ensure resiliency in the face of future […]

The final discussion in the MA Food System Collaborative’s discussion series focused on the responses to the dramatic increase in the number of people in Massachusetts who are food insecure as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Panelists discussed the programs and collaborations that have addressed some of the growing needs, as well as advocacy […]

The third in the MA Food System Collaborative’s discussion series focused on the challenges facing the Massachusetts food supply chain. The speakers on the panel represented various parts of the supply chain and reflected on how they changed their models in the face of the pandemic.  Rae Dick, a health agent from Westford and Vice […]