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On February 11, 2026, leaders from the Massachusetts Local Food Policy Council Network convened at Community Harvest Project in Grafton, MA for the second annual Local Food Policy Council Summit. Attendees represented 16 active food policy councils and food working groups from around the state. We reflected on the role and work of LFPC’s [...]
Plenary Sessions Scaling the Elephant of the Federal SNAP Cuts: Advocacy Tools to Help Minimize Impact on Massachusetts Households – Slides Fostering Agricultural Resilience in Massachusetts, a legislative panel on supporting farmers in the 21st century – Slides Morning Sessions Building Resilient Seafood Systems: Strategies for a Stronger Massachusetts Food Future – Notes | Slides 1 | Slides 2 Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives’ Association, Chatham Harvesters Cooperative, [...]
The Massachusetts Food System Collaborative invites all local food system partners to a rally on the State House steps from 12 – 1pm on Tuesday October 28, in response to the ongoing federal shutdown’s impacts on SNAP and other federal nutrition programs. Please arrive at noon for the speaking program to begin at 12:15. [...]
Massachusetts and regional food businesses invited to join 2025 Local Food Count The Local Food Count regional campaign invites retailers, grocers, institutions, distributors, food hubs, and restaurants to help strengthen local food systems by tracking local food purchasing and sales. Food and beverage establishments and organizations across Massachusetts and New England are invited to [...]
The 2025 Massachusetts Food System Forum is generously sponsored by the following organizations. Interested in sponsoring? Email Kristina@mafoodsystem.org.
The fiscal year 2026 budget was signed into law by Governor Healey on July 4, 2025. The budget includes $20 million in new funding plus $1 million of carried forward funding for HIP, for a total of $21 million. This should be enough for year-round benefit of $40 for all SNAP households, regardless of size. The Collaborative [...]
In late May, the Massachusetts Senate completed its budget debate, resulting in some budgetary wins for the local food system. The Senate budget includes $1,000,000 for food literacy, $250,000 for the local food policy council grant program, and funds the MDAR administrative budget at the same level as the House. Unfortunately, the Senate did not [...]
More than 1,000 amendments have been introduced to the Massachusetts Senate Committee on Ways and Means draft Fiscal Year 2026 budget (S.3). Senators now have one week to review and consider these amendments before debating and voting on a final budget starts on May 19th. Senators may choose to cosponsor as many amendments as [...]
Testify to support a sustainable, equitable food system! Testify at the Joint Committee on Agriculture’s first hearing of the session on May 13, 2025, to support the agricultural equity commission and food system coordinator bills!
In April, the House debated and passed their Fiscal Year 2026 budget proposal. House Ways and Means Chairman Aaron Michlewitz mentioned the Healthy Incentives Program during a press conference and on the House floor (you can watch this in the recording from day 1 of debate here, starting at 14:05), and Chair of the Joint Committee on [...]
The Collaborative organized with HIP farmers and vendors to write this letter to the editor of The Boston Globe, which was published on April 9, 2025. The full list of farmers and vendors that signed on to this letter is: Meg Bantle, Full Well Farm, Adams Liz Green, Three Sisters Garden Project, Ipswich Lisa Evans, We [...]
HIP Lobby Day is here! Join the Collaborative’s Campaign for Healthy Incentives Program (HIP) Funding at our annual Lobby Day at the State House on March 13th, starting at 11am in room 437.
Register for briefing The Collaborative and our statewide advocacy partners will offer a briefing on our priority legislation for the 2025-26 session via zoom on February 12, 2025 at 10:00 a.m. Bills on topics from farmland protection, to food waste, to food security will be discussed, as well as budget priorities for Fiscal Year 2026. Registration is required [...]
The Collaborative had a busy year. We continued to convene our four networks and the Campaign for HIP funding and Campaign for Food Literacy. We organized three successful lobby days and successfully advocated for more than $26M for our budget priorities. The Collaborative also created an internship program, worked with the Department of Elementary and [...]
News coverage about the Healthy Incentives Program: City of Boston news: The Healthy Incentives Program Our Opinion: For the benefit of the food-insecure and farmers alike, Legislature should fully restore the Healthy Incentives Program Organizations raise their concerns over upcoming cuts in fresh produce SNAP benefits 'Heartbreaking' cuts soon take effect for fresh [...]
The New England Food System Planners Partnership has just released the Regional Food Count 2022, shedding light on local food spending across New England. With $2.2 billion of the region’s $120.6 billion food expenditure going towards local products, there’s a huge opportunity for growth. This report is crucial in the journey towards a more resilient [...]
This week the MA House of Representatives is considering H.4789, an economic development bond bill. Please call your representatives by THURSDAY (6/27/24) and urge them to support five amendments that would provide needed support for the Commonwealth’s local food system. Find your representative’s contact information here. Amendment 62 - filed by Rep. Schmid - would [...]
In late May, the Massachusetts Senate completed its budget debate, resulting in some budgetary wins for the local food system. The Senate budget includes $1,000,000 for food literacy, $250,000 for the local food policy council grant program, and $100,000 for the Cliff Effect Pilot Program. The Senate budget funds the MDAR administrative budget at a [...]
After the House Committee on Ways and Means released its FY25 budget draft, and the full House of Representatives debated the content, the House passed its proposed budget at the end of April. The debate ultimately failed to yield any new support for food system priorities, but did continue forward some important investments. The House [...]
On January 24 Governor Healey released her second budget proposal, proposing continuing and increasing some important investments in a challenging fiscal environment. The Governor's commitment to environmental justice is reaffirmed, proposing Environmental Justice liaisons across the EEA agencies to support community outreach, public hearings, and stakeholder involvement, and better align hiring practices and inter-agency coordination [...]
The fiscal year 2024 budget has been signed by Governor Maura Healey into law! This year’s budget includes several important wins for a sustainable, equitable, resilient food system. The Food Security Infrastructure Grant program is funded for the first time in the annual budget at $25 million, signaling a strong commitment from the Governor and [...]
A new report puts forth a regional goal of producing and consuming 30% of New England’s food needs in the region by 2030. Commissioned by the New England State Food System Planners Partnership, a collaboration between six-level food system organizations, including the Collaborative, and Food Solutions New England, it outlines the role New Englanders can [...]
Town farms – or poor farms – provided a support system for society’s poor in the 1800s through the mid-1900s in New England. Often on the outskirts of town, the poor farm provided a sense of purpose for paupers who then provided labor for the farm. Just such a poor farm was owned by [...]
The Boston Public Market was founded in 2015 and has thirty vendors from across Massachusetts selling a variety of local products in a year-round, indoor space in downtown Boston. The pandemic closed the market to the public from March to September of 2020, a much longer closure than what they had originally anticipated. BPM also [...]
In 2020, Massachusetts invested $36 million in grants to local food system enterprises, launching the Food Security Infrastructure Grant (FSIG) program in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the face of breakdowns in the food supply chain that resulted in food shortages at grocery stores, increased demand on the emergency food system, and heightened interest [...]
Citizens for Citizens has been serving low income residents of southeastern Massachusetts since 1965. They run fuel assistance, SNAP application assistance, food pantry, and many other social service programs. Before COVID hit, they were serving 250-300 households per month at their food pantry, but during the spring of 2020 at the height of the pandemic [...]
Jen Barbeau has been farming on five acres in North Adams since 2015, raising chickens, ducks, goats for milk, fudge and soap, vegetables, and producing baked goods, pickles, jams, and more in an on-site kitchen. She has been a SNAP/HIP authorized farmer since 2017, and attends the North Adams farmers market. When the pandemic hit, [...]
The Boston Public Market was founded in 2015 and has thirty vendors from across Massachusetts selling a variety of local products in a year-round, indoor space in downtown Boston. The pandemic closed the market to the public from March to September of 2020, a much longer closure than what they had originally anticipated. BPM also [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 President [...]
The second in the MA Food System Collaborative’s discussion series focused on the challenges facing Massachusetts farmers. Jeff Cole, agricultural network coordinator at the Collaborative, spoke about the issues that surfaced during the listening sessions the organization held over the summer. Many government programs disadvantage BIPOC communities, he said, and many programs and grant opportunities don’t [...]
The keynote panel of the MA Food System Collaborative’s discussion series demonstrated the ways that Massachusetts organizations are working to address racial equity in their local food system work. Systemic racism is like bad soil, said facilitator Liz Wills O’Gilvie. Until we improve the soil, we won’t be able to grow good food or do [...]
Disruption caused by the COVID pandemic, and Massachusetts’ state and local responses to that disruption, highlight the impact and benefit our food system has on all of us. COVID’s acute impact on our food system also exposed systemic issues that, if not addressed, will become more problematic through the unrelenting pressures caused by climate [...]
"Every bite each of us takes has been shaped by a complex range of forces, some in our control and others well outside of our control. By endeavoring to understand those forces better, and to play a more active role in influencing them, Massachusetts residents are working toward a food system that better meets [...]
The food system and climate change are deeply entwined issues. From farming and fishing, to processing and distribution, to food waste and public health, every part of the food chain relies upon and impacts natural resources that, in turn, are related to climate change. The Massachusetts Local Food Action Plan highlights these connections, and calls [...]
The Executive Office of Energy & Environmental Affairs’ (EEA) Resilient Land Initiative (RLI) is an effort to solicit input from Massachusetts nonprofit organizations, municipalities, state agencies, landowners, and residents to draft and implement a new Statewide Land Conservation Initiative.The initiative has released a draft summary of the findings and recommendations. The document recognizes the importance of [...]
As we work to respond to and recover from the public health crisis, the Collaborative is launching a process to help develop recommendations for the local food system and shape our priorities for the future.The COVID-19 outbreak and the responses implemented to mitigate its further spread have altered every part of Massachusetts’ local food system. [...]
In response to the spread of COVID-19 and the measures being taken to address it, the Collaborative has compiled this list of readings and resources to keep the MA food system community informed and aware of relevant actions and activities. If you know of additional items that should be included, please send them to winton@mafoodsystem.org. [...]
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 [...]
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) [...]
A number of climate change measures under consideration in the legislature could have significant impact on agriculture and other food businesses. Recently passed by the Senate, An Act Setting Next Generation Climate Policy (S.2477) is a very complex bill that deserves attention from food system stakeholders as it moves through the legislative process. This bill would [...]
A research project funded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of Massachusetts. This submission was written by Jessica O’Neill, Executive Director of Just Roots and co-author on the study’s resulting research findings, now published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine and the American Journal of Public Health. A [...]
Farmers and fishermen rely on state and federal grant programs to help them adapt to climate change and other pressures, and to take advantage of new opportunities and concepts to remain viable. The Collaborative has investigated the spending of many of the grant programs administered by the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources (MDAR) to help [...]
The Collaborative joined many other stakeholder groups in providing recommendations for the Rural and Working Lands and Climate Change and Resiliency groups that led to the recently released Rural Policy Plan (RPP). There are many important parallels with the Massachusetts Local Food Action Plan (MLFAP), and a number of specific recommendations that are similar [...]
A report on the first year of operation for the Healthy Incentives Program (HIP) has been published, laying out patterns of initial use, and identifying issues to address for the long-term health of the program. The largest number of HIP points of sale were located in Middlesex and Worcester counties, two of the largest counties in [...]
Lack of access to affordable land is routinely cited by aspiring and established farmers alike as a primary challenge to entry and expansion. Since the 1940’s farmland has been steadily converted to other uses and regrown into New England forest, creating a patchwork of separate small parcels of farmland and former farmland. Many of [...]
There are at least 120 bills in the current state legislative session that address farm and fishing issues raised in the Massachusetts Local Food Action Plan. The Collaborative has been working with our Agricultural network seeking stakeholder groups’ perspectives on these bills and engaging them in advocacy on bills supported by the Plan. We have [...]
Two bills that modify chapter 61A that would provide short term tax relief to farmers when repairing or constructing a broad array of structures and buildings on farmland are being considered by the Joint Committee on Revenue. Chapter 61A involves a yearly application process to reduce property taxes of active farmland in exchange for giving a [...]
The Collaborative continues to work with our Ag Network and other groups and organizations on climate change and its impact on farmers and fishermen. We were fortunate to be able to participate in the recent workgroup on climate change and resiliency organized to provide input and recommendations to the Rural Policy Advisory Commission’s draft Rural Policy [...]
Innovative state program has provided more than $10 million in healthy food for low-income familiesFamilies across Massachusetts will have better access to fresh, healthy, local produce, and farmers will be able to sell more of what they grow, now that Governor Baker has signed Massachusetts’ fiscal year 2020 budget, which includes $6.5 million for the [...]
As a follow up to the Collaborative’s March gathering to discuss how to support farmers in climate change mitigation and remediation, we asked meeting attendees to rank the importance of the 30 land and farming recommendation summaries from the MA Local Food Action Plan related to helping farmers and fishermen cope with climate change. These [...]
The MA Food System Collaborative has released “Sustainability and Equity in the Massachusetts Food System: A Progress Report.” This report showcases organizations, businesses and networks working toward the goals in the MA Local Food Action Plan, which was completed at the end of 2015. Each organization highlighted in the report is working toward a [...]
The Healthy Incentives Program (HIP) re-launched in May after a suspension of slightly more than a month. As the growing season begins, SNAP recipients are once again able to earn a one-to-one match for their purchases directly from farmers at participating farmers markets, mobile markets, farmstands, and CSAs.The program’s suspension on April 15 happened because [...]
Massachusetts’ Agricultural Preservation Restriction (APR) Program is one of the oldest state farmland protection programs in the country. Enacted in 1977, the program targets the most productive soils and purchases perpetual easements that assure the land will be available for farming for generations to come. Since the program’s inception, provisions have been added that [...]
More than 80 advocates, farmers, and SNAP recipients participated in HIP Lobby Day at the Massachusetts State House on March 1, meeting with legislators and staff to educate them about the Healthy Incentives Program and the need for ongoing funding to support it. The Program provides a dollar-for-dollar match for SNAP dollars spent on fruits [...]
On October 1, 2014 the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) began enforcing the Commercial Food Waste Ban, an effort to divert food waste from landfills. MassDEP targeted food waste and other organics in part because it was the largest segment of the municipal solid waste stream. Food and other organics account for well over [...]
The Massachusetts Healthy Incentives Program (HIP) has far outpaced expectations, with SNAP recipients purchasing more than $2.5 million of fresh produce from local farmers between April and November, and earning an equal amount of incentives in the process. In the first seven months of HIP, 58,000 SNAP clients benefited from the program, exceeding redemption expectations [...]