The Collaborative is facilitating a campaign to ensure that every K-12 public school student in MA has access to high-quality food system education.
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Farming in Massachusetts faces many challenges from high land costs, to insufficient education and technical assistance resources, to incongruent regulations, to an inadequate labor supply. The Collaborative works to connect agricultural organizations with food system policy and advocacy efforts designed to create a more secure and sustainable local food system.
read more…The Senate Committee on Ways and Means released its draft budget on May 10. More than 1,100 amendments were filed over the next few days, and debate led to the final passage of the chamber’s proposed FY23 budget on May 26. Numerous local food system priorities were proposed, and many were included in the final […]
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The Senate Committee on Ways and Means introduced its budget proposal on May 10. There were many proposed investments that reflect advocacy on the part of food system stakeholders, including support for Buy Local organizations and MEFAP, and a commitment to continue funding HIP program growth. The chart below reflects these proposals and others, and stakeholders and […]
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The Senate is now considering amendments to the FY2023 budget, including the amendment to provide a grant program for food policy councils. Please email or call your senators by this Friday and ask them to co-sponsor Amendment #34. We have created this one-pager about some of the wonderful work that food policy councils have done around the state. Here is a script: Hello Senator —, My […]
read more…The Collaborative works to build the capacity of local food system stakeholders to engage in state level policy to build a more sustainable, equitable, and resilient food system. Advocacy describes a broad range of activities; from sending an email or signing on to a group letter, to learning how to speak with legislators and meeting […]
read more…The House Committee on Ways and Means introduced its budget proposal on April 13. There were many proposed investments that reflect advocacy on the part of food system stakeholders, including funding for a full year of universal school meals, support for Buy Local organizations and MEFAP, and a commitment to continue funding HIP program growth. […]
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Participate in upcoming online listening sessions Massachusetts is developing its plan to address climate change, and farmers need to provide input to ensure that the plan fairly represents the needs of agriculture and the role that farmers can play in helping the state meet its goals. Four listening sessions will be held over the next […]
read more…On Tuesday, Governor Baker proudly proclaimed in his State of the Commonwealth Address: “Our food insecurity programs served millions of residents across the Commonwealth and brought together partners and providers, ranging from foundations to farmers’ markets to food banks. The knowledge gained has created new, permanent investments and better approaches to supplying and distributing food […]
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The Collaborative is working to organize skill sharing among urban agriculture organizations.
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