The Healthy Incentives Program (HIP), currently provides a SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) recipient an additional $40-80 monthly, depending on SNAP household size to buy vegetables and fruit ONLY from local MA farmers, farm stands, Farmer’s Market, or CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture). HIP provides our vulnerable neighbors (households on a fixed income such as veterans, the elderly, and economically disadvantaged families) with local nutritious produce that is too expensive to buy otherwise. Eating healthy reduces the prevalence of diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and other diet-related diseases and contributes to healthier community outcomes.  

One of our Food Equity Advisors, an individual with lived experience of hunger, shared why HIP is critical to her and her husband. "My husband, who has COPD and emphysema, is vulnerable to diet-related diseases such as obesity and high blood pressure. We have to be careful with his caloric intake to keep his weight manageable. We need to make HIP permanent because there is so much uncertainty in our ability to buy healthy, local, fresh food."

HIP also helps our community farmers create an income stream and makes farmers feel good about growing food and feeding the local community. Food is expensive at the local level. However, MA farmers lose five cents for every dollar spent on production, and 2/3 of MA farms operate at a loss. Farmers want to scale up and feed more MA residents need the HIP money to build a greenhouse to grow local food year-around, pay living wages and provide good health insurance to the individuals on the farm, or install a compost facility on the farm that sells the compost to the community.

With federal cuts to SNAP and Medicaid it is projected to cause over 2 million people to lose access to SNAP (food stamps) and roughly 5 million to lose health insurance coverage this year. This is the time to act.

Contact your State Representative and Senator to urge them to codify H.222/S.104 An Act Relative to an Agricultural Healthy Incentives Program into law, to make this a permanent program in Massachusetts.

To call or email your state legislators, fill out the short form on the right.

Thank you!

The Marion Institute's Southcoast Food Policy Council Team