Page 21 - Healthy Incentives Program News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Columnist Clare Morenon: At local farms, a year of resiliency Plants at Harvest Farm in Whately. Jason Threlfall Donna Adams buys potatoes at the winter market at Smith Vocational in Northampton on March 13. STAFF PHOTO/CAROL LOLLIS Rick Tracy of Intervale Farm waits on customers at the Florence Farmers Market on May 27, 2020, as outdoor markets reopened with safeguards in place. STAFF FILE PHOTO/JERREY ROBERTS Ana Reyes, right, sells vegetables grown at the Nuestras Raices gardens in South Holyoke to customers Richard Torres, left, Anna Gonsalves and Minerva Ortiz, all of Holyoke, at the Ho...

My Turn: Year of COVID-19 has shown our local farms’ resiliency Published: 4/7/2021 11:04:22 AM A year has passed since the COVID-19 pandemic changed nearly everything about our lives. For us at CISA, and the farmers we work with, this can be measured by the agricultural calendar and the ways COVID impacted each season. The early days of the pandemic coincided with what are usually the busy early days of the growing season on local farms, so farmers were scrambling to adjust to a very uncertain future even as they welcomed spring lambs, set seeds into soil and boiled maple sap into syrup. ...

Regional Notebook: March 11, 2021 Sliced carrots at Red Fire Farm in Montague. CISA has launched a new map to help SNAP customers earn HIP benefits by buying local produce at authorized vendors, including Red Fire Farm, throughout the Pioneer Valley. Published: 3/10/2021 4:01:23 PM Start ’Em Early Foundation holding T-shirt sale SOUTHWICK — The nonprofit Start ’Em Early Foundation has launched a T-shirt campaign to raise money to continue producing sensory sacks that help first responders in emergency situations involving people and patients with autism. Items in the sensory sacks inc...

Drew Johnson / somerville@wickedlocal.com A Winter Farmer’s Market during a pandemic? Many said it couldn’t be done, but the Somerville Winter Farmer’s Market held by “Arts at the Armory” has defied those odds. “I did talk with a lot of other winter farmer’s markets and a lot of people felt like it wasn’t realistic with all the barriers and challenges,” said Emily Reckard-Mota, Local Food & Farms Expert and Manager at the Armory. But the Armory felt that the farmer’s market had to go on. “We had so much feedback from people about how important it was,” said Reckard-Mot...

Sen. Anne Gobi’s legislation targets food insecurity in the commonwealth GOBI Modified: 3/2/2021 4:26:08 PM BOSTON — Sen. Anne Gobi (D-Spencer) has filed legislation this session aimed at enhancing the stability of one of the most popular transitional assistance programs offered by the state, the Healthy Incentives Program (HIP). The bill filed by the Senator, SD. 1178, An Act relative to an Agricultural Healthy Incentives Program, codifies the program into law, and requires that a separate fund be established within the department of transitional assistance to ensure adequate funding fo...