Francie Randolph of Truro is part of a group of food access experts in Massachusetts who’ve helped design something called HIP or the Healthy Incentives Program:
Francie: It is basically a nutrition incentive program, and the way that it works is depending upon your family size, if you have a SnapCard, you get $40, $60, or $80 worth of local produce that you can purchase locally using your SnapCard, and those funds get immediately put back on your card.
SNAP, for those who don’t know, is the federal government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. How much it’s funded, whether or not it goes on hold because of say a government shut down—basically all the ins and outs are outside of our states’ direct control. HIP in contrast is a Massachusetts-funded program, and it allows residents to access local food even if they have almost no money available on their SNAP card.
Francie: You need to have at least a one-cent balance on your card. You go to a HIP vendor of which, for instance, the Orleans Farmers Market every Saturday, year-round, is a HIP vendor. You can go there, you can purchase local fruits and vegetables using your SnapCard. They will show you how the HIP process works, you go out and you pick whatever fruits and vegetables you want, and you go back and they run your card as a HIP transaction, the amount comes off your card, even if it’s just one cent, doesn’t matter, and goes right back onto your card.
Basically it’s extra money available to anyone who already has SNAP. Participants don’t have to sign up in advance, or fill out lots of paperwork—they just have to find out who is a HIP vendor in their area and go shopping.
Francie: And HIP buys, again, local produce. So it can be canned and it can be frozen, but it needs to be local. And the idea is it's a program that makes people healthier while supporting our local harvesters and our local economy.
Since its launch in 2017, HIP has been incredibly successful. It’s made an additional 85 million dollars of local produce available to hungry residents, and it’s funneled all that money to local farms. As of right now, there are more than 250 HIP vendors certified in the state—and while the program has the most participants in the summer months, it is operational year-round.
Elspeth: So it’s November when I’m talking to you, we’re headed into winter. I know a lot of farmers markets have closed. What are winter options on the Cape where people can use HIP?
Francie: Great question. So easy answer is you can go to the Orleans Farmer's Market, you can go to Cape Abilities and you can to the Falmouth Farmer Market which also runs year-round. But the way that people can find out absolutely very easily is they go to a website called dta finder dot com, and then you can move around on the Cape putting in different towns, and see exactly who’s open when, what they’re doing, and what’s happening.
The organization Francie runs, a Truro based non-profit called Sustainable Cape, is working to launch a HIP-certified CSA so that Outer Cape residents can have this extra, no-cost produce available and actually delivered to them all through the off season—a time when public transportation options and money can both be limited. This is important, Francie says, because almost 90 percent of the over 1 million people registered for SNAP in Massachusetts are either kids, seniors, or people with disabilities.
Francie: And this is all a group that it's really hard to go out and kind of get an extra job. And so how are we supporting these people in a way that enables them to continue to be healthy? Because if they get unhealthy, it's a bigger burden on the state and the federal government, frankly. And so, how do we care for our neighbor in a way that cares for all of us? And I really believe that local food is a solution that can do that in so many different ways. And that’s why we’re running this suite of programs to support our community.
For CAI’s Local Food Report, I’m Elspeth Hay.
The Local Food Report is edited by Viki Merrick and produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole.
