In less than two weeks, recipients of government food assistance in Massachusetts will see a sharp drop in a benefit many have enjoyed for years.
The Healthy Incentives Program — or HIP — has helped low-income residents buy fresh, local produce.
As part of Hunger Awareness Week, we bring you an excerpt from NEPM's The Fabulous 413, which recently visited the Tuesday farmers market in Northampton to speak to folks affected by the pending cut.
Claire Morenon, CISA: So HIP is the Healthy Incentives Program. And it's a statewide program that makes more money available to people who are using SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, to buy food. So the way it works is that SNAP customers can use their EBT cards to buy fresh produce directly from local farms that are participating in the HIP program. And then they get an instant rebate on their EBT cards, which means they have more money to spend on more produce or whatever else they like.
The program has been in place since 2017. Currently, people get a benefit of up to $80 a month, depending on their household size. And just recently, the Department of Transitional Assistance, which is the state agency that administers this program, has announced that because of a budget shortfall, because the state did not allocate enough money to this program this fiscal year, the benefit is going to be cut to $20 per month for everybody, regardless of household size.
So it's a major cut to this program. It's supposed to go into effect on December 1. So it'll be hitting people's grocery budgets right before the year-end holidays. And it's obviously going to have a really big impact on the farms and farmers markets and CSAs that run throughout the winter.
Monte Belmonte, NEPM: Well, let's talk to the super group of farmy folks.
Helen Kahn: My name is Helen Kahn and I am the farmers market manager for Grow Food Northampton.
Sara Voiland: I'm Sara Voiland from Red Fire Farm and we do lots of winter markets, CSA and wholesale that will be affected by this.
So from the farmers market perspective, Helen, how many people do you estimate are coming to this particular market week-in and week-out, relying on HIP?
Helen Kahn: I can tell you, for example, that in 2023, we had over 1,200 people coming and accessing HIP just at this farmers market. And so that's $80,000 that is free for them, but it's going right ... to the farmers. It's going into our local economy and it's allowing everyone full access to these great foods. So, when we started telling people about this proposed cut, they were of course very upset.
Let's talk to the Red Fire folks who have farms in Granby — already suffered a huge fire last year that we talked about on the show, but are back in action. How is this cut to HIP going to affect you guys?
Sara Voiland: I wanted to start by saying that I think that the HIP program has really saved our farmers markets, because it brings in more attendees that make it viable for us to be there at all. So having a cut to it, what we're looking at for the winter markets, we're going to here locally, Springfield and Northampton, it's about 50% of our sales that is HIP.
So, whether it makes sense for us to be able to, you know, pack all the produce, drive there, staff the market, depends on how much sales we have and we're looking at, is it going to be viable? I mean, these are people that we've made connections with and come every week. We're looking at them and saying, "This is — we're not going to be able to provide you this produce that we grew for you." It's heartbreaking, really [to] think about the loss for everyone's food budgets for the wintertime and what that means for families.
Let's go talk to this family that is using HIP right now and hear what they have to say.
Allison: Hey, my name is Allison and I'm from Amherst.
You're here with — one, two, three — four kids, yeah?
Alison: Yep. They are four of my five. And we love coming to the farmers markets and getting fresh fruits and veggies, finding different farm stands, especially you-pick programs. We've been able to do a lot of different things with the HIP program that we wouldn't be able to do otherwise — picking strawberries, picking apples. And if the cut is made, that would definitely prevent us being able to do all of those fun, healthy activities.
And you're one of the families that would get the max, right, the $80 per month. But that's now going to be dropped down to $20?
Alison: Yes. So that would definitely be a significant cut for us.
Anybody else in the family want to talk?
Kid: I do!
What do you want to say, buddy?
Alison: What do you like to get at a farmers market, for fruits and veggies?
Kid: Popsicles.
Allison: Popsicles! What about fruits and vegetables?
The popsicles are good, though — Crooked Stick.
Allison: Do you like strawberries? And apples and peaches? And kale. We like kale. We're a kale family.
You can hear a longer version of this conversation on The Fabulous 413 podcast.
Disclosure: CISA is an underwriter of NEPM. Our newsroom operates independently.
