New data from the Greater Boston Food Bank reveal a startling statistic: one in three Massachusetts residents is food insecure. The USDA defines food insecurity as a situation in which households have “limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods.”
Some households have had to resort to trade-offs to keep food on the table, including pawning off personal property and watering down food or infant formula. It’s a chronic problem plaguing many, with the highest rates of food insecurity in Western Massachusetts and among Black, Hispanic and LGBTQ+ households.
But activists around the state are working to address and help curb the issue of food insecurity. One example is Gaining Ground, a nonprofit organic farm in Concord.
In Gaining Ground's decades of growing seasons — this year marks the 29th — Executive Director Jennifer Johnson told GBH's All Things Considered that they have never sold a single fruit or vegetable. She said they committed to donating 100% of everything they grow, providing fresh produce to community partners like meal programs and food pantries. Last year, Gaining Ground donated about 115,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables in Greater Boston, Greater Lowell and the Metro West.
The organization is committed to growing food that people will eat and enjoy, including culturally preferred foods like hot peppers for the Hispanic communities in East Boston and Chelsea or jilo eggplants for the Brazilian population in Framingham.
“One of the things that is really wonderful about this network of partners is just the wonderful diversity of the population that lives in each area,” Johnson said. “We’re very much committed to growing food that people want to cook with and like to eat, and are also interested in helping folks be able to connect with their own culture and community over the dinner table.”
Gaining Ground grows food year-round by using structures called hoop houses, which are plastic, covered and unheated growing spaces that protect produce from severe weather.
“It allows us to grow foods like carrots, kale, spinach and other root vegetables during the winter months,” Johnson said. “We know that food insecurity is not seasonal. If anything, it increases during the winter months because access to surplus crops from local farms is not available.”
Since its founding in 1994 by a woman named Jamie Bemis, Gaining Ground has grown exponentially — and has no plans to stop. The nonprofit recently signed a license agreement with Minuteman National Historical Park to begin farming 5.1 acres of land within the park.
“We are in the process of increasing soil fertility over there now and look forward to, over the course of the coming years, being able to dramatically increase the amount of food that we’re able to grow and donate,” Johnson said.
She said the COVID-19 pandemic put food insecurity center stage, calling that increased awareness “one of the silver linings” of the pandemic.
“Prior to the pandemic, food insecurity was often considered a bit of a silent epidemic, and now, people realize just how pervasive it is within our communities,” said Johnson. “Not only that, but how many people are at risk of becoming food insecure with just one or two missed paychecks?”
Through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, eligible households were able to receive additional benefits due to the pandemic. But those extra payments were halted after the COVID-19 emergency declaration expired.
Johnson said she's proud of the work going on in Massachusetts to address food insecurity, but it's essential to balance hope and plans for the future while serving immediate needs.
“There are a lot of great people working together to think of real, permanent and systemic solutions to hunger,” she said. “As we work toward that future, we do know that the need for food on plates of our neighbors is very much pervasive here and now, and so that’s why Gaining Ground is currently focused on just growing as much food as we possibly can in a way that prioritizes the health of the land that we’re farming, the health of people who work and volunteer on our land, and the health and dignity of every single person who receives our produce.”
