“Seeds of hope”: How local Boston groups fill holes left by food insecurity

by Elli Einset and Elsa O'Donnell

Forty million Americans rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — better known as SNAP — to purchase food. Since 1974, SNAP benefits have helped reduce food insecurity among low-income families, senior citizens and people with disabilities.

In November, the government shutdown brought SNAP benefits to a screeching halt, causing concerns among the 1.1 million Massachusetts residents who depend on SNAP benefits to feed themselves and their families.

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey prepared for the Nov. 1 SNAP freeze by funneling an additional $4 million to food banks throughout the state.

More locally, food and agriculture organizations in Boston also mobilized to fill the holes left by SNAP benefits and assist their neighbors. The city, as well as independent organizations, offer funding and support to encourage local farming and neighborhood gardens to improve access to food. This is especially true for fresh produce, which is expensive and often not available at convenience stores. Even in cities and dense neighborhoods, small pockets of garden space combat food deserts by providing fruits, vegetables, nuts and herbs, strengthening local economies and reducing dependence on now-unstable federal benefits like SNAP.

Cultivating Urban Agriculture in Boston

Boston mayor Michelle Wu has established different organizations to help bring local gardening and produce to its residents, one of which is GrowBoston, a division of the Office of Urban Agriculture. The organization’s goal is to support local food producers and increase food production in Boston through the development of urban farms, community gardens and backyard gardening — an even smaller-scale form of local agriculture.

GrowBoston Program Manager Emily Reckard-Mota oversees the Raised Bed Program, which is an effort to encourage low-income Bostonians to start small gardens in their backyards. Currently, the program is building 800 raised beds for low-income residents. The organization partners with community centers, libraries, public housing communities, nonprofits and churches throughout the city to help them distribute raised beds as well.

As manager, Reckard-Mota is also in charge of recruiting raised-bed recipients. Each organization that GrowBoston partners with employs different recruitment methods.

“An urban farming institute has an application and a form at their farm stands,” Reckard-Mota said. “They make sure that recipients meet a certain income eligibility, and that they are experiencing food insecurity.”

There is a similar form on the program’s website for interested applicants who meet similar criteria.

Reckard-Mota also manages the Urban Agriculture Ambassador Program, which is paired with the Raised Bed Program and carries the project from start to finish. Through this partnership, GrowBoston gives grant funds to hire educators at locations with raised beds. These educators, or “ambassadors,” provide workshops for gardeners to support individuals and community centers with raised beds.

“They’re helping people garden sustainably and learn how to garden,” Reckard-Mota said. “We want to make sure that we’re not just giving people these garden beds, but we’re really teaching them how to use them so that they don’t end up rotting.”

“We want to make sure that we’re not just giving people these garden beds, but we’re really teaching them how to use them so that they don’t end up rotting.” - Emily Reckard-Mota

Reckard-Mota also facilitates the establishment of new community gardens, a shared piece of land where neighbors grow produce, flowers and other plants. GrowBoston advocates for vacant city-owned lots to be turned into community gardens. The office puts out a “request for proposals,” where local gardening organizations can buy the lots at a low price. The office then provides up to $150,000 to help communities start their gardens. Last year, the office received $500,000 through a participatory budgeting process at the city level, adding more opportunities for the organization to flourish.

“A big way that we help community gardens is by establishing new ones,” Reckard-Mota said.

A Growing Network of Community Gardens

Fifty-six other community gardens in Boston are owned and operated by The Trustees of Reservations, a nonprofit aimed to “to protect special places, providing loving care of our reservations [and] building creative new programs to engage people.”

The Trustees’s Boston Region Engagement Manager, Annabel Rabiyah, controls program development, including educational and flagship events.

The various educational programs are "for the community gardeners, but they're also for people in the surrounding neighborhood who might not have a plot,” Rabiyah said. “We’ll have events in the gardens that help them be public spaces where people can build their skill set around growing food and gardening.”

These gardens grow a variety of plants from flowers to crops. Some fruits and vegetables are donated and others are kept for the gardeners themselves.

"For many of our gardeners, it's a major source of food for their families," Rabiyah said.

"For many of our gardeners, it's a major source of food for their families." - Annabel Rabiyah

Other gardeners take different approaches in donating their crops. Many will have a bin available on the street for passersby or give produce to local food pantries.

Similar to community gardens, the Boston Food Forest Coalition transforms vacant land plots depending on neighborhoods’ wants and needs. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, the Coalition currently manages 14 “forests” in Boston and has three more under construction. After the forests are completed, community members called “stewards” become the leading hands and the forests’ main caretakers.

The Coalition’s forests focus on small-scale food production and providing a peaceful space for residents.

“Each food forest has elements of a park, like pathways, gazebo benches and community bulletin boards,” said Orion Kriegman, the Coalition’s executive director. “It’s also planted out with fruit and nut trees and shrubs, as well as herbs and other plants that are either nutritious or medicinal.”

“People harvest from the public park,” Kriegman added. “At every food forest, there’s an ethic of take some, leave some for others.”

"There's an ethic of take some, leave some for others." - Orion Kriegman

Food produced at the parks is also distributed outside of the forest. Depending on each steward’s interests and connections, their forest’s produce is distributed differently. For example, the Old West Church Food Forest donates its produce to a women’s shelter, while other stewards may bring their produce to their own church who has partnered with a food bank, Kriegman explained.

“The food gets shared in a lot of different ways,” he said.

A Range of Options Across Boston

Beyond backyard raised beds and community gardens, Bostonians across the city gather at farmers’ markets for affordable and locally-gathered food options. One such place is Haymarket, Boston’s oldest outdoor market in the heart of the city. Located between the North End and Government Center, the market is best known for selling produce and seafood at very low prices.

Even though the fish — with options including cod, salmon, and tuna — is freshly caught in the Boston harbor, research found that the salmon at Haymarket costs roughly half of the price as the salmon sold at Whole Foods. Similarly, Haymarket vendors sell cod for less than one-third of what it sells for at Star Market. These price differences emphasize Haymarket’s value to the community: it provides affordable and fresh protein options from the city’s very own harbor.