Angela Nawn lives in Worcester and receives food assistance through an initiative called the Healthy Incentives Program. Known as HIP, the program gives people as much as $80 a month to buy fresh produce at local farmstands and farmers markets.
In order to be eligible for HIP, people must be enrolled in the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program. The goal is to provide families a source of healthy food without using up their SNAP benefits. Nawn calls HIP phenomenal and says she tries to spend all of her money every month on produce like tomatoes, peppers and squash.
But sometimes that can be hard. Nawn and other HIP recipients can only use their benefits at farmstands and farmers markets that the state has approved to be vendors in the program. And in Worcester and many other communities around the state, a lot of farmers markets lack approval.
“There’s not enough access,” Nawn said. “I think it’s only fair that all farmers markets have the HIP incentive because everyone should have access to the food.”
Farmers and the managers of farmers markets across Massachusetts say they’re frustrated that they haven’t been able to enroll as HIP vendors — and therefore their customers can’t take advantage of the program. The farmers say the cap on vendors is due to a lack of funding for the program that has been effectively hamstringing it, even with food insecurity on the rise and people losing their SNAP benefits.
State officials say HIP is now on more solid financial footing, and as a result, they plan to start enrolling new farmers and farmers markets as vendors for the first time since 2022. That’s a relief for Laura Leighton, who runs Rock Harvest Farm in New Braintree and has spent years trying to become a vendor.
She said state officials have told her they haven’t enrolled new vendors because doing so would give HIP recipients access to more farmstands and farmers markets. Capping vendors has been a way to conserve money for the program.
“When you onboard new vendors, more people will use the program, which will deplete the fund quicker than [officials] would like to see it depleted,” Leighton said. “When you encounter a program like HIP that seems to be really helping people, it becomes very frustrating to see the access so limited in the community that you are serving.”
Launched in 2017, HIP is the nation’s first and largest nutrition incentive program that is fully integrated into SNAP. But the program has gone through periods in which it has nearly run out of money.
HIP recipients’ benefits reset each month to the maximum amount they are entitled to — $40, $60 or $80 depending on household size. However, Rebecca Miller — the policy director for the Massachusetts Food System Collaborative — noted that in 2024, the state had to temporarily reduce benefits to $20 a month due to budget constraints.
Since then, Miller and other advocates have pushed for more funding for HIP, and its budget has increased. The current budget devotes $21.6 million to the program
In an email, a spokesperson for the Department of Transitional Assistance, which oversees HIP, said the state will begin enrolling new HIP vendors again because the “allocated funding allows the administration to expand the program while maintaining sustainable year-round operations.”
“This expansion is also intended to improve access to the program throughout Massachusetts for both Massachusetts residents and local farmers,” the spokesperson said.
The restrictions on vendor enrollment over the years have had the effect of limiting where people can find farms and farmers’ markets that accept their HIP money.
Many farmstands and farmers markets that operate around Greater Boston received approval to be vendors before the state closed the application process in 2022. That’s translated to the Boston area having more than 100 different places where people can use their HIP money.
There are fewer HIP vendors in Central Massachusetts and other parts of the state where new farmstands and farmers markets have opened in recent years.
Market on Exchange in downtown Worcester is one of those farmers markets. Every Sunday from late spring through the fall, hundreds of people shop at the market, buying everything from fresh berries and peaches to thick bunches of kale and trays of gleaming red tomatoes.
Julia Moriconi, the manager of Market on Exchange, says she wants the food to be accessible to everyone, regardless of income level. But she consistently has to turn away people with HIP money because the state hasn’t approved her market as a vendor.
She estimates that if Market on Exchange could accept HIP money, it would see an additional $400 in sales every Sunday.
When you’re at the market, “you can smell the sweetness of the melons. You can smell the aromatics of the garlic and the onion,” Moriconi said. “I think it’s a crime that we’re gonna send people away hungry.”
Moriconi said she’s glad the state announced it’s finally going to start enrolling new HIP vendors. Still, she’s concerned about how long the process will take and says approval can’t come soon enough.
She usually tries to direct HIP recipients to other markets that do accept HIP money. But the recipients often respond that they don’t have cars and those markets are too far from their homes. Some people also say they’re often busy when the other markets are open.
As state officials review applications for new vendors, they’ll have an opportunity to address gaps around Massachusetts where it’s hard for HIP recipients to use their money. Leighton, the owner of Rock Harvest Farm in New Braintree, says it’s a matter of equity: Where someone lives shouldn’t determine how much they can take advantage of food assistance.
“This program could seem like just a drop in the bucket,” Leighton said. “But I think that food insecurity is very complex, and so I think we need a lot of different programs to kind of chip away at it and to have any effect at all.”
