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How the Island is putting the state's Food is Medicine program into action, linking nutrition, healthcare, and climate resilience.
On a late August morning, I sat with Island Grown Initiative’s (IGI) co-executive director, Noli Taylor, at a picnic table in the farm’s community garden. She was catching me up on a development: after years of pilot programs, Food is Medicine — the idea that good nutrition is as essential to health as any prescription — is taking root on the Vineyard.
“It’s so intuitive,” she told me. “Of course if you improve nutrition access for everyone, then health outcomes are going to improve too.”
Last year, IGI won a $40,000 grant from the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital’s Community Benefits Program, allowing them to launch a referral Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. Healthcare providers at the hospital and at Island Health Care can now essentially “prescribe” fresh produce for patients facing food insecurity, diet-related disease, or both.
“We see the impact that healthy food access has on people’s lives, and also the healthcare industry has a lot of resources, and if some of those could be directed toward supporting nutrition access then that could help sustain programs like ours,” Noli said. “Especially at a moment when federal funding for food access and nutritious food for communities is dwindling. Where can those resources come from? And it would make a lot of sense for the health industry to be one of those places of support for programs like these.”
Thanks to the grant, 24 people participated in IGI’s summer CSA program through referrals from healthcare practitioners. This winter, 20 participants are expected to enroll. The summer CSA share, typically costing around $900 for the season, was free to those referred. IGI also partners with Slough Farm to run monthly cooking classes, hosted by chef Charlie Granquist who teaches participants how to prepare the foods that arrive in their CSA shares.
“We’re really thinking about how to orient our CSA more toward Food is Medicine, and also make sure that it’s accessible to people who are lower income,” Noli said. “That’s something we’ll be growing over the next few years.”
Separately, IGI’s Food Equity Director Merrick Carreiro is working with Prudence Athearn from Vineyard Nutrition to develop nutritionally tailored, or medically tailored, pantry boxes. Patients with specific dietary needs will be referred to the Island Food Pantry to access foods that support their health. The teams are also collaborating with UMass Amherst nutrition and public health student Maia Donnelly to design the boxes, which will roll out this fall and winter and resemble personalized shopping lists for people managing conditions such as hypertension, cardiovascular disease, or those on dialysis.
“Thanks to Maia’s hard work and dedication, the shopping lists and all related materials are currently under review with a licensed dietician and will soon be available for all Pantry clients,” Merrick said.
The shopping lists will contain all the food items available through the Food Pantry and use a color-coded system: green means eat often (foods rich in fiber, healthy fats, antioxidants, and vitamins and minerals that support heart and blood vessel health while low in added sugars, sodium, and saturated fats); yellow means eat in moderation (may contain moderate amounts of sodium, added sugars, and/or saturated fats); and red means eat rarely (contains high amounts of sodium, added sugars, and/or saturated fats.)
Island Health Care has been running a Food is Medicine initiative since 2022. Providers can prescribe qualifying patients to a produce prescription program, where they use a Fresh Connect debit card to buy fruits and vegetables at grocery stores. Both Stop & Shops are set up for this system, and 79 people were enrolled this year. The program sunsets at the end of 2025, sparking the deeper collaboration with IGI.
As part of an MV Vision Fellowship project, Island Health Care Director of Community Health Haley Dolan and IGI’s Merrick Carreiro are also developing a bidirectional healthcare program. The software-based tool would allow healthcare providers to connect patients to food access programs and track outcomes, creating a feedback loop that shows how healthy food impacts health. According to Haley, the top reasons for referrals include food insecurity, overweight or obesity, anxiety or depression, hypertension, or type 2 diabetes, often compounded by financial strain.
This work draws on nearly a decade of collaboration among more than 25 local organizations part of the Island Food Equity Network, which has been steadily strengthening links between healthcare, food access, and climate action. “We know our healthcare providers, we know our social service providers — it’s just about making the connections between them,” Noli said.
Massachusetts is a leader in the Food is Medicine space, with its coalition and state plan. Research shows that specific nutrition interventions can directly improve health outcomes while reducing healthcare costs. Noli explains the Food is Medicine Pyramid: at the base are broad food access programs like SNAP and WIC; next are population-level healthy food initiates; then produce prescription or voucher programs; followed by medically tailored food programs; and at the top, medically tailored meal programs.
On the Vineyard, these programs do more than improve health, they strengthen local food systems. Each CSA share prescribed to a patient supports Island farming, keeps food miles low, and reduces reliance on industrial agriculture, one of the largest contributors to climate change. And as climate change makes global food supply chains more fragile, connecting people to healthy food grown close to home builds resilience for the entire community.
These initiatives also align with the Island’s Climate Action Plan Food Security Goal #2: By 2040, MV aims to have a climate-resilient physical and social framework that ensures all residents have access to appropriate, ample, and nourishing food, with dignity.
More Updates from IGI: Major Greenhouse Renovation
A major renovation is underway at the IGI greenhouse! Starting this fall, the entire space will be overhauled, with work expected to be completed by spring.
The 30,000 square-foot greenhouse, built 41 years ago for hydroponic tomatoes, was designed for soilless systems that require sensitive temperature control, pumps circulating water, and significant energy use — all at odds with IGI’s shift toward regenerative agriculture and renewable energy.
“That huge space to grow hydroponic food just hasn’t resonated as we’ve tried to pivot to all renewable energy,” Noli said.
IGI has already converted the back 60 percent of the greenhouse to soil-based production with “basically no heat all year,” Noli says. “And it’s been really productive — really successful. So we would like the whole space to be in soil.”
But the aging infrastructure presents challenges. Ventilation has deteriorated, which can lead to fungal diseases and pest problems when using soil for plants. And the roof’s large glass panes aren’t safe anymore.
“So upgrading all of that to safety glass, improving the ventilation, putting in all new shade curtains, having automated venting systems so we don’t have to have our staff coming in Saturday mornings and Sunday evenings,” Noli says. “It’ll all be automated, a big labor savor. … And then the whole front bay will become a big wash and pack facility with upgraded pumping, draining, storage, and new coolers,” Noli says. “We’re really excited.”
Click here to learn more about IGI and their many programs. Learn more about Island Health Care’s Produce Prescription program here.
