An emergent model of food and health

As more Islanders than ever seek food assistance, several local organizations have risen up to meet the demand in new ways. These emergent collaborative efforts have put the Vineyard on the map as a model for food systems that contribute to better health outcomes, according to experts in the field.

The model is called “Food Is Medicine,” a programmatic integration of nutrition and healthcare. Subsidized community-supported agricultural shares (CSA) of fresh, farm-grown produce with optional cooking classes are one facet of the model; doctors’ prescriptions of healthier food options are another; and there are more.

Island Grown Initiative (IGI) and Island Health Care (IHC) are leading an effort to build a local Food Is Medicine model on Martha’s Vineyard — through programs, free food practices, nutritional guidance, and two new centers — to address challenges the community faces. 

Food Is Medicine uses modern applications of ancient practices that are deeply rooted in traditional farming, harvesting, and cooking methods by indigenous communities, including the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah).

IGI and IHC co-hosted a panel discussion on Thursday, Sept. 3, in Katama called “Food Is Medicine” to teach attendees about feeding a community facing higher grocery, housing, transportation, and home insurance costs than those on the mainland. 

One in five Islanders faces food insecurity, with more than 7,000 pounds of produce delivered to the IGI food pantry in Oak Bluffs from the Greater Boston Food Bank each week. IGI states on its website that it produces 85,000 ready-made meals every year with financial assistance from Slough Farm. 

This year so far, IGI has delivered 56,353 ready-made meals, nearly 25 times higher than the 2,304 delivered in 2018. Plus, federal cuts to programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in the fall of 2025 threw low-income families and individuals into food-related flux, with the repercussions continuing to unfold legislatively and increasing reliance on the food pantry. 

The “whole picture of health,” as Haley Dolan, the director of community health at IHC, said during the panel, includes food and housing security at a time when the minimum wage doesn’t even begin to cover basic needs.

“Food is community. Food is connection. Of course, it’s the nutrient value that you have when you eat well. But even more than that, it’s taking people out of isolation and bringing them to the table and saying, ‘We can be better together. We can heal together. We can grow together,’” Dolan said. 

Under a white tent at the Katama waterfront property before the panel discussion, locals and national food experts excitedly mingled. Large posters were set up that detailed two new centers proposed for the Vineyard: IGI has had plans in the works for a building for education and outreach since 2022, with $1.2 million left to reach its fundraising goal of $2.3 million, and IHC is designing a new healthcare space in Edgartown, across the street from its current campus. 

The education center design for IGI includes a teaching kitchen, workshop spaces, and offices. It’s set to be located in Vineyard Haven near IGI’s 42-acre farm. A project description on the IGI website described the proposed center as a “vibrant hub where our community comes together to learn about, advance, and celebrate regenerative farming, nutritious food, and cooking.”

The IHC plans include a nutrition office, wellness class space, primary care, pediatrics, dental offices, and more. The new space sprawls across 9,000 square feet, compared to the current IHC location, which is 760 square feet. Both IHC’s and IGI’s spaces are geared toward supporting the Food Is Medicine model on the Vineyard.

The panelists on Thursday included Dolan; along with food equity director of IGI Merrick Carreiro; Christina Economos, dean of the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy; and Joshua Faller, the co-executive director of Easthampton-based food organization Just Roots. The group sat on a small stage with the Edgartown Harbor in the distance behind them and explained to several dozen attendees that while daunting concerns about cost, climate change, and food insecurity are rising, Food Is Medicine is a budding archetype that addresses all three of those worries. 

It was not the only event this summer regarding Food Is Medicine. The practice was referenced in relation to a community garden plot at the IGI farm, planted by the Aquinnah Cultural Center, where squash, beans, and corn — called the “three sisters” by indigenous tribes — are interlaced from the soil to the sky. Another event, held in August at Stillpoint in West Tisbury, was a climate conference focused on the regenerative farming practices at IGI and Whippoorwill Farm, run by Andrew Woodruff. 

“This has been around forever,” Economos said of the concept behind Food Is Medicine during the discussion. “If you talk to people who are from other cultures or indigenous populations, people have been thinking about food as medicine for a long time. But we’re thinking about it a little bit differently now as an adjunct to medicine and to healthcare.”

While Food Is Medicine takes inspiration from multiple historical references, like indigenous practices and texts from ancient Egypt, China, and Greece, the modern movement began in the 1980s during the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Nonprofit organizations started offering medically tailored meals to address nutritional deficiencies among those living with the illness. Since then, the movement has grown through collaborative nonprofit efforts, state and federal support, and partnerships with farms. 

And the evidence for healthy food being medicinal is overwhelming, Economos said at the panel: Access to fresh and organic produce improves health outcomes and reduces doctor visits, reducing resource strain and cost. She added that she is currently leading a national study that aims to show that patients enrolled in a Food Is Medicine program will have improved health outcomes as a result.

On the Island, Food Is Medicine goes beyond medically tailored meals, and includes CSA shares, food pantry access, and produce prescriptions through IGI and IHC. 

The idea is that if an IHC provider recognizes nutritional deficiencies or lack of food access for a patient under their care, that provider can prescribe a CSA of farm-fresh produce from IGI. The patient can pick up the CSA share weekly and attend cooking classes to learn about potential recipes with those food items. 

The Food Is Medicine model is also closely linked to regenerative farming, which prioritizes soil health and growing more nutrient-rich produce, contributing to a more balanced ecological system overall. While industrial agriculture is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, regenerative farming focuses on healing the earth rather than harming it by reducing tillage of soil as well as rotating crops and grazing animals. 

“Agriculture has been a huge part of the problem, and that is … a cause of climate change, losing greenhouse gasses from agricultural soils and agricultural practices,” Chris Neill of Woodwell Climate Research Center told The Times at Stillpoint. “But a cool thing about agriculture is with better practices, you can flip that arrow around and start to pull back some of that carbon that you’ve lost over the last 100 or 200 years.” 

Dolan and Carreiro said the entire Food is Medicine program is not only beneficial for the environment; the community has demonstrated a clear desire for more fresh food. 

“People don’t want fast food. Thankfully, we don’t have any here,” Carreiro said during the panel in Katama. “People don’t want processed food. They want quality proteins, produce, to feed their families.” 

At the August conference at Stillpoint, co-executive director of IGI Noli Taylor explained that the tie-in to regenerative agriculture is essential, too. 

“Communities everywhere are going to be grappling with ‘How do we create food security in a changing climate when there’s more and more supply chain disruptions, when it’s getting more and more difficult to grow food in times of drought and times of extreme rainfall events?’” Taylor said. “I feel like there’s going to be a national drive towards figuring out community food security in this more holistic way, and every community is going to have to figure it out. But we can create these regional networks to share what we’re seeing works [and] practices that could be shared.”

According to Economos, the outlook is similar in Washington, where Food Is Medicine has bipartisan support. And panelists added that Massachusetts is at the forefront of that effort. 

“This is on the MAHA agenda, Make America Healthy Again,” Economos told the attendees. She said legislators from across the aisle “care about the fact that we spend over $4 trillion on healthcare in this country, and about $1.2 trillion is diet-related chronic disease, meaning we can prevent it.”

Faller, who runs a similar operation to IGI in Easthampton, said there are multiple farms in the state leading a working example of food as medicine, and IGI and IHC are one model, in addition to Just Roots, at the forefront of that visibility. He said the model in Massachusetts is helping in more ways than one by “creating jobs and creating economic stability in the communities where the patients live [and] effectively impacting the social determinants of health.”

“Everybody has our eyes on what we’re doing right now, and so I think it’s just a really important time to elevate the role of farmers,” Faller said.