Half of all households in Franklin and Hampshire counties and roughly 2 million adults across the state experienced food insecurity in 2024, according to a new statewide report published by The Greater Boston Food Bank and Mass General Brigham.

The data, announced by the food bank in June, paints a picture of growing food insecurity across the state, with Franklin and Hampshire counties seeing some of the greatest increases in food insecurity rates, 13% higher than the previous year. In total, 37% of Massachusetts households faced food insecurity, nearly double the rate from 2019.

Catherine D’Amato, president and CEO of The Greater Boston Food Bank, said in a statement that food insecurity is a threat to both public health and the economy. She urged for “supportive federal and state government policy, and ongoing private and public commitment,” as well as assistance from and for the organizations that make up the network of food banks to help address the growing need.

“Hunger is not just an individual issue; it is a public emergency with an astronomical economic and human cost,” D’Amato said. “This report tells us that hunger is doing profound and lasting damage to our neighbors’ health, nutrition, financial stability and social connectedness. Even so, we maintain that hunger truly can be a solvable problem when there is a collaborative and multi-sector approach, especially in Massachusetts, a state where there is a proven legacy of responsive and creative solutions to care for our neighbors in need.”

The online survey, which received more than 3,000 responses and was used in the report, was conducted from November 2024 through March 2025 and focused on participants’ experiences around food access.

Food insecurity is defined as the experience of being unable to afford enough food to eat or worrying about where one’s next meal will come from. Food insecurity is then broken down into two levels.

Low food insecurity occurs when a person in a household must reduce the quality or variety of their meals because there is not enough money, while very low food insecurity occurs when a person must skip meals or not eat the entire day because they don’t have enough money for food, according to The Greater Boston Food Bank.

Those working at food pantries and other organizations supporting food-insecure residents say the rising tide of food insecurity and hunger is the reality they face in the Pioneer Valley.

“It is very alarming,” Food Bank of Western Massachusetts Executive Director Andrew Morehouse said. “I can’t speak to the accuracy of this information, because it’s just an estimate based on a study of 3,000 people, but it does confirm our understanding and our experience and observation that we are providing more food to more people than we ever have in our 43-year history.”

Morehouse said the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, through its numerous partners, provided more than 1.34 million meals to Franklin County from April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2025, compared to 1.28 million in that same time frame the year before. The number of monthly clients also increased by about 14.4%, to 12,923 in Franklin County alone.

In Hampshire County, the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts provided 2.69 million meals from April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2025, compared to 2.39 million in the prior year. The number of clients increased by 3.89%, with 28,686 people served.

At Community Action Pioneer Valley, which operates the Center for Self-Reliance Food Pantry in Greenfield and the West County Food Pantry in Shelburne Falls, Associate Director of Programs Janna Tetreault said the survey’s findings align with the increased number of people using the agency’s food services.

“I was surprised that it was that high, though we’ve definitely been seeing an increase in folks seeking our services around food for the last couple of years,” Tetreault said. “We’ve seen a 22% increase in participants since 2022.”

It isn’t just those in cities like Greenfield or Northampton, as the hilltowns are also facing a rising tide of food insecurity, according to Patricia Thayer, who runs the Hilltown Churches Food Pantry. The organization serves between 100 and 128 families in 11 towns out of its Ashfield location.

“It’s been going up, almost every distribution,” Thayer said. “They may not come every time, but it’s increasing, there’s no doubt about that. I think it’s going to continue as this craziness goes on.”

Inflation, cost of living, housing shortages and other factors, including the region’s rural character, have all created the perfect storm, according to Tetreault.

“Franklin County is our most rural county, so cost of living, cost of transportation, all of those things are very precarious,” Tetreault said. “Families are having to decide on what they have to spend their limited resources on.”

The effects of hunger

Left unaddressed, the costs of food insecurity often bleed into other sectors of public life. People in food-insecure households often eat less nutritious food and forego medical appointments because they cannot afford food or health care. An estimated $1.3 billion in annual emergency room and hospitalization costs for Medicaid may be directly related to food insecurity, according to The Greater Boston Food Bank.

The Greater Boston Food Bank also found food insecurity erodes community participation, as food-insecure households are less likely to volunteer, vote in an election, participate in neighborhood organizations and attend places of worship. Food-insecure children missed three times as many non-school activities as food-secure kids.

Morehouse emphasized that the key to reducing food insecurity, as well as the numerous issues that come with it, is having communities come together while also securing investments in food and health care systems from governments.

“The community certainly came out to support us during the pandemic and now we’re seeing higher levels of food insecurity than in the pandemic,” he said. “We need to be thinking, as a society, in a much broader way of how we’re going to ensure people can provide basic needs for themselves. … We’ve got to invest in communities, in people and in businesses.”

Communities banding together, Thayer agreed, is vital to keeping programs like hers alive, as it is “run entirely on donations.”

“It’s a tight budget. We squeeze every penny five times before it goes,” Thayer said. “Everybody needs to eat, so we’ll keep plugging.”

The threat of cuts to social safety nets at the federal level, Tetreault and Morehouse said, will put even more strain on people. On Tuesday, the Senate passed its Budget Reconciliation Bill by a 51-50 vote, with Vice President JD Vance breaking the tie. This version of the bill, which then went to the House for a final vote as of Friday morning, is estimated to include cuts of about $200 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and $900 billion from Medicaid.

“We’re very concerned about the looming cut to SNAP and the fact that people who lose a portion or all of their SNAP benefits will turn to local food pantries,” Morehouse said. “We’re bracing for that.”

The Greater Boston Food Bank’s fifth Statewide Food Access Report can be found at bit.ly/3HNk8UO.

For a list of food pantries and other resources, visit the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts’ comprehensive map and list at bit.ly/4kjdFhO. For more information about the Hilltown Churches Food Pantry, visit bit.ly/46bx3tV.

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com.