Farm to Hospital

Promoting Health and Supporting Local Agriculture

by MOIRA BEERY and MARK VALLIANATOS
November 2004

INTRODUCTION:

A number of hospitals throughout the country are exploring innovative “farm to hospital” linkages that bring fresh, healthy food to medical facilities and offer new markets for local farmers. In Billings, Montana, the Community Food Campaign urged a local hospital to procure food locally. The medical facility, Billings Deaconess Clinic, amended the contract with their food provider and now procures locally raised turkey. Sutter Maternity and Surgery Center in Santa Cruz, California, buys almost 20 percent of their produce from trainee farmers working the Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association farm in nearby Salinas, CA. Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, holds a weekly farmers’ market between the clinic and the hospital. Vendors sell fresh fruits and vegetables and “Healthy Lunches,” sponsored by Duke University’s LIVE FOR LIFE® Program. The establishment of farmers’ markets at ten Kaiser Permanente hospitals in California has sparked discussions about the need for a companywide food policy to bring fresh food to patients, visitors and surrounding communities.

Given the increasing popularity of direct marketing ventures like farm to school, as well as heightened concern about hospital food quality, the time is right for the development of farm to hospital programs. Linking local farms and hospitals can improve the freshness, quality and nutritional value of hospital food while opening a new institutional market to small farmers. This working paper discusses the opportunities and challenges involved in creating and enhancing farm-hospital connections. Drawing lessons from existing farm to hospital programs and a burgeoning farm to school movement, it provides a snapshot of current hospital food conditions and a vision of a healthier hospital food environment based, in part, on local, farm-fresh food.

Read the entire report. (13 pages, 111Kb, PDF)