The 2024 Farmacy: Food is Medicine season is now on! If you are interested in taking part, please email Lilah!
Learn more about the Farmacy Program!
2023 Farmacy Report
2022 Farmacy Report
Farm to Plate: Using Local Food to Further Health Outcomes and Food Security
Dig deeper into five different healthcare CSA programs around Vermont with the Healthcare CSA Community of Practice report
WHAT IS THE FARMACY: FOOD IS MEDICINE PROGRAM?
This "Prescription CSA" or "Food is Medicine" program addresses three major needs in Addison County: diet-related illness, food insecurity and local farm viability. It has been determined that three behaviors (lack of physical activity, diet, and tobacco use) contribute to four diseases (cancer, heart disease, diabetes, lung disease) that cause 50% of all deaths in Vermont. This program addresses the nutritional and dietary needs of those patients.
These produce prescriptions are written by health care providers and provide free CSA shares supplied by three local farmers (10-12 pounds per week).
This is one of five produce prescription programs being recognized across the state of Vermont in the Farm to Plate Healthcare CSA Community of Practice.
Two free in-person cooking classes using Farmacy produce are held at the Hannaford Career Center.
Additional gleaned and donated produce is provided by HOPE.
Shares, along with recipes and informational newsletters, are picked up by the patient each week at a distribution point in Middlebury, with home delivery for those who can’t make it to the distribution point.
This is a community initiative with funding from Porter Medical Center, Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op, Village Health, YouFirst, HOPE, NOFA-VT, Vermont Foodbank, Blue Cross Blue Shield Vermont and ACORN.
Thanks to our 2023 Partners:
Farmacy 2021 Summary Presentation
2021 Farmacy
The 2021 Farmacy program ran July 8 - November 11.
Read about 2021 Farmacy in the News and more about healthcare share CSA programs here.
Farmacy Cooking Class with Woody Danforth at the Hannaford Career Center - August 12, 2021
2020 Farmacy
The 2020 Farmacy Program started July 9, 2020 and ran through September 24, 2020.
Sixty-five families received weekly shares of locally grown produce for 12 weeks, along with educational information such as recipes and cooking tips and relevant information from partner organizations. They were also eligible to enroll in the Middlebury Natural Food Co-op’s Food for All program.
Weekly curbside pick-up ensured all social distancing protocols were followed!
Farmacy Winter Meal Preparation Video Series
In an effort to continue providing educational materials to Farmacy members through the winter season, this video series was created for the Farmacy program by Eastern Michigan University Dietetics graduate students Emily Beringer, Nicole Holmes and Shawndra Powell.
How to sprout at home.
How to make your own vegetable stock to be used as a base in winter soups, curries, risottos, and more!
a member of the 2020 farmacy season.
2019 Farmacy
In 2019 ACORN partnered with the Vermont Department of Health, two local health care providers, and three local farms (New Leaf Organics, Firefly Fields and Lester Farm and Market) found a new market to provide fresh, locally grown, food to the county’s most vulnerable citizens. In accomplishing this vision, we provided individuals with type II diabetes, heart disease and other preventable, diet-related illnesses and/or food insecurity with healthy food while providing our farmers with new and sustainable markets.
Our goal was to connect families in the Porter Medical Center and Bristol Mountain Health Center service areas, facing food insecurity and diet-related illness, with a health care provider’s prescription for a local farm share of fruits and vegetables,
supplemented with nutrition and cooking education.
2019 Farmacy Summary
Continue to support Mountain Health Center
Explore sustainable funding sources
Extend program to all practices
Increase to 60 Health Care Shares
Increase deliveries through December
Incorporate cooking classes into program
VISION FOR THE FUTURE
3 area farms (New Leaf Organics, Firefly Fields and Lester Farm and Market) found a new market
45 area families received 12 weekly CSA Shares
3 Medical Practices collaborated
15 families took advantage of Middlebury Natural Food Co-op's Food for All Program
Educational Programs were offered weekly
A real sense of community was developed at delivery points
Behavioral and health changes were documented
