Northern Mississippi FoodRx

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Commodities

Practices

• Education and Training: participatory research
• Farm Business Management: business planning, new enterprise development
• Sustainable Communities: food access and security, new business opportunities

The North Mississippi FoodRx program (NMFP) is a food prescription program designed to connect historically underserved small-scale horticultural farmers directly with their communities. The Community First Research Center’s (CREW) current research shows one of the top five biggest challenges for underserved small-scale horticultural farmers in Mississippi is the marketing system. Farmers markets do not provide sufficient income and the number of individual buyers is dwindling. NMFP will provide a framework for two marketing systems, test each system, and modify the systems to create a sustainable food system for farmers and their communities. 

The tested marketing systems will be operated as food prescription programs for populations struggling with food insecurity in northern Mississippi. Participating farmers will use sustainable farming practices to grow fruits and vegetables and curate food boxes of their own produce and value-added products for program-enrolled patients in their area. The food is the prescription to assist patients with low access to healthy produce and pre-existing health conditions. This project will test the prescription delivery method and its effects on patient health and farmer wellbeing. 

CREW has developed three food prescription programs over the past two years; two of which will serve as the baseline models for this project. One program is a food hub model which currently uses a regional produce wholesale company that focuses on patient health metrics. Another program uses a food delivery model with a local farmer that focuses on delivery logistics. This project will evaluate these two food prescription program models.

During the first year, CREW will partner with participating farmers to develop two sustainable business plans, one for food delivery and the other for a food hub. The second year will test each developed program. CREW will collect biometric data from patients and survey patients and participating farmers to evaluate each program’s success and sustainability. Based on the findings from this year of data collection CREW will modify and combine the original business plans to create a program best suited for patient health and farmer wellbeing, which will be the most likely way to sustain the new food system.

The third year will implement the modified program. CREW will observe the new system’s function, collect patient biometric data, and survey patients and farmers to ensure long-term system sustainability.

This project’s research is meant to evaluate patient health changes over the course of two years and evaluate the success of each food prescription model. Results from this research will curate a food prescription model best suited for underserved farmers and their communities. Results will also provide a better understanding of the effects of healthy food choices on the human body when access barriers are reduced.

1. Adapt two existing food prescription program models and create business plans for implementation in new cooperating partners and settings.
2. Pilot test the two adapted food prescription programs to determine which program is most effective for patients and sustainable for farmers.
3. Roll-out the most effective and sustainable food prescription program for additional recruitment, evaluation, and sustainability plans.