This video is one of several at utube’s Greenroof.com page and see also www.greenroofs.com/
Tamara Mathias for Reuters - July 26, 2019
...In 2017, Boston Medical Center (BMC) began operating a 2658-square-foot farm on a roof terrace… [growing] over 25 crop varieties and ... honey from two beehives [with] one full-time farmer, one part-time assistant, a beekeeper and hospital volunteers to help run the farm.
In its first season, the farm grew more than 5200 pounds of produce, including leafy greens, herbs and vegetables, researchers found when they evaluated the farm's operation.
The farm "struck me as a really interesting, unique way of addressing food insecurity among (patients) while also providing environmental benefits," said Aviva Musicus of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, who coauthored a report on the farm in the American Journal of Public Health.
A "safety net" hospital, BMC mostly serves low-income and elderly patients.
[Some of the farm’s produce went to the hospital’s kitchen, but the bulk] was used in the hospital's food pantry. Primary care doctors can [give financially struggling patients] "food pantry prescriptions," which allow them to visit the pantry to receive free food for their households….
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Operating costs ... total around $50,000 a year, a sum BMC intends to fund through endowments, donations and grants. The hospital held a fundraiser to cover start-up costs.
Kate Sommerfeld [who was not involved in the Boston farm or the study] president of social determinants of health at hospital operator ProMedica, said one of ProMedica’s Michigan-based hospitals runs a farm, too.
“We know that between 40% and 60% of individual health is determined by non-clinical factors. So it’s important that the healthcare industry thinks about issues that impact and drive health like food access and housing. The work that BMC is doing really highlights that evolution.”
Sommerfeld believes it’s increasingly important to show that such programs have value beyond altruism.
More of this article at the Tamara Mathias link, above.
A wik link for more on Social Determinants of Health and click on tags for more diaries by kosaks on the topics.
See also CommunityGardens and CommunityGarden and CommunityGardening
and search any other tags you can imagine applying, at the dk search page for tags.