St. Luke’s Hospital
A Farm Management Case Study:
THE OBJECTIVE:
Change what “healthcare” looks like by growing high quality organic produce for patients and staff at st.
Luke’s hospital while also raising community awareness about healthy eating with farm-to-hospital programming.
THE JOURNEY:
In 2013, Rodale Institute established a five (5) acre organic farm on the Anderson Campus of the St. Luke’s University Health Network to offer organic produce to patients and staff. Today, our farmers grow thousands of pounds of high-quality, organic produce for distribution to all ten St. Luke’s campuses in the region on 16.5 acres. We grow over 100 different varieties of vegetables and fruits.
HOW WE PARTNER:
The Rodale Institute Organic Consulting Team partnered with St. Luke’s at farm inception, crafting a vision for the farm and creating a business plan to deliver on that vision. Today, Rodale Institute fully manages the farm across all key pillars — talent, financials and operations. All farm employees including the Farm Manager are Rodale Institute employees. The Farm Manager leads on budgeting, record-keeping, and analyzing financial statements to ensure costs can be off-set by selling produce to the Hospital Network. Additionally, the Farm Manager is in charge of monitoring staff and crops, ordering seeds, inventory management, and more. This farm also serves as an opportunity to provide hands-on training to our Rodale Institute Farmer Training Students.