Alachua County Commission moves forward with Farm Stop concept, asks staff to explore Food is Medicine for County employees

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At a special meeting on February 3, the Alachua County Commission moved forward with the Farm Stop concept and asked staff to look into implementing Food is Medicine for County employees. 

Farmers’ Market Needs Assessment

Agricultural Economic Development Coordinator Bailey McClellan started the meeting by sharing the results of the 2025 Farmers Market Needs Assessment. Two surveys were developed, one for vendors and one for shoppers; the shopper survey found that 61% of all shoppers at farmers’ markets report a household income of over $75,000, but the survey found that farmers’ markets are serving households across a wide range of income brackets, although the majority are high-income earners. The shopper survey found that the primary reasons for attending farmers’ markets are to purchase fresh locally grown produce, support local businesses, and connect directly with farmers. 

Vendors said they were offering a diverse mix of products, most commonly baked goods, honey, and jams, followed by fruits and vegetables, and artisan and handmade crafts. Nearly half of the vendors reported that more than 75% of their total revenue comes from market sales. When asked to identify their three top needs, they were: 1) Financial assistance opportunities to sell at new markets or expand markets; 2) Networking opportunities with other farms and shoppers; and 3) More shade structures and better signage. 

Farm Stop

After the presentation about the surveys, County Commissioner Anna Prizzia said she wanted to share the concept of a Farm Stop with her colleagues. She said, “Most farmers don’t… have the staffing to be able to continue to sit at additional markets… Most of our farmers, I would suspect, are interested in opportunities where they could continue to sell their products in a year-round fashion but without having all of that commitment of time and energy. And so, to me, the logical response to this… is to look at the Farm Stop model that I sent you.”

Prizzia continued, “Essentially, it’s a farmers’ market and a grocery store, kind of combined… It’s a place where there are [consignment] stalls… and everybody has their spot, and then there’s a centralized checkout,… so they know who gets the money… Some are set up… where each farmer has their own little spot to highlight themselves, but a lot of them are set up like grocery stores, so that people can shop… by product… It gives us the opportunity to have a grocery-like market that people can shop at, [with] regular business hours, like they would any other grocery store. And as a destination, it’s an opportunity for us to do more for East Gainesville… I think it could also potentially solve a real challenge we have around fresh food accessibility in East Gainesville.”

Prizzia reminded commissioners that her first motion as a Commissioner, in collaboration with former City Commissioner Gail Johnson, was to appropriate $3 million of CRA (Community Reinvestment Agency) money for developing a grocery store in East Gainesville, and those funds still have not been spent. She said a Farm Stop “would get us a long way there, and it would help with fresh food access.” She said she’d already had conversations with the Gainesville City Manager and CRA, and “they seem really intrigued and excited about the model.” She said she just wanted to “put that out there” and that it was “food for thought for you all.” 

Commissioner Mary Alford said, “I really love this idea… I think it would work well in East Gainesville… It makes sense. And I think it goes really well with the Food Hub idea.” 

Prizzia added, “Working Food is working on an online farmers’ market… Many [Farm Stops] have an online purchasing component that allows for just-in-time delivery for the farmer. So as they’re bringing stuff to sell, they also can bring deliveries for the people who have pre-ordered and have it already packaged. The Farm Stop can serve as a pickup location.” 

Prizzia said, “I don’t think we can do it without the City of Gainesville. Number one, I think it needs to be located in East Gainesville, and they have all of our CRA funds, which are the redevelopment funds we would utilize for something like this.”

Commissioner Prizzia: “In an ideal scenario, we would actually be hiring the staff that would operate the store, but the consignment fees that the farmers pay, pay the salaries and pay to keep the lights on. So once the infrastructure is built and you have a decent setup and a decent number of farmers, it is a revenue-neutral operation.”

Prizzia continued, “The nice thing about this type of project is, it tends to be pretty revenue-neutral. In an ideal scenario, we would actually be hiring the staff that would operate the store, but the consignment fees that the farmers pay, pay the salaries and pay to keep the lights on. So once the infrastructure is built and you have a decent setup and a decent number of farmers, it is a revenue-neutral operation,… and that’s why a consignment model works so well, because you don’t have all that overhead and all that shrinkage of having to buy all this fresh produce and then having it go to waste.”

Commissioner Marihelen Wheeler asked about purchasing the Food Lion site for the Farm Stop, but Prizzia said that multiple potential buyers have been unable to negotiate a reasonable deal with the property owner. She said the EHEDI property is right across the street, and the City of Gainesville is “trying to sort of make that a destination, with the clinic and the bus depot… and food trucks.” She acknowledged that the Farm Stop would require a new building, but the property is already owned by the City.

Repurposing small farmers grants to farmers’ markets

Economic Development Director Jessica Hurov said her department has already started on a marketing component to aid farmers’ market vendors: “We’re already moving plans forward to increase the messaging around food, food systems, farmers’ markets, restaurants who are preparing that kind of food,” she said. 

Hurov also suggested repurposing the County’s small farmers grants, currently budgeted at $100,000 a year, to support small farmers who are selling at farmers’ markets: “So what we were thinking is, if we could look at some of the needs of the existing markets,… whether they would use that for shade or whether they would use that for some of these infrastructure projects that they talked about in the surveys, I think that we could come in and say that’s another way of supporting our farms, rather than directly to those farm producers.”

Chair Ken Cornell said that investing in infrastructure at the farmers’ markets would immediately help them serve more people. He said, “I think the infrastructure investment is based on having each vendor increase their sales per day. And if we can get more [vendors] above $1,000 per day, right now, that seems to be the target… I think that’s the public purpose that we’re looking for.” 

Motion

Prizzia made a three-part motion: 1) Continue to expand marketing efforts and the County’s short-term efforts to support the local food system and local food economy initiatives; 2) Migrate the County’s small farms grant program to support the farmers’ markets in the 2026-27 budget year; 3) Work with the City of Gainesville to explore the Farm Stop concept as a solution for food access in East Gainesville. She clarified that the farmers’ market grants would likely be larger than the small farms grants, although the same total amount would be budgeted, and they would be for the markets, not for individual vendors. Alford seconded the motion. 

Prizzia added to her motion a request to add a discussion about a Farm Stop to the County’s next joint meeting with the City of Gainesville Commission.

Community Gardens Coordinator (fourth part of the motion)

After the topic of community gardens came up during public comment on the motion, Prizzia said, “I do think that a Community Gardens Coordinator is a really important position, and I wonder if it’s not worth at least talking to [UF/IFAS] Extension about what it would take to have at least a part-time, if not a full-time person, that would be doing that community gardens coordinating and school gardens coordinating.” She added a fourth part to her motion, asking staff to reach out to Extension about the position “during the joint meeting.” 

Food is Medicine (fifth part of the motion)

Another person brought up Food is Medicine during public comment, and Prizzia said, “We actually have a really amazing Food is Medicine program going on right now. The One Community Resource Center in East Gainesville is collaborating with UF Health… to receive referrals for people who have high blood pressure, diabetes, pre-diabetes, and they’re doing a Food is Medicine program… I’ve been trying to support them in writing grants to get funding because their biggest need is fresh fruits and vegetables.”

Prizzia continued, “I think one of the things that could be interesting for the County to do — we’re self-insured, and Food is Medicine is a win, because we start getting people off of long-term medications and long-term illnesses. So there is an opportunity, if our self-insurance committee is up to it, to explore how we might offer a Food is Medicine program for our own employees,… working with our Food Hub partner, whoever that ends up being, that could put together boxes and figure out the process for reimbursement.”

Prizzia said that as the Regional Co-Chair for the Food is Medicine network, she has been in conversations with insurance companies to think about ways to start exploring reimbursability for prescribed food. She said there are two paths to explore: One is “Fee-for-service — instead of the 30 minutes with your doctor, you bill 30 minutes with the dietician, who then makes recommendations and writes a prescription for healthy food,” and the second path is “Prescription benefits — writing prescriptions for healthy food, and then being able to fill those with a purveyor that’s providing that fresh, healthy, nutritious food.”

Cornell asked, “So is that part five of your motion?” and Prizzia responded, “Oh my god, really?… I’ll add that we ask our self-insurance committee to explore a Food is Medicine program for employees of Alachua County.” Alford agreed with the amended motion.

Commissioner Prizzia: “[Food in Medicine is] just like when you go to a pharmacy… You have a food pharmacy, essentially.”

Cornell asked for clarification on how Food is Medicine would work, and Prizzia said, “It’s just like when you go to a pharmacy… You have a food pharmacy, essentially.”

Definition of “local” food

Wheeler asked what Prizzia considered to be “local” food, and Prizzia responded, “I consider ‘local’ to be independent family farms that are growing their food in our region, and I think different products have different local boundaries… Honestly, for me, it’s about local, it’s about our economy and protecting our farmers here in our region, but it’s also about supporting our independent farms that are working hard to ensure that we have resilience and sustainability in our food system, rather than the large-scale corporate farms that are taking over our global food system.”

Vote

The five-part motion passed unanimously.