Farmers’ Markets Bring Fresh, Local Food to 71 Italian Hospitals
A nationwide initiative is bringing local agricultural products and food education into Italian hospitals to promote healthier diets and disease prevention.
The Campagna Amica per la Salute (Campagna Amica for Health) initiative is bringing farmers’ markets to 71 hospitals across Italy, offering patients, families, healthcare workers and local residents access to fresh, local, seasonal and traceable agricultural products.
The initiative is promoted by the farmers’ organization Coldiretti; the Campagna Amica Foundation, which supports Italian agriculture and operates a network of direct-sales farmers’ markets; and the Aletheia Foundation, a think tank focused on the relationship between food and health.
Integrating protective food environments into healthcare infrastructure is possible today, on a national scale.
The markets are held weekly or monthly, according to schedules established by each hospital.
They are present in seven healthcare facilities in Tuscany; six each in Campania and Emilia-Romagna; five each in Piedmont and Puglia; four each in Abruzzo, Lazio, Lombardy, Sicily, Sardinia and Veneto; three each in Basilicata, Calabria and Marche; two each in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Molise and Umbria; and one each in Liguria, Trentino-Alto Adige and Valle d’Aosta.
The initiative seeks to encourage healthier eating habits by placing nutritious foods at the center of primary prevention and reaffirming the Mediterranean Diet as a fundamental pillar of public health.
Campagna Amica per la Salute farmers’ market at the Agostino Gemelli University Hospital in Rome (Photo by Coldiretti)
It was officially launched at a July 10 press conference at the Fondazione Agostino Gemelli IRCCS University Hospital in Rome.
Representatives of the organizing groups and the healthcare facility were joined by Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forestry Minister Francesco Lollobrigida; Italian National Institute of Health President Rocco Bellantone; Lazio regional president Francesco Rocca; and Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri. Representatives of several hospitals participated remotely from across Italy.
“Microbiome science has shown us that health is not merely the absence of molecular disease, but the resilience of a complex biological ecosystem, shaped by what we eat, the environment we live in and the experiences we undergo,” said Antonio Gasbarrini, scientific director at Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli IRCCS and president of the scientific committee of the Aletheia Foundation.
“Bringing farmers’ markets to dozens of Italian hospitals is not just a symbolic gesture,” he added. “It demonstrates that integrating protective food environments into healthcare infrastructure is possible today, on a national scale, and that evidence-based prevention can become an integral part of a modern hospital’s mission.”
Campagna Amica per la Salute farmers’ market at Giannina Gaslini Pediatric Hospital in Genoa, Liguria (Photo by Coldiretti)
On the initiative’s inaugural day, several hospitals hosted food-education activities to raise awareness of food’s role as a primary prevention tool.
Coldiretti also presented a snapshot report developed with Censis, an Italian socioeconomic research institute, showing that 97 percent of Italians consider healthy eating essential to preventing diabetes, heart disease and obesity. However, many respondents said they struggle to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy foods.
The report found that 88 percent of Italians want to know the true origin of their food and its ingredients.
Meanwhile, 58 percent of parents acknowledged that their children tend to abandon a balanced diet when given the opportunity. The same proportion supported limiting the consumption of ultra-processed foods.
“Extra virgin olive oil is among the flagship products offered to consumers at the Campagna Amica per la Salute farmers’ markets,” David Granieri, vice president of Coldiretti and president of the Unaprol consortium of olive oil producers, told Olive Oil Times.
Granieri also welcomed a new tender for Rome’s school catering service, presented by city authorities shortly after the launch of the Campagna Amica per la Salute initiative.
The document calls for the exclusion of ultra-processed foods from school canteens in favor of healthier options, a measure strongly supported by Coldiretti’s Lazio regional unit.
“A pillar of the Mediterranean Diet and a symbol of Made in Italy, truly high-quality extra virgin olive oil should never be missing from citizens’ tables or public canteens, including school kitchens, to protect health from childhood,” Granieri said.