From the Ground Up: An Immersive Farm Experience for Nursing Students

This journal article describes the author's experience of taking a diverse group of nursing students to a farm where they were shown the interconnections of healthy soil, quality food, and human health. Students observed the key components of sustainable farming and soil biodiversity through multiple hands-on activities. Participation included tasting and harvesting the vegetables from the ground up. As future educators, it is important for nursing students to think of food as part of an ecosystem and to promote healthy, agricultural growing practices to protect the environment and public health.

It is emphasised that society remains plagued by diet-related conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity, and this article argues the nurse’s role in educating their patients is more important than ever. The causes of unhealthy eating patterns are multifactorial, and nurses who are on the frontlines of health care have multiple opportunities to interact with individuals in the community. Nurses are vital to nutrition education for health promotion, illness prevention, and chronic disease management across the life span.

Maintaining good nutrition is a key principle taught in nursing curricula; nurses collaborate with health-care providers, dieticians, patients and their families to achieve improved dietary intake. This article explores what students need to consider such as, the socioeconomic, cultural, and political influences on patient’s food choices