Giving New Mexico farmers, producers, and local food retailers the tools to GROW.
This project used qualitative methods to document food supplier as well as food recipient perspectives in the FreshRx PPR program in the Lordsburg (southwestern NM) and Española (northern NM) service areas. These geographies were selected following community outreach and consultation. The selection process was based upon the following: communities with active 2025 programming; communities with willing, interested, and established health partners; communities where it would be possible to gather information from both food suppliers and recipients and where there would be a mix of experiences of food provided via vouchers to redeem at farmers’ markets and CSA-style food bags provided directly to patients; and communities that would be considered frontier and/or rural. [5]
The project included two groups of participants: i) food suppliers that provide fresh produce for the program; and ii) food recipients who are patients that participated in the FreshRx program. All participants provided consent to participate in the research and received gift cards for their participation. The qualitative interview guides are provided in Appendix C and Appendix D.
A total of six (6) individuals representing five (5) food suppliers were interviewed, including one (1) small-scale female farmer and one (1) food hub [6] located in southwestern NM; one (1) small-scale tribal farmer located in central NM; and two (2) food hubs located in central NM. Criteria for supplier selection was selling produce through the FreshRx program either during the 2025 season or within the past 3 years, with the aim of having a mix of suppliers who had participated through the voucher redemption model at farmers’ markets and the provision of CSA-style food bags directly to patients. Interviews were conducted over Zoom and recorded and transcribed. In two cases, after reviewing the transcriptions, a few outstanding questions were sent to the suppliers via email. The supplier interviews were designed to help better understand local economy and community benefits of local food sourcing for FreshRx from a “supply chain responsibility” framing (Liu, Cavaye, and Ariyawardana, 2022), in which supply chains are seen as being able to help create social and environmental benefits for the community in addition to profits for the supply chain actors; as well as a short food supply chain (SFSC) framework, where SFSCs can contribute to local economies, support small-scale producers, bring environmental benefits, and build community (Jia et al, 2024).
A total of four (4) current FreshRx PPR recipients participated in the PhotoVoice component of the project, including two (2) patients at the Lordsburg clinic and two (2) patients at the Española clinic. Recruitment at both clinics was difficult. Despite up to 20 patients participating at each clinic, only a few patients were interested in the research project, and many did not respond to follow-up recruitment efforts. The participants documented self-defined meaningful experiences through photos based on suggested prompts provided by the research team. Focus group discussions and interviews were then held with the participants to discuss their photos and experiences with FreshRx. Focus groups were conducted with the two Lordsburg participants, and individual interviews were conducted with the two Española participants, due to scheduling needs. Focus groups and interviews were recorded and transcribed, and all transcriptions and participant materials were de-identified. Photos and other project materials were stored on a HIPAA-compliant Google Drive account through the NMFMA.
Transcriptions and photos were reviewed and analyzed, with initial codes and categories being assigned. The codes and categories were based on the research project aims as well as patterns that emerged from the data collection. The codes and categories were then organized into themes and sub-themes . Respondent quotes were selected for inclusion in the report to illustrate the themes and sub-themes as well as to highlight participant voices.
Findings are presented as case studies for Española and Lordsburg. The case studies are followed by a summary of broader system-level findings.
The biggest limitation in the research was that the number of participants was lower than planned based on challenges with recruitment. This was true particularly for Photovoice participants as well as farmers who had previously been FreshRx vendors at farmers’ markets. Part of the recruitment challenge stemmed from the project not having resources for being able to offer Spanish language interviews. In addition, the timing of the interviews was during a busy part of the season, especially for farmers selling at farmers’ markets.
While there were fewer participants than planned, those who did participate provided a wealth of rich and illuminating information .
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