Landmark Deakin University trial pairs dietary support in pregnancy care with regeneratively grown food to test impacts on maternal and infant brain health.
What if the key to better brain health for both mums and babies started with what's on the dinner table — and whether families can actually access it?
That's the question at the heart of Farm PRT-E, a landmark clinical trial by the Deakin Institute for Mental and Physical Health and Clinical Translation (IMPACT). The trial will test whether supporting pregnant women with practical nutrition advice and regeneratively grown food in healthy soil can improve brain health for both mums and babies. Farm My School is growing the food to put it to the test.
A Trial Years in the Making
Commencing within six months, the Farm PRT-E study plans to recruit 1,100 women receiving pregnancy care via Barwon Health, Grampians Health, Colac Area Health or Western District Health Services.
Participants will be randomly assigned to one of two groups: routine pregnancy care alone (the control group), or routine care plus the Farm PRT-E intervention. The intervention includes a dietary education and support program delivered by the pregnancy care teams, along with fresh produce grown and coordinated by Farm My School at their regenerative farm sites. Women in the control group will receive gift vouchers to the same monetary value as the Farm My School food boxes.
The trial didn't emerge overnight. It's the product of over 15 years of background work across the Barwon Infant Study and the Deakin Food & Mood Centre, and was co-designed within the Western Alliance funded Pregnancy Research and Translation Ecosystem (PRT-E). Farm PRT-E is funded by the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) and the Illawong Fund, supporting a partnership between Deakin University, the participating health services, and Farm My School to test a community-engaged strategy that targets gut bacteria to improve brain health.
Why This Matters
Good nutrition advice only goes so far if the food itself isn't within reach — and that's exactly the gap this trial is designed to close.
"Healthy eating in pregnancy is important for maternal and infant health, but it can be difficult to do, and it’s even harder for families experiencing food insecurity, which affects more than one in eight Australian households. Teaching people about healthy eating isn’t enough if healthy food is inaccessible to them. That’s why we are so excited about our partnership with Farm My School, because we’ll be pairing dietary education and support with boxes of regeneratively grown food. If effective, this approach could change how Australia supports expectant families through initiatives like Farm My School.” said Dr Samantha Dawson, Senior Research Fellow at Deakin University, and Co-Lead of Farm PRT-E (pictured below with rainbow chard).
Farm My School's Role
Farm My School's role in the trial is to coordinate fresh, seasonal produce boxes to trial participants, ensuring women have access to nutrient dense food, along with dietary education and coaching, during their pregnancy.
The produce isn't sourced from just anywhere – it's grown at Farm My School's own regenerative farm sites, including Bellarine Secondary College in Drysdale and Colac Secondary College, where Farm My School's farm team, alongside students and local community members, are involved in every step of production, from soil preparation and planting to harvest and distribution.
For James McLennan, CEO and Co-founder of Farm My School, the trial is about testing a simple but powerful idea in a rigorous, evidence-based way.
"This is about asking a simple but powerful question," said McLennan. "Does high-quality dietary support during pregnancy, combined with the provision of nutrient dense, sustainably grown food, improve the health of mums and babies?"
Part of a Bigger Movement
Farm PRT-E sits at the intersection of several fields that don't often get connected in a single study: gut-brain research, regenerative agriculture and planetary health, food systems, and public health. Bringing them together in one trial is itself part of what makes this project significant – testing not just whether the food helps, but whether how it's grown and delivered matters too.
The PRT-E trial will soon be open for recruitment.
Email hello@farmmyschool.com.au to schedule a media interview.
