Protecting Children: Farm-to-School
June 2008 update: The 2008 farm bill now allows schools to state geographic preference when purchasing food. This is fabulous news for advocates of farm-to-school, but it's also not enough to overcome the facts that schools often have only $1 to spend per child per meal and they lack kitchens where they could prepare food.
Beginning in the late 90s, a gradual but revolutionary change in thinking about school lunches began to take hold across the country. In simple terms, it is known as the farm-to-school movement, and it represents the idea of getting more fresh and fruits and vegetables into school lunches by developing working relationships between schools and local farmers. The number and variety of possible connections is huge, and taken together promise to offer solutions to all the problems mentioned above. The very fact that school districts vary so widely in climate conditions, finances, local culture and access to rural areas has encouraged an impressive number of variations on the central theme of this project.
There is no doubt that serving fresh fruits and vegetables is more complicated than serving prepared meals out of the freezer. Without help and advice, school officials can be daunted by the prospect of locating and coordinating suppliers, managing multiple deliveries, timing them to coincide with availability and avoid spoilage, increasing refrigeration and storage capacity, and somehow providing for the significant additional labor involved in processing raw fruits and vegetables.
Government agencies at every level, as well as nonprofit organizations ranging in scope from national to local, have searched for creative ways of making farm-school programs succeed. The results are too voluminous to be reproduced here, but some of the most important participants in this effort are linked below. The positive bottom line is that school districts, with expert guidance, are increasingly overcoming resistance to in-school, from-scratch lunch preparation as a result of cooperative relationships with local producers.
Among other changes that must be made in order to help Farm-to-School programs succeed, Section 122 of the 2004 Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act, providing for Farm-to-Cafeteria grants to help with the startup costs involved in increasing the amount of fresh produce used in school lunches, should be funded.
Also, state agencies may also be able to help with the logistical difficulties mentioned above in connection with serving fresh produce. They can, for example, locate or even help form producer cooperatives that would be willing to relieve school districts of some distribution and processing chores. Town Hall Meetings, described in the publication Small Farms/School Meals Initiative, have been an effective way of publicizing the kind of help state agencies can provide
More information
A Growing Movement: A Decade of Farm to School in California (PDF) (article)Current Farm to School Policies and Legislation (web site)
DailyKos: Farm to School Primer (blog entry) November 18, 2007.
Farm Fresh, But at School: Kids get a taste of locally grown produce (article) Wisconsin schools participate in the Wisconsin Homegrown Lunch program.
Food for thought: N.H. farm sells schools its just-picked produce (article) October 7, 2007.
Many barriers keep fresh, organic food out of school lunches (article)
NYT: Local Carrots with a Side of Red Tape (article) October 17, 2007.
The Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004 (PDF) (article) Section 122 describes a grant program for Farm-to-School initiatives.
USDA Farm-to-School Guidance (PDF) (article)
USDA: Small Farms/School Meals Initiative (PDF) (article) A publication of USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service that advises school districts on how to bring together essential players for a meeting to initiate a local farm-to-school program.
Recent news
Bill Aims to Put More Farm-Fresh Foods on School Lunch Menus (article) January 10, 2008.Multiplication Tables: Oregon has farms and food processors aplenty, but schools need help to connect them to kids' lunches (article)
Op Ed: Local Farms — Healthy Kids a hearty investment (article) This March 5 op ed describes the Healthy Kids bill that Washington State passed the Senate March 11, 2008.
Washington State HB 2798 - The Local Farms Health Kids Act (PDF) (web site) The Washington state House version of the Healthy Kids bill that passed in early 2008.
Washington State SB 6483 Local Farms-Healthy Kids Act (PDF) (web site) The Senate Bill that passed March 11, 2008.
