Lunch Becomes a Delicious Lesson with Farm to School Programs

By Kisha Lewellyn Schlegel, 9-11-07

No matter who you sit with at the cafeteria lunch table, if you eat the school lunch you are likely tasting the same chicken-fried steak, potato-based, pizza on Friday meal as every other kid in America. For more than thirty years most lunchrooms around the country have been serving processed and pre-cooked food in an effort to make decreasing school lunch budgets go further and still meet federal nutrition requirements. So the beefy chili is precooked and frozen in plastic bags along with the brocolli and corn that are all ready to heat and eat. Even granny smith apples come sliced and shrink wrapped on a mini Styrofoam tray.

But as kids around America return to school this year, more are finding unexpected delicacies like fresh broccoli and home-made chili on the lunch menu.

With the rise of diabetes and obesity, many schools are removing the pop and candy machines and replacing the school lunch with local food. To do so, they are implementing the Farm to School program, which works with local farmers, ranchers and school staff to provide local food to students that will improve student nutrition. These programs are also intended to improve students’ understanding of the food system while putting lunch money back into the local economy. For instance, schools purchase eggs, honey, fruit and vegetables from local farmers who are able to expand their markets and even hold farm tours for students.

In the Rocky Mountain West, both New Mexico and Montana have Farm to School programs. New Mexico’s program started in 2003 and was initiated by the New Mexico Department of Agriculture and the State Farmers’ Marketing Association. Seven Santa Fe Schools are active in the program and other schools in the district receive some local produce during the year. The program also includes cooking classes and nutrition eduction with the Cooking with Kids program.

The Farm to School program has been particularly popular in Montana, in part because of the success of the University of Montana’s Farm to College program, which primarily provides local beef, cheese and bread to University Students. The program has already put $1.5 million into the local economy and is growing each year.

Its success has spawned other Farm to School programs in Montana, including the Montana Farm to School Program, which began in 2005 as a part of the Missoula Community Food and Agriculture Coalition. During the 2006-2007 school year, the Missoula School system purchased over 16,000 pounds of Montana-grown food, and held classes about the benefits of eating locally grown food. Initially, the Farm to School program in Montana focused on adding in-season produce such as cantaloupe and cucumber to school menus, and it will now focus on processing and freezing local food for year round use. It also intends to expand the program to high schools. 

So far, these programs have shown that children will choose healthier foods when given a local food option and throw away less of the food on their plate. But there are some impediments to making the program the sole source for school food, including distribution, coordination and cost. One issue is that managing local food orders can require more staff time and knowledge of local food sources. In turn, cooking from scratch is not always as cost effective as having pre-made meals. While the Missoula County school system found that buying local foods was either the same or less expensive than buying from mainstream suppliers, a 2006 study of an Oregon school program indicated the cost can be twice as much because of staff requirements.

But organizations like the Community Food and Agriculture Coalition are working on these impediments by organizing community meetings that include food service staff, producers and distributors who are best able to create functional, localized lunch programs. The national Farm to School website is also developing an interactive network to address such problems and encourage collaboration, and the Center for Ecoliteracy offers an entire toolbox on creating Farm to School programs. In tandem, Chef Ann, the innovative director of nutrition services for the Berkeley Unified School District, has endless local lunch lessons that clearly identify the reasons for using local food to improve our children’s and community’s health.

Some funds are also available through the Department of Defense Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program, which began in 1994. 43 states participate in the program in which schools place orders with the DoD. The DoD then delivers American-grown fruit and vegetables to the schools during its deliveries to military bases and prisons. Schools use their federal commodity dollars to make purchases and the program is increasingly giving preference to small and mid-sized family farmers.

As Farm to School programs continue to grow, these programs may see more support from similar federal programs. But for now it appears that most will continue to be initiated and executed locally. In the meantime, lucky Farm to School students will be able to choose a Dixon melon for dessert instead of a pudding pop.

Check back each Tuesday with Kisha’s Spade & Spoon column at www.newwest.net/spadeandspoon.