Farm to School
Can you imagine a school cafeteria where healthy, fit 4th graders come back for seconds of fresh tomatoes but leave the chocolate pudding untouched? We can.
Ecotrust, in close collaboration with a diverse coalition of project partners, is working on a wide-range of initiatives to promote "farm to school" programs, as they are termed, that enable schools to feature healthy, locally sourced products in their cafeterias, incorporate nutrition-based curriculum in all academic disciplines, and provide students with experiential agriculture and food-based learning opportunities, from farm visits to gardening, cooking, composting, and recycling. Our approach is multifaceted, aiming to effect change in many arenas that each contribute to promoting children’s long-term health and academic achievement; combating obesity, hunger, and global climate change; supporting Pacific Northwest farmers and food processors, both big and small; and enhancing regional economic development and community food security. We work at the local, state, and regional levels.
Announcement: Visit Food Front Co-op in January
Shop at Food Front Cooperative Grocery in January 2010 and you will have the opportunity to donate money to Ecotrust’s Farm to School program when you pay for your groceries. Your $5 donation helps buy 3 healthy lunches made from all local ingredients — every little bit enables one more good bite.
Food Front Northwest: 2375 NW Thurman St., Portland, OR 97210
Food Front Hillsdale: 6344 SW Capitol Highway, Hillsdale Shopping Center, Portland, OR 97239
Local: Portland Public Schools
Ecotrust is proud to assist Portland Public Schools (PPS) in its efforts to serve as much regionally grown and processed food in school cafeterias as possible. For the last three years, PPS has focused on increasing its purchases of fresh fruits and vegetables from local farmers as well as preserved, canned, and frozen foods produced in the Northwest, to benefit its students and support the community. During the 2009-10 school year, PPS Nutrition Services will feature two complementary programs: Harvest of the Month and Local Flavors.
Harvest of the Month & Local Flavors
Harvest of the Month is a campaign in which all school cafeterias feature a locally grown seasonal fruit or vegetable twice each month. Whether fresh, frozen, or canned, these fruits and vegetables are grown and processed in Oregon; thus their procurement benefits our immediate agricultural community, and their inclusion informs young city eaters of our state's bounty.
Last year's successful once per month "Local Lunch" program has evolved into "Local Flavors" for the 2009-2010 school year. Local Flavors is the sister program to Harvest of the Month and includes kid-tested, locally grown and produced food products that have been integrated into the normal menu on a regular basis. The "Local Flavors" program is a natural extension of PPS's efforts to serve healthy, local foods as often as possible.
Both the Harvest of the Month and Local Flavors programs are enhanced by dedicated educators who integrate garden-based educational activities for PPS students. Passionate teachers, parents, and community agencies have helped create and maintain school/community gardens to give students hands-on exploration and learning experiences. These educational opportunities strengthen and compliment efforts being coordinated as part of the school meal program.
Parents Make a Difference
Parents can support the changes taking place in Portland Public Schools' cafeterias in three easy ways:
- Talk about the upcoming Harvest of the Month fruits or veggies at home. Look up fun facts about each Harvest of the Month on www.fruitsandveggiesmorematters.org.
- Serve Harvest of the Month items at home. Watch for special promotions of these foods in grocery stores and get your children involved in shopping, selecting a recipe and preparing the foods at home. Kid-tested recipes are available at http://healthyrecipes.oregonstate.edu.
- Buy lunch on Harvest of the Month and Local Flavor days.Sending your kids to school with lunch money on days when Harvest of the Month and Local Flavor items are served sends a message that you support bringing more Oregon grown and processed foods into our schools. Harvest of the Month and Local Lunch menu items are highlighted in your PPS school lunch menu.
State: Oregon
Legislation
Ecotrust, along with its partners, advocated in the 2009 legislative session for public policies in the state of Oregon that would impact school food. Thanks to previous policy wins in 2007 and 2008, Oregon is the first state in the nation to create positions in both the Oregon Departments of Agriculture and Education focused on school food and food, agriculture, and garden-based education. Read more about the history of farm to school legislation in Oregon here (29kb PDF).
The 2009 legislative agenda (324kb PDF) was designed to increase the amount of money spent on school food and to increase opportunities for experiential learning that advances students’ literacy related to health, agriculture, and nutrition. While House Bill 2800 was very much in play until the last week of the session, ultimately, the bill hit a budget wall: In response to a deep recession, the Legislature was tasked with decreasing government spending while still protecting essential services, and legislators had to make the tough decision not to fund any new bills. The fact that HB2800 was a contender (and a powerful one at that) in such tough times is truly a testament to the value of the bill and the breadth of support it garnered.
Over 80 organizations representing tens of thousands of Oregonians formally endorsed HB2800. Although HB2800 did not pass, we did succeed in building tremendous momentum and statewide support for the bill. We also managed to save the Oregon Department of Education's Farm to School Coordinator position from the chopping block — no small task with the Department facing severe budget cuts this year. Thank you to everyone who helped to promote the farm to school and school garden bill.
Ecotrust will continue to play a leadership role in championing policy changes that make it easier to bring Oregon school children the very best this region has to offer.
Sign up for Ecotrust Food & Farms Updates to receive emails regarding Ecotrust's progress.
Statewide Leadership Network
Ecotrust co-facilitates the Oregon Farm to School and School Garden Network, a collective founded in 2007, comprised of more than 100 governmental, community-based, and for-profit organizations, and individuals working together with the following mission:
"We convene statewide leadership to promote the health and well-being of children, families, farms and the environment by increasing access to locally grown and processed food in schools and by supporting food and garden-based education in Oregon."
Participating organizations and individuals have identified an interest in farm to school and food- and garden-based education programs for reasons that include:
- Promoting children's health and academic achievement;
- Combating obesity, hunger, and global climate change;
- Supporting Oregon farmers and food processors; and
- Enhancing economic development and community food security.
The Network believes that while these benefits might be achieved through other tactics, farm to school programs have the extraordinary ability to simultaneously address interrelated issues of health, economic development, education, and the environment. For this reason, agricultural interests, community food security advocates, educators, environmentalists, and the public health community all find fertile common ground.
Reasons for working collaboratively as part of a formal network include:
- Developing and distributing leadership and expertise across the state;
- Increasing the likelihood that methods will be developed and deployed with local knowledge in mind;
- Increasing the likelihood that a diversity of perspectives and interest groups are represented at the table; and
- Reducing duplication of efforts and unnecessary redundancies.
During a year long process facilitated by Ecotrust, Network participants organized into five workgroups: (1) Policy, (2) Education and Curriculum, (3) Procurement and Distribution, (4) Networking and Communications, and (5) Research and Evaluation.
The Network meets bi-annually. If you would like to become involved, please contact , Ecotrust Farm to School Coordinator.
Farm to Childcare
In 2008-2009, in partnership with the Oregon Child Development Coalition (OCDC), Ecotrust piloted one of the first farm to preschool programs in the country. Established in 1971, OCDC is one of the largest early childhood care and education networks in Oregon, administering Head Start and Early Head Start and is also a state grantee of the federal Migrant Seasonal Head Start program. Each year the OCDC serves over 3,000 children and families in need in 12 Oregon counties. We worked with OCDC to establish pilot farm to school programs at three of their sites in Cornelius (Washington County), Odell (Hood River County), and Silverton (Marion County).
Made possible, in part, due to generous grants from the Collins Foundation, the Juan Young Trust, the Lamb Foundation, and the Oregon Community Foundation, activities included:
- Facilitating farm to school program design by hosting goal setting and program planning meetings, documenting our preliminary steps, and creating sample program plans and goal setting documents for use by others. Our work, including practical skills for cultivating farm to childcare programs is documented in Farm to Head Start, a presentation we made at the National Farm to Cafeteria Conference in Portland in March, 2009. This presentation is posted for public viewing here.
- Helping childcare facilities to make connections with local food producers and processors and begin purchasing more local products by:
- Evaluating current menus and meal planning tools;
- Recruiting Head Start personnel to two regional networking conferences related to regional food procurement (the Western Regional Assembly for farm to school and school garden professionals held at Ecotrust in September 2008, and the 4th National Farm to Cafeteria Conference held in Portland in March 2009);
- Facilitating introductions to regionally appropriate food suppliers and creating opportunities for Head Start food service personnel to visit regional farms and food processing facilities (e.g., Happy Harvest Farms, a 25-acre fruit and vegetable farm in Mt Angel, and Truitt Brothers Inc., a local foods processor in Salem).
- Promoting complementary food and garden-based education by identifying existing resources and curricular activities to support the inclusion of garden-based education into Head Start program areas. OCDC selected the curriculum Early Sprouts: Gardening and Nutrition Experiences for the Young Child (www.earlysprouts.org) as the best fit for their educational requirements. It addresses young children's inherent fear of new foods through multiple exposures to target fruits and vegetables in activities such as sensory exploration, tasting sessions, cooking activities, and family recipe kits. Spurred on by their successes implementing simple garden-based activities in the classroom, OCDC is in the process of constructing raised beds at each pilot site to support garden-based education and increase the ability of its students, teachers, and parents to make the connection between the food they eat and the land it comes from.
OCDC continues to move forward with its work, most recently installing gardens at many of its centers. You can read about their progress on their blog, ocdcgardens.blogspot.com. While Ecotrust's programmatic work in the area of farm to childcare is culminating, we will share the story of this project at the Oregon Head Start Association's Annual Meeting in April 2010.
Ecotrust's future role in the realm of farm to childcare will be to continue tell the story of this pilot program, to facilitate networking by professionals who are involved in, or wish to become involved with this work, and to continue to consult and advise with childcare providers about how to incorporate farm to school concepts into their programs.
Region: The West
Ecotrust serves as the Western Regional Lead Agency for the National Farm to School Network. There are a total of eight Regional Lead Agencies across the country working to strengthen and expand existing farm to school programs, assist others that do not yet have programs, avoid duplication of efforts, learn from each others' experiences, and document the budding movement in their regions.
As the Western Regional Lead Agency, Ecotrust serves farm to school advocates and practitioners in Alaska, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. We host an annual conference with regional farm to school leaders in the fall. We also provide networking opportunities and resource sharing through an online social network, Good Grub and Gardens.
For more information on the national network, as well as the latest national farm to school related media and many invaluable resources such as case studies, evaluation tools, and curricula, please visit www.farmtoschool.org.
Networking: Good Grub and Gardens
Are you interested in networking and sharing resources with other farm to school practitioners in Alaska, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, and keeping on the frontlines of the farm to school movement? We invite you to join our small facebook-esque social network, Good Grub and Gardens.
