By Becky Domokos-Bays, PhD, RD, SNS
School Nutrition Association President and Supervisor of School Nutrition Services for Loudoun County Public Schools, Va.

Dr. Domokos-Bays (right) joins kindergarten students at Loudoun County’s Fredrick Douglass Elementary in harvesting lettuce from their school garden. The School Nutrition Services team prepared the lettuce into salads for their classroom. (Photo credit: Rick Brady)

School nutrition professionals have always been passionate about serving students healthy meals that contribute to academic success. Now that federal nutrition standards require every school meal to include larger portions of fruits and vegetables, we are utilizing more creative methods to encourage students to eat and enjoy these nutritious choices. As president of the School Nutrition Association (SNA), I've been thrilled to witness farm to school initiatives taking root in school cafeterias nationwide as part of this ongoing effort to help students adopt healthier lifestyles.

School nutrition professionals have embraced farm to school programs as an effective way to source more farm fresh, local produce and to get kids to try these choices by teaching them about the healthy foods grown in their communities. A recent SNA survey of nearly 1,000 school meal program operators revealed that 57% of school districts offer locally sourced fruits and vegetables with school meals - up from 52% just two years ago. Meanwhile, nearly 50% of respondents have implemented farm to school initiatives to promote healthier choices in the cafeteria, up from 37.5% in the 2014 survey. School nutrition professionals also reported widespread use of student taste tests, chef partnerships, and salad or produce bars – all effective methods for increasing consumption of fruits and vegetables.

During National School Lunch Week (October 10-14), schools nationwide will showcase these ongoing efforts. At Loudoun County Virginia’s Kenneth Colbert Elementary, students will have the chance to meet Ellen Polishuk, a farmer from nearby Potomac Vegetable Farms. Ellen will autograph her farmer trading cards for students as they enjoy their school lunches. Our school nutrition department worked with the Loudoun County Department of Economic Development to design twelve different farmer trading cards, which were released on the opening day of baseball season – also declared the first day of growing season! The cards have offered a fun way to teach students about the people who grow the local produce served in the cafeteria.

These cards have also helped to get kids excited about working and learning in Loudoun County’s school gardens. Local farmers are key partners in this effort too - Wegmeyer Farms in Hamilton, Virginia generously donated over 400 strawberry plants to our gardens this year, allowing students in 17 schools to learn outdoors with their teachers in the process of garden planting, tending and harvesting. The School Nutrition Services Team did our part to continue the learning in the cafeteria by hosting a “Taste it Thursday” strawberry taste test with students.

As a parent and a dietitian, I know kids sometimes need to try a new fruit or vegetable many times before they decide they like it, and that’s why partnerships between school nutrition professionals, farmers, teachers and parents are so important. Working together through farm to school initiatives, school garden projects, taste tests and nutrition education programs, we can all help promote life-long healthy eating habits for children.

By Betsy Rosenbluth, Project Director, Vermont FEED

Photo credit: Vermont FEED

Farm to school activities can be a great way to engage young learners - especially kids who may not be fully engaged in the classroom. Sharon Elementary School in Sharon, Vt., has been using farm to school education for almost 10 years, and has developed a reputation for providing meaningful learning experiences to preK-6th grade students through a variety of place based experiences. Farm to school activities like digging into the school garden, farm visits, and nutrition education, are at the forefront of these experiences.

Keenan Haley, a third grade teacher at Sharon, looks to engage students in learning activities that will meet current educational standards. “Engagement is the key. How do I engage all students in a way that is meaningful and productive? Educators are always looking for ‘the topic’ that will spark a student’s interest, ‘the topic’ that will engage student in reading, writing, math, social studies, science, art, music, PE and other disciplines. I've found that farm to school education, along with overall health and wellness education, is THE topic.”

Through the lens of food and agriculture, students at Sharon design gardens, assess the value of local compared to nonlocal foods, calculate carbon footprint, measure caloric intake, use measuring skills while cooking, and practice business planning as opportunities to apply their mathematical learning. In science, students study the chemical makeup of certain foods and their interactions with the human body. In social studies, students study the history of foods and their impact on culture. If the possibilities seem endless, it’s because they are.

Barrett Williams, the principal of Sharon, acknowledges how farm to school has helped all students feel successful. “Students who struggle in a traditional classroom setting generally thrive when concepts are taught and reinforced through a variety of modalities that allow students to touch, feel, and create.  At the same time, high functioning students can be challenged to think about content in much greater depth. Regardless, the outcomes are similar in nature, with students developing a sense of ownership of the work they have completed.  Ultimately, this format and structure allows educators to address perhaps the most important lesson we teach, which is social responsibility and citizenship.”

This sense of ownership is also at the core of the Vermont Jr Iron Chef competition, now coming up on its 10th year of challenging middle and high school students to create healthy, local dishes that inspire school meal programs. More than 3,000 Vermont teenagers have participated in this culinary competition, where they’ve learned healthy cooking skills, how to source local food, develop their own recipes, and work as a team to prepare a dish for an annual competition with 60 other school teams.  

Twin Valley High School in the small town of Wilmington, Vt., brings home a ribbon almost every year.  Head coach Lonnie Paige, Food Service Director for the school, thinks one key to their success is that students have ownership over the process. The event has become so popular that the school now hosts its own qualifying event to determine which teams will go on to the statewide competition. The runoff is a large, community-supported event. “I get local chefs and celebrities to be the judges,” Paige explains. “Parents volunteer as runners and assist with whatever else needs to be done.” Teams also visit local farms and food producers. “We show them how things are grown and made,” Paige continues. “They experience for themselves how much better local food is.”  

Hands on learning - whether growing food in a school garden, cooking in the Junior Iron Chef competition, or running taste tests in the cafeteria, all have in common a focus on student driven change and transformation of school culture. As one high school student so eloquently said about farm to school when testifying in the Vermont Statehouse, “It makes me think twice. Think twice about where my food came from, what it does for my body and what it takes to get it on my plate.” This is the transformation we desire for every child.


Read more stories about the value of farm to school education at vermontfarmtoschool.org/farm-school-stories.

By Ariel Bernstein, Farm to School and Education Fellow

The idea to grow a school garden at Shaker Heights High School in Shaker Heights, Ohio, was first sprouted in Stacey Steggert’s special education class. Inspired by a book about a diverse cast of characters cultivating a community garden, her students were the first advocates of turning school grounds into an edible landscape. They began with potted plants in the classroom, which quickly turned into two raised beds in the school’s courtyard. As the first crops grew, so did students’ enthusiasm, and soon their small garden plot began to expand and capture the entire school’s attention. Now in its fourth year, the Audrey Stout Learning Garden is growing more than just plants; it’s nourishing academic engagement, inspiring creativity and sprouting young community leaders.

Covering all 6,400 square feet of the high school’s center courtyard, the Audrey Stout Learning Garden is designed with multidisciplinary education in mind. The space is divided into four geographically-inspired sections: Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas, each growing crops, herbs and flowers that can be found on these continents. In the Europe section, the German class grows cabbage and learns to make sauerkraut. On the Americas side, there’s a salsa garden with tomatoes, peppers and tomatillos for Spanish classes to explore cultural flavors. The African garden includes a patch of Arundo Donax, better known as African Reed Cane, that students harvest and transform into handmade paper. Plum trees, shiitake mushrooms and Chinese red noodle beans grow in the Asia garden. And to top it off, nine espaliered apple and pear trees grow in the garden, adding to the uniqueness of this beautiful and lush courtyard.

Throughout the space, the creative handiwork of art students can be seen in handcrafted tile benches and innovative wire sculptures. A Shakespeare class made connections to the garden by planting an “Ophelia garden” with rosemary, columbine, and daisies after reading Shakespeare's Hamlet.  Math classes use the garden to practice calculating area and put algebraic equations into real-life application. The SEEDS (Service, Environmental Education, Diversity, Sustainability) student club turns garden produce into canned goods that have won multiple ribbons at the country fair. And all students get to benefit from the garden’s fresh, healthy harvests, which occasionally are featured in school meals.

The garden’s connection to healthy eating is one that’s especially important to Paula Damm, Shaker Heights High School nurse and co-leader of the Audrey Stout Learning Garden. “Health promotion is key in my role as school nurse, and promoting the garden promotes health,” she says. She’s seen first hand that when  

students are excited about growing fresh food, they’re excited to eat it. “One students was particularly excited about the peas, which she helped grow in the spring. While looking at the full grown pea pods on the trellis, she said to me, ‘I feel like these are my peas! I feel like I created them!’ And she did! She continued to talk about her love for those peas well after they were harvested.”

The Shaker Heights community is extremely diverse, and there are many areas in the city where healthy food access is a challenge. As students learn to grow food, they become educated about the role urban gardening can have in building healthy communities, and how young people can make a difference in the wider food system. Steggert and Damm tell the story of one student who, after participating in a vocational training program at a grocery store, was especially struck by the differences in produce selections between stores in wealthier and lower income communities. “Why don’t they think poor people like nice food?” he reflected. His gardening experiences at Shaker Heights High gave him the tools to make connections and observations about the food system, and has empowered him to become an advocate for healthy food in his own community.

In the Audrey Stout Learning Garden, learning has no limits. This garden space provides students with unparalleled opportunities to experiment, to take risks, to make unexpected connections and to grow as leaders. As Steggert and Damm say, “It’s a learning garden!” There are no mistakes or failures, only opportunities to try new approaches and, well, learn! From planting to growing, from to eating to leading, the lessons taught in this school garden are more than just academic. These students are being shaped into well-rounded, reflective, and goal-oriented people who, throughout the process, are eating healthy!


Learn more about the Audrey Stout Learning Garden on Facebook and Tumblr.

By Zack Silver, FoodCorps Service Member serving at the United Way of Passaic County in Paterson, New Jersey

Photo Credit: FoodCorps

Judah hated food. Well, that isn’t entirely true - he did eat some things. Cheerios in the morning if they didn’t touch any milk and he didn’t have to see nearby bowls of fruit. Plain pasta for lunch with no protein, veggies, or sauce. Snacks, but only crackers. On the days that the Center for Family Resources (CFFR) in Wayne, N.J., offered other meal options like yogurt or stir fry, Judah didn’t complain or bawl like some of his 4-year old classmates, or ask for alternatives. He simply sat in silence and watched his classmates eat. If I tried to put banana on his plate or serve steamed broccoli, that’s when the waterworks would begin.

However, as I started showing up often to CFFR to teach farm to school classes, presenting students with locally grown apples or inviting them to lay fresh compost on our garden’s raised beds, Judah became more trusting of me. When he watched his classmates cook new fruits and vegetables, from school-grown kale to exotic pomegranate and kiwi, he became reluctantly intrigued by these foods. A few months into the year, he progressed to allowing new food on his plate although he assured me he wouldn’t taste it, but would instead prod it with his fork and fingers when I asked him to, so he could feel the mushiness of a raspberry or the hardness of a rainbow chard stalk. These gestures were the first of many small steps Judah would take on his journey towards nutritional enlightenment.

Unfortunately for Judah, the final unraveling of his stubbornness was my blender. I brought it to class to make smoothies, salsa, and dip and its arrival was heralded with cheers from my preschoolers that would make a football stadium shake - it became the harbinger of fun and symbol for tasty produce. During classes, students would go in a circle to measure and add ingredients to blend, then line up for the coveted job of pressing the button and feeling the vibration under their fingers while classmates screamed in joy. Judah loved pressing the blender button. He reveled in his classmates’ yelps and stood triumphant as he made healthy treats.

Although Judah tried to resist, it was impossible to harvest a vegetable from his own garden, clean it tenderly, blend it with other ingredients, and still not want to taste it. And finally, one day in late spring, Judah succumbed. Our homemade beet hummus lay resplendent on his plate made from chickpeas, olive oil, tahini, lemon juice, and beets that he had pulled from the soil minutes before and chopped with a plastic knife. Judah gingerly dipped a pita chip into the magenta mass and brought it up to his lips where he stuck out his tongue and dabbed it with what was microscopically the smallest amount of food that could be considered “tasting.” He took another chip and a larger dab. I felt like I was at the top of a roller coaster, climbing inch by inch - I didn’t know when it was going to drop.

Five minutes later, I was spooning second helpings of beet hummus onto Judah’ plate, as he told me that “it tastes like raw candy!” To a preschooler that might be a standard compliment; to me, it was the highest praise I’ve ever received. The techniques that charmed Judah’s palate are helpful for kids at all levels of fruit and vegetable familiarity - they applaud courage, encourage taking just the smallest of steps, and help children find a new “yum” they never thought they could have.


FoodCorps is a national service organization that recruits, trains, and places AmeriCorps members to serve in high-need schools to connect kids to healthy food in school. Serving alongside educators and community leaders in 18 states, corps members focus on delivering hands-on lessons in gardening, cooking, and tasting healthy food; improving school meals; and encouraging a schoolwide culture of health.

By Anna Mullen, Digital Media Associate

National Farm to School Month is here! For the next four weeks, millions of students, educators, farmers, families and food-enthusiasts around the country will be celebrating food education, school gardens and lunch trays filled with healthy, local ingredients. This annual celebration was brought to life by Congress in 2010 in order to raise awareness of the importance of farm to school as a means to improve child nutrition, support local economies and educate communities about the origins of their food. Everyone can join the festivities!  

Farm to school is a grassroots movement powered by people like you, who have taken small steps in their communities to bring more local food sourcing and food and agriculture education to our nation’s children. And those small steps have created big impact. The farm to school movement has grown from just a handful of schools in the late 1990s to reaching more than 23.6 million students nationwide today, with schools investing more than $789 million in their communities by purchasing local products from farmers, ranchers, fishermen and other food producers and growing 7,101 school gardens.

That’s why this October, we’re celebrating the small steps that everyone can take to get informed, get involved and take action to support farm to school in their communities and across the country. Because together, we can keep this movement growing! Here’s how you can get involved and celebrate National Farm to School Month:

• Take the pledge: Pledge to take one small step for farm to school this October, and you’ll be entered into our sweepstakes to win support for farm to school activities at the school or early care and education site of your choice. Take the pledge today!
• Read inspiring stories: Visit our blog all month long to read inspiring stories of farm to school success and innovation. Guest blog posts include FoodCorps, School Nutrition Association, USDA Office of Community Food Systems, Chef Ann Foundation, National Young Farmers Coalition and many more!
• Spread the word: Share your farm to school successes with the world! Join our online conversation and tell us what small steps you’re taking this October. Use the hashtags #farmtoschool and #F2SMonth in your social media posts.
• Explore resources: Check out our free resources for planning and promoting celebrations in your community, including customizable posters and bookmarks, stickers, activity suggestions and communications tools.
• Donate to support our work: Invest in the future of farm to school. Donate to the National Farm to School Network and help us bring farm to school to communities across the country every month! Take one small step and make a charitable donation today. Take one small step and make a charitable donation today.

We want to know: what small steps will you take this month? Share with us by taking the pledge! In addition to entering our sweepstakes, everyone who takes the pledge will receive weekly email suggestions of small steps to support farm to school in their community. Check out some of the small steps people across the country will be taking:  

Partnering with our local dairy. Our students will be naming a calf and we will be showcasing where our milk comes from. - Pennsylvania

Our preschoolers will harvest the plants they’ve tended to all summer, and will learn how to prepare healthy meals with the food they have grown. - New Mexico

Open our farm for tours with students. - Oklahoma

Hosting a legislator in the lunch room visit. - Oregon

Our journalism students will go on local radio and write for the local paper, providing farm fresh recipes and nutritional tidbits. - Tennessee

We will have lessons on how science is related to growing food. Soil, minerals, water cycle and weather will be taught in relation to growing food. - Florida

Educating myself on this topic, so I can educate others in my community. - Ohio

Whatever steps you take, know that you are part of a movement that’s creating positive change by growing healthy eaters, supporting local agriculture and building vibrant communities. That’s worth celebrating!  

Thank you to this year’s National Farm to School Month sponsors, Captain Planet Foundation, Farm Aid, Organic Valley and High Mowing Organic Seeds, as well as the 200+ Outreach Partner organizations who are helping us spread the word about farm to school throughout October. And, thanks to you for being a farm to school champion in your community.

Happy National Farm to School Month!

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The beginning of a new school year is a great time to consider starting or ramping up farm to school activities in your community. From planting seeds in a school garden to local food procurement in the cafeteria, there are numerous ways to engage in farm to school and get kids excited about fresh, healthy food. If you’re new to farm to school, check out our getting started resources:

• Getting Started with Farm to School
• Getting Started with Farm to Early Care and Education

• Starting and Maintaining a School Garden
• Growing Farm to School in Native Communities

Looking for funding options to help kickoff or expand your farm to school efforts? Here are several fall funding opportunities to explore:

USDA Farm to School Grant RFA Open
USDA has announced the release of the FY 2017 Farm to School Grant Program Request for Applications. Awards ranging from $20,000 to $100,000 will be distributed in four different grant categories: Planning, Implementation, Support Service, and Training. If you are interested in this great opportunity, USDA is hosting a webinar this Thursday, September 29, at 1pm ET, to review the application process and assist eligible entities in preparing proposals. The applications for this grant are due December 8. Learn more here.

Nature Conservancy School Gardens
The Nature Conservancy, as part of their mission to protect and conserve the environment, is awarding grants to support projects that implement green infrastructure to address local environmental challenges. These include access to healthy food, air quality, heat island effect, climate change, and storm water collection. Young people will work as social innovators to help their communities through project design and implementation. A $2,000 grant will be awarded to 55 schools, and the applications are due October 31. Learn more here.

Whole Kids Foundation School Garden Grant Program
The Whole Kids Foundation, in partnership with FoodCorps, is now accepting applications for its School Garden Grant Program, an annual grantmaking program that supports school garden projects designed to help students learn about topics such as nutrition and health, sustainability and conservation, food systems, and community awareness. These grants will be in the amount of $2,000 for year-long projects. The applications are due October 31. Learn more here.

Safer® Brand School Garden Grant
Safer® Brand is starting an annual school garden grant to help kids build healthy habits through gardening, bring classmates closer together and unite everyone in a common goal of better health. The $500 grant will be awarded to a school in the United States to start a school garden in 2017. Applications for this grant are due December 1. Learn more and apply here.

Project Produce: Fruit and Veggie Grants for Schools
The Chef Ann Foundation’s Project Produce: Fruit and Veggie Grants for Schools helps increase kids’ access to fresh fruits and vegetables and create experiential nutrition education when and where students make their food choices - in the cafeteria. The $2,500 one-year grants support food costs to incorporate school-wide fruit and vegetable tastings into the school's nutrition program. Grants will be determined on an ongoing basis depending on available funding; there is no application deadline. Learn more here.

KidsGardening Youth Garden Grant
KidsGardenings’ Youth Garden Grants have reached over 1.3 million students and hundreds of schools to establish new school and community gardens and assist in sustaining and renewing existing gardens. Grants are awarded on a yearly basis. The Request for Applications is usually issued each fall with awards made early the following year, in time for building and planting in the spring. See last year’s winners here and look out for the 2017 Youth Garden Grant application this October at kidsgardening.org/garden-grants.

Find more ideas for supporting your farm to school activities in our Funding Farm to School factsheet. Stay tuned to our This Week blogs, posted every Tuesday, for more farm to school funding, resources and engagement opportunities.

By Ariel Bernstein, Farm to School and Education Fellow

Photo credit: Berry Good Farms, North Florida School of Special Education

Farm to school's educational opportunities are undeniably important, for the knowledge, skills and experiences that come from learning about local, fresh and healthy food are universally valued. This aspect of farm to school is especially important in specialized learning environments. North Florida School of Special Education (NFSSE) goes above and beyond for the education, growth and empowerment of their students, ranging from 6 years old to adults in their 40s. Berry Good Farms, the school’s farm and horticulture program, offers hands-on learning experiences in growing, harvesting and cooking healthy food, as well as developing unique and useful skillsets in the agricultural and business sectors. Through its many programs, Berry Good Farms empowers students to be self-sufficient and caring individuals against the toughest of odds.

Students at NFSSE face a large variety of intellectual and behavioral challenges, such as autism spectrum disorder, Asperger’s syndrome, down syndrome, and other mild to moderate intellectual disabilities. Berry Good Farms serves as an outlet for these students to be immersed in horticulture education as a means for holistic and applied learning, and thus has a variety of programs for students to participate in. Students learn horticulture on the farm, make and sell dog biscuits as part of the Barkin’ Biscuit program, and learn to cook fresh, healthy food in the culinary arts program. All of these programs utilize produce from the farm and teach students a variety of useful skillsets, enabling them to make connections between their knowledge, their work and their futures.

The newest program at Berry Good Farms is Berry Good Farms On the Go, a food truck that roams Jacksonville, Fla., procuring, preparing, cooking and selling food from the school farm to the community. After graduating from the culinary arts program, advanced students have the opportunity to work in the food truck as part of a post-grad employment opportunity. Under the helm of Food Truck/Catering Events Manager and Chef Brett Swearingen, three to four students design a seasonal menu, prepare food in a commercial kitchen, and head out into the community for a great lunch hour of selling food in business parks, state agency offices, and wherever else the truck decides to plant itself. Seasonal menu items include a grilled turkey and brie sandwich served with locally made bread, a signature salad with fresh greens from Berry Good Farms, and a refreshing pineapple mojito smoothie.

The truck caters to skills and experiences that specifically pertain to students with special needs and intellectual challenges. Many of these students do well with food prep tasks that require repetitive activities. The students cherish physically applying a specific skill set that they've learned, especially in the context of the food truck business.

The truck, as well as a the farm program as a whole, promotes healthy eating and fresh produce. This is extremely important, considering the high rate of obesity that exists in the special needs community, and provides local, healthy food to the Jacksonville community in the process. In addition, the tasks learned on the truck are useful well beyond the school; these skills and lessons are empowering students to be self-reliant. They can cook healthy meals, interact with the greater community, and utilize their learned business skills in the workforce. Experience on the food truck makes for a great addition to resumes, too!

Berry Good Farms On the Go is much more than a food truck. It is a space that fosters professional, as well as personal, growth for students who have many different intellectual and learning conditions. Students utilize their culinary skills in the context of a commercial kitchen, and they learn to interact with co-workers, as well as customers. It also give students an opportunity to practice managing potentially stressful situations in a positive manner. The kitchen is far from a perfect space, and as Brett says to his students, “It’s okay to mess up. I have been working in a kitchen for 15 years and I still mess up.” Even when the truck is off schedule and customer orders are backed up, Brett teaches his students how to deal with the stress in the moment, and then how to move forward from mistakes, using them as a learning experience and even a silly memory, not a set back.

Berry Good Farms On the Go has not only been a successful addition to NFSSE, but it’s also proven to benefit the entire community. People around Jacksonville see students working in a kitchen and selling food, challenging preconceived notions of people with special needs. The community is extremely supportive of the food truck, creating a positive and inspirational environment for students as they drive through town. As Brett says, “These are incredible young people that can always put you in a happy mood. It is an incredible place.”

Learn more about the North Florida School of Special Education, Berry Good Farms, and Berry Good Farms on the Go by visiting northfloridaschool.org. Contact Ellen Hiser, Director of Berry Good Farms or Brett Swearingen, Food Truck/Catering Events Manager with questions.

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By Abby Harper, Farm to School Specialist, MSU Center for Regional Food Systems

Research shows interest, opportunity, and potential from Migrant and Seasonal Head Start programs to expand farm to early care and education efforts.

All the milk served at Hart MSHS in Hart, Mich. now comes from within 15 miles.

Migrant and seasonal farmworkers are the backbone of the United States agriculture industry. Despite being essential to production in the modern food system, evidence suggests that these farmworkers and their children struggle with accessing nutritious food and face a variety of health concerns tied to poor nutrition. The Migrant and Seasonal Head Start (MSHS) program, founded in 1969, was created to help address unique challenges like these faced by farmworker families. The program provides an equitable approach to addressing the lack of available childcare options for low-wage earning farmworkers and support families that face barriers in accessing necessary services. Now in 38 states, MSHS programs operate during peak agriculture season and provide essential education, nutrition, and support services to more than 30,000 young children.

Throughout 2014 and 2015, the Migrant and Seasonal Head Start Collaboration Office and the Michigan State University Center for Regional Food Systems collaborated on research and outreach to better understand the interest in, motivation for and barriers to implementing farm to early care and education (ECE) initiatives at MSHS sites. Key efforts included surveys of 42 directors and coordinators at MSHS programs in Florida, California and Washington, along with surveys of parents attending a farm to ECE session at the National Migrant and Seasonal Head Start Association’s Annual Conference in 2014. Surveys found that interest in pursuing farm to school activities – particularly local purchasing – was high, and that because of natural connections to local agriculture, some farm to ECE activities are already taking place.

Directors and parents alike recognize the great potential of farm to ECE. All 42 directors surveyed expressed interest in developing farm to ECE activities, and 39 believed that buying locally produced foods would improve the quality of meals served at MSHS sites. The top three motivators reported for encouraging farm to ECE in their programs were:

1. Creating good public relationships with farmers
2. Teaching children about where food comes from
3. Providing learning experiences for children

Other frequently cited motivators included providing access to fresher or higher quality foods for children and expanding food access. Additionally, all parents surveyed reported interest in supporting farm to ECE initiatives at the center where their children attended.

Another benefit of farm to ECE in MSHS programs is its natural connection to family ties with local farms. Most of the directors reported some level of local sourcing already taking place through donated produce from farms employing migrant labor. Directors appreciate these relationships because, in addition to getting healthy, local food into meals, they create connections between children and the work of their parents. Both directors and parents reported seeing potential in sourcing more from these farms.

With interest high, now is an opportune time not only to expand farm to ECE outreach to MSHS, but to address the barriers to entry for MSHS programs. The top three barriers noted by survey respondents were:

1. Institutional purchasing policies
2. Federal and state procurement regulations
3. Shifting current purchasing practices

Though shifting current institutional purchasing policies and practices can take time, efforts could be made to educate MSHS programs on local product lines available through their current purchasing avenues, which include broadline distributors and local grocery stores.

Across the country, farm to ECE support organizations are helping MSHS programs strengthen their local purchasing efforts. In California, the Community Action Partnership of San Luis Obispo County, which runs MSHS programs in nine counties, has created a farm to ECE position to increase local purchasing in their centers. In Michigan, the MI Farm to School Grant Program has provided funding to four MSHS centers to assist with changing purchases practices that increase access for children to fresh, healthy food. This has resulted in a network of MSHS programs that will be able to share best practices and strategies for finding new procurement sources and developing connections with new local suppliers, and in turn, positively affect children’s’ access to local food and nutritional meals.

The interest in and motivation for farm to ECE revealed in this research is impetus for increasing outreach and engagement in the 38 states where MSHS operates. By reaching out to MSHS programs interested in farm to ECE and supporting them with technical assistance and resources, we can support good food access for some of the country’s most vulnerable children. The Cultural Relevancy Ad-hoc group of the National Farm to School Network Farm to Early Care and Education working group, along with other initiatives, are aiming to increase outreach and engagement to MSHS centers and highlight stories of MSHS farm to ECE successes. Connecting MSHS programs with local and state farm to ECE support organizations can support the creation of successful local purchasing strategies and increase good food access for vulnerable children and families of migrant and seasonal farm workers.

For more information on the surveys, trainings or to become involved in the Cultural Relevancy Ad-hoc group, contact Abby Harper, Farm to School Specialist at MSU Center for Regional Food Systems at harperab@msu.edu. Learn more about farm to early care and education here.

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