Illinois Farm to School and Northwestern University
Successfully Complete Local Food Survey!

For three weeks in May, Illinois Farm to School (ILF2S) and Northwestern University's School of Education and Social Policy conducted a survey to learn what Illinois citizens know and think about local foods and schoolchildren's diets.

With the survey now closed, we are pleased to announce that 4,500 parents, teachers, principals, administrators, farmers, and other residents participated in the survey, equipping us with important data to move our mission forward. Data from the survey will help ILF2S to seek new funding opportunities, influence food policy in Illinois, and provide local, healthy food to a greater number of the state's schoolchildren.

Check back soon for preliminary survey results. If you have questions contact ilfarmtoschool@gmail.com. You can also follow us on Facebook ( http://www.facebook.com/pages/IL-Farm-to-School/121788524503366) and Twitter (ilfarmtoschool). For more information about Illinois Farm to School and the local food movement, please visit www.farmtoschool.org/IL/additionalresources.htm.

ILF2S would like to thank the following organizations for their help in disseminating the survey throughout Illinois:

And, thank you to everyone who took the survey - your participation will help to change the local food landscape in Illinois.

Illinois Profile

Illinois Farm to School Profile

There are currently several Farm to School initiatives in Illinois school districts. In Chicagoland, Oak Park/Lake Forest District 97 has been working with Seven Generations Ahead, a local non-profit, to encourage school gardens, salad bars, and locally grown foods in cafeterias. Other interested schools include several charter schools such as Perspectives and Namaste, and the Chicago Public Schools. Schools in Grayslake and Township High School District 211 have also been buying some of the produce for their meals directly from local farmers. However, there is no legislative framework for these initiatives or corresponding support structure. These initiatives are driven by interested school districts, individual schools, area non-profits, and community groups. And while they offer much-needed models for designing and implementing Farm to School programs, more widespread efforts will require legislative action and support, particularly in schools in underserved and minority communities.

The growing interest in supporting local agriculture in Illinois and throughout the Midwest is evidenced in part by the unanimous passage of House Bill 1300, the Illinois Food, Farms, and Jobs Act of 2007, which created a multi-disciplinary task force of non-profits, state officials, farm organizations, businesses, and farmers to look at what can be done to support and expand local food production, processing, and distribution in Illinois. They are scheduled to produce a comprehensive report and make a series of related policy suggestions in September 2008.

Why do we need an Illinois Farm to School program? Illinois is home to 1.6 million elementary school age children Over 60% of Illinois Children are overweight or obese and Chicago youth are on average 5% more at risk compared to the rest of the state. Because of the health implications of being overweight, the current generation of youth in this country are the first in American history whose life expectancy is projected to be less that that of their parents. One thousand five hundred miles is the average travel distance for food items now consumed in the State, and agricultural products sold for human consumption compromise less than 0.2% of Illinois farm sales. Length of food transit also constitutes food security issues. Encouraging Illinois farmers to work toward local food networks can create billions of dollars of new food sales to benefit Illinois farmers, businesses, and consumers and add to the revenues of the state government. In order to encourage Illinois farmers to grow more food for human consumption, an infrastructure must be created to support this effort, which must include guaranteed markets, as would be the case with an Illinois Farm to School program.