North Carolina Media Coverage
Area project kicks off anti-obesity push by Scott Nicholson. The Watauga Democrat. Published 11/04/2008.
The Watauga County Childhood Obesity Prevention Project officially launched Oct. 29 at Watauga Medical Center, with planning already under way for a sustained program to promote healthy behaviors among the young and enhance physical fitness and nutrition. Farm-to-school programs will help children understand the connection between meals and local produce, and high school students will be surveyed about their health behaviors. Read the entire article.
Schools cafeterias opt for local produce by Ashley Wilson. Citizen-Times. Published 11/03/2008.
The local food movement has made its way into school cafeterias across Western North Carolina. With an increased emphasis on healthier cafeteria food and changes to the farm bill, more area school districts, including Buncombe County and Asheville City, are turning to local farms to get fresh produce for school lunches. Read the entire article.
Food safety symposium set for Aug. 19. Bladen Journal. Published 08/04/2008.
Dr. David Acheson, a central figure in the federal government’s investigation of the recent national salmonella outbreak, will speak to more than 200 representatives of the agriculture and food industries at the fourth annual AgFIRST symposium Tuesday, Aug. 19, at the state fairgrounds in Raleigh.
Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler is host of the event, which has the theme “Providing Safe Food for Healthy Families in a Global Economy.” It will take place from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Kerr Scott Building. Admission is free, and lunch will be provided, but registration is required. Read the entire article.
Farm to School. ABC 13 WLOS. Published 07/23/2008.
Great coverage of the Southeast Regional Meeting highlighting farmers, chefs, students and the community coming together to work as one. Read the entire article.
Educators gather to study food initiative by Ashley Wilson. Asheville Citizan Times. Published 07/18/2008.
Local newspaper covers the Southeast Regional Farm to School meeting in Asheville, NC Read the entire article.
Catawba Valley schools. Charlotte Observer. Published 06/29/2008.
Catawba Elementary School's Child Nutrition division won second place in the national “Farm to School Fruits and Vegetables” contest sponsored by the USDA. Read the entire article.
Farm to School program educates kids about local and healthy foods by Beth Beasley. Blue Ridge Now. Published 06/11/2008.
'Thousands of Miles Fresher'- the local food slogan familiar to many in our area, now applies to food served in Henderson County schools.
Growing Minds, the program that makes it possible, is a Farm to School Program of the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project (ASAP), a non-profit organization based in Asheville. Cafeterias in all Henderson County Public Schools now receive foods such as apples, lettuce, spinach, watermelon, potatoes and tomatoes from as many as a dozen local and regional farms. Read the entire article.
Grants available to state farmers. Bladen Journal. Published 06/09/2008.
Farm to school grants available. Read the entire article.
NCDA&CS secures U.S. Department of Agriculture grant to support four programs for N.C. farmers. The Leland Tribune. Published 06/02/2008.
The Farm to School initiative serves to increase the number of North Carolina schools purchasing locally grown produce. A new program will be implemented with the grant money to supply schools with N.C. food products. Read the entire article.
Schools struggle to feed children by Ashley Wilson. Citizen Times. Published 05/19/2008.
With drastic increases in food, gas and labor costs and little or no financial support from the state or their local school districts, child nutrition programs across Western North Carolina and the state are finding it harder to feed their students. Read the entire article.
Emily Jackson convinces tough critics to eat healthy and locally. New Life Journal. Published 03/19/2008.
Moms and dads know it can be quite difficult to get children excited about eating even an average vegetable, not to mention the weird looking ones, like heirloom varieties. But, Emily Jackson is up for the challenge and gets area children engaged with fresh, local food daily as program director for Growing Minds (GM), a farm to school initiative though Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Program (ASAP). Read the entire article.
Local ag organization snags award by John Boyle. Asheville Citizen-Times. Published 11/15/2007.
The Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project was named nonprofit of the year, and in its press release, the association noted that "for a decade ASAP has been running one of the most successful local food campaigns in the Southeast, and has been a leader in the farm-to-school movement. This year ASAP published a groundbreaking study of the value of local food to the economy of Western North Carolina, showing the market in that region alone could be worth almost half a billion dollars." Read the entire article.
Deal on Fees Might Keep Local Produce at Schools by Michelle Jarboe. News & Record. Published 09/19/2007.
Schools will pay more in delivery fees this year to receive fresh fruit and vegetables from North Carolina growers. Read the entire article.
Schools Get Deal on Fruits, Veggies by Jim Nesbitt. The News & Observer. Published 09/18/2007.
State agriculture officials announced a cost-saving compromise aimed at salvaging a popular program that purchases fresh, North Carolina-grown produce for school lunch programs from the mountains to the coast. Read the entire article.
Grant will help fund farm-to-school program by Staff Reporters. The News & Observer. Published 08/30/2007.
A $1 million federal grant will help 25 elementary schools receive fresh local produce through a popular "farm-to-school" program. Read the entire article.
Schools fight obesity with fresh produce by Sarah A. Reid. The Fayetteville Observer. Published 06/03/2007.
North Carolina schools have found another way to fight childhood obesity — fresh produce.
Read the entire article.The Value of Fresh Produce by Angie Newsome. Citizen Times. Published 08/15/2006.
A group of women scooped slips of red and orange fruits from Vanessa Campbell’s cutting board last week, popping them into their mouths, humming “yums” and “ahs” that are music to a farmer’s ear. Read the entire article.
Kids Develop A Taste for Healthy Foods by Barbara Blake. WNC Parent. Published 02/01/2006.
Jordan Scheffer and Brian Word-Sims don’t care much about the science behind nutrition. But they know what tastes good. “I like potatoes and green beans, and I liked mashed bananas — usually just the mushy kind,’’ said Jordan, a kindergartner in Susan Shillcock’s K-2 class at Dickson Elementary School. Read the entire article.
Sustinence for Students Is Best Homegrown by Joy Franklin. Citizen Times. Published 08/07/2005.
A couple of years ago, Harold Davis heard from a neighbor that the schools in Yancey County couldn’t afford to buy lettuce because the price had gotten too high. Davis, a Yancey County farmer who was growing lettuce at the time, took enough samples of his crop to the school system’s central office for several people to take home and try. Read the entire article.
The Time Is Ripe to Support Local Food Production by Neal Peirce. Charlotte Observer. Published 05/21/2005.
Is America ready for a metropolitan agriculture policy? Is the time ripe to take some of the billions in subsidies now flowing to big commodity crop operators and focus instead on sustainable farm production in and around the citistate regions where 80 percent of us live? Read the entire article.
Orders for North Carolina Strawberries Jump 65 Percent. Bladen Journal. Published 05/03/2005.
Chalk it up to the irresistible sweetness of fresh, locally grown strawberries. A record number of North Carolina berries will find their way into school lunches this year through the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services' Farm-to-School Program. Read the entire article.
WNC Leaders Trying to Reverse Obseity Trend in the Mountains by Michael Flynn. Citizen Times. Published 03/22/2005.
Peas like the cold weather,' said instructor Katherine Daven to a bundled-up group of Isaac Dickson Elementary School fifth-graders, who were wondering how anything planted on such a chilly day could possibly grow. Read the entire article.
Students digging into fresh, locally grown lettuce, fruit by Barbara Blake. Citizen Times. Published 02/04/2005.
The kids at Hall Fletcher Elementary School in West Asheville don’t much care that the lettuce in the salads they wolf down at lunchtime is grown just a few miles away on a farm in Madison County. Read the entire article.
Local Food to Local Sources: Farm to School in Western North Carolina by Emily Jackson. New Life Journal. Published 01/01/2004.
An article that highlights farm to school efforts in western North Carolina and describes how Growing Minds, a school garden program that helps teachers use the garden as an instructional tool, links local schools with fresh foods and farms in Western North Carolina. Read the entire article.
North Carolina School Districts for more nutritious cafeteria fare by Pam Kelley. The Charlotte Observer. Published 09/27/2003.
In the war against childhood obesity, the school lunchroom is Bonnie Parker's battleground. As child nutrition director for Union County Public Schools, Parker and her staff plot ways to get schoolkids to eat more fruits and vegetables, less fat and sugar. They serve restaurant-quality spinach salads and quietly replace hot dogs with turkey dogs. They search for kid-appealing products, such as fresh pineapple spears packaged like push-ups. Increasingly, school food service officials are trying to overhaul lunch programs, blamed as contributing to the nation's obesity epidemic. Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools recently rolled out "Munch Boxes," healthy grab-and-go boxed lunches designed to attract children who regard Lunchables as fine cuisine. And more than 40 N.C. school districts now buy fresh produce from the state's farmers. Read the entire article.
North Carolina Officials Try to Improve School Lunches for Kids, Farmers by Molly Hennessy-Fiske. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News. Published 03/19/2003.
It was spaghetti versus chicken nuggets at Wilburn Elementary School's cafeteria, but this food fight proved no contest. Most students ignored a sign recommending the less salty, lower-fat spaghetti and heaped nuggets on their plastic foam trays. Ten year-old Mia McDougald bucked the trend, but not because she saw the sign. "The spaghetti is my favorite because of the cheese flavoring of it," said the third-grader at Wilburn, a Raleigh year-round school that last year served more lunches than any other elementary school in Wake County, where more school meals were served than any other Triangle county. March is National Nutrition Month, when politicians have lunch at local elementary schools and students such as Mia learn the basics of healthy eating. What they don't learn is where the food on their trays comes from -- and how those sources influence the nutritional value of their lunches. Read the entire article.
Region farms sell to schools by Paul Woolverton. Fayetteville Observer. Published 09/03/2000.
Some of the watermelon and cantaloupe slices nestled next to the meatloaf and beef-and-noodle dishes on North Carolina school children's lunch trays in the last two weeks came from Brent Jackson's farm about 30 minutes east of Fayetteville. Jackson, who has a 550-acre produce farm in the Clement area north of Autryville, sold the melons to the schools through the Farm-to-School program. Read the entire article.
Farm briefs. Fayetteville Observer. Published 09/12/1999.
North Carolina school children are eating locally grown seedless watermelons in their school lunches through a state program. A total 2,327 cases of watermelons are being served in 52 school systems under a Farm-to-School program that the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services is operating. Read the entire article.
Funds help schools buy N.C. produce by Miriam Stawowy. The Herald-Sun. Published 01/07/1999.
For five years, spring has brought fresh, ripe strawberries to Person County school cafeterias. Sometimes, sweet potatoes too. Most of the produce doesn't come from far-away places like California and Florida, though, but from the nearby fields of Person County farmers who grow and deliver their crops for... Read the entire article.