Farm to School Monthly Newsletter

This newsletter highlights pivotal policies, news, publications, and events in the growing movement to bring local fresh ingredients to schools across the country. This month highlights the Northeast Regional Lead Agency of the National Farm to School Network. Please contact us if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions.

How do you get the food from the farms to the schools? What methods of transportation and distribution are being tried and are proving successful? Join the new Farm to School Distribution Learning Community online. Discuss this and more on our forums.

Policy

NY, VT, & CT Farm to School Legislation
Farm to School legislation continues to be a priority for states in the Northeast. A number of bills have been introduced and some successfully passed into law to cultivate farm to school efforts throughout this colder climate region. Learn how.

Publications

Six new publications from cookbooks to DVDs highlight farm to school, read on
for full detail.

Upcoming Event

Vermont Farm to School Awareness Day at the Vermont Statehouse
January 16, 2008 –The Celebration will be from 3:30-5:00 in the Statehouse Cafeteria where 2008 Farm to School Grant Recipients will be announced and 2007 Farm to School Grant awardees will share and reflect on their successes of the first year of the Farm to School Grant Program. Contact Abbie Nelson or Kim Norris for more details.

Helpful Links

Spotlight Story

A Cornucopia of Farm to School Activities

Innovative legislation, new composting programs, harvest of the week celebrations, and more! The Northeast region is overflowing with farm to school projects and activities. Spotlighted below are a variety of recent happenings throughout the region, which encompasses Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont.

The two northeast farm to school programs selected to share the role of the Regional Lead Agency for the National Farm to School Network are Vermont FEED (Food Education Every Day) and FARMS (Focus on Agriculture in Rural Maine Schools). As Regional Lead Agencies for the northeast, these two organizations will support, represent and promote farm to school interests in the region. Amy Winston of FARMS and Dana Hudson of VT FEED share the responsibilities of the Northeast Regional Lead Agency. Read More.

Featured Profile

Putting Process Before Product

Interview with Doug Davis by Dana Hudson

Doug Davis has been the Food Service Director for the Burlington School District for ten years. He manages 45 employees at nine school sites serving about 4200 meals per day during the school year, and up to 1000 senior citizen meals per week all year long. Along with community partners in the past four years, Doug has implemented an extensive district-wide farm to school project that has become a model for other communities. Doug won the School Nutrition Association’s “Food Service Director of the Year” award in the Northeast in 2006 and recently garnered the “Foodservice Achievement Management Excellence”(FAME) Silver Star Special Achievement Award for 2007.

Doug sat down with Dana Hudson, the Northeast National Farm to School Regional Lead, to share more about the Burlington School Food Project and his experiences. Read More.

This Month's News

From the farm to the lunch tray

By Chad Petri, WKRG News

For the fourth year in a row, much of this year's satsuma harvest is going to Alabama public schools in the "farm to school" program. "We look at it as a win win situation," says Director of the Gulf Coast research and extension center Ronnie McDaniel. "I mean, it's helping the growers, plus the kids are getting a good fruit." Watch the video.

Food for students from students

by Steven Goode, The Hartford Courant.

The instructional plan developed by Cipriano and Rodrigues called for students to use the 11-year-old Agri-Science & Technology Center to grow fresh vegetables for the school district's lunch tables, including kale, leeks, winter squash, parsley, oregano, onions and Scotch bonnets, a Jamaican chili pepper. Read more.

In This Issue