Looking Back and Looking Forward: Farm to school policy in 2014 and 2015

Tuesday, February 2, 2021

By Helen Dombalis, NFSN Policy and Strategic Partnerships Director

As the national policy leaders for the farm to school movement, policy is at the core of what we do as a network. As we near the end of 2014, we want to celebrate this year’s many farm to school policy successes and set the stage for upcoming opportunities in 2015.

Federal policy success in 2014

  • The Farm Bill (called the Agricultural Act of 2014) was signed into law in February and included a pilot project for procurement of unprocessed fruits and vegetables. NFSN submitted comments to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) weighing in on implementation of the program, and earlier this month the eight selected pilot states were announced.
  • Building on our work in 2013, NFSN completed a series of nearly two-dozen Child Nutrition Reauthorization listening sessions, which informed our CNR 2015 goals. NFSN and the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition are partnering on these farm to school priorities next year.
  • USDA announced the third round of annual USDA Farm to School Grant recipients. The grant program was a major policy victory for NFSN in the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. Demand for the grant program continues to outweigh available funding by nearly five times, demonstrating the high degree of relevance and importance of this grant program across the nation.
  • Other federal programs continue to support farm to school initiatives, including the Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program, the Specialty Crop Block Grant program, and the Value-Added Producer Grant program. These programs aren’t new, but they are each having an increasing impact on the success of farm to school.
  • NFSN and many core partners submitted comments to the Food and Drug Administration about their implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act. We weighed in to voice concerns that the proposed rules, as written, could hinder local and regional food innovations or limit opportunities for family farmers to launch and grow their businesses.


New Jersey's Acting Governor, Kim Guadagno, signed five farm to school bills into law at a ceremony at Terhune Orchards in central Jersey on August 25th, 2014.


State policy success in 2014

  • NFSN released a state farm to school legislative report for the first time since 2011. As of 2013, 38 states and DC have legislation on the books that support farm to school/preschool.  
  • Innovative new state legislation supporting farm to school was passed in 2014. Historic farm to school legislation passed in New Jersey, and the District of Columbia passed landmark farm to preschool legislation with its Healthy Tots Act.

Looking at the year ahead

In 2015, NFSN will continue to advocate for federal policies that support farm to school across the country. We will also continue to track the exciting state policy efforts taking shape.

  • The Child Nutrition Act is set to expire at the end of September, making 2015 an important year for farm to school stakeholders to weigh in and participate. The Child Nutrition Reauthorization only occurs once every five years. NFSN will need everyone to voice support for our efforts to improve and advance the USDA Farm to School Grant program.
  • In February, NFSN will release the next report tracking state level policy. The new report will feature all laws passed this year as well as case studies that dig in to strategies employed for success. We also know that several states are preparing for their 2015 legislative cycles in order to move farm to school forward, and we’ll be tracking their progress and supporting them as needed.

2014 was a successful year for farm to school policy efforts at the state and federal levels. As we look ahead to 2015, we are eager to work with all of you to make even greater policy gains for our nation’s children, farmers and communities. We are truly growing stronger together.


Reflections from Terra Madre 2014

Tuesday, February 2, 2021

By Helen Dombalis, Policy and Strategic Partnerships Director    

Helen Dombalis, center, recently traveled to Turin, Italy to present at workshop titled "Challenges Facing the Sustainability of School Gardens."  

Today is Terra Madre Day, a day to reflect on the global Slow Food movement and to share inspiration from one of the world’s most important cultural forums. Hosted by Slow Food International, Terra Madre and Salone del Gusto bring nearly a quarter-million people (yes, you read that right!) to Turin, Italy every-other year in October to celebrate and preserve food cultures around the globe. Among them are 3,000 delegates traveling from more than 100 countries—all of them connecting, learning and renewing their commitments to improving the global food system so that it works for everyone. As my fellow 2014 delegate Jim Embry of Sustainable Communities Network in Kentucky put it, “Terra Madre is where you go to recharge your batteries.”

I am honored and privileged to have been among the 247 U.S. delegates in attendance this year. On the plane from JFK to Milan, I sat with an American-born chef running a restaurant in Mexico and an orchardist from California. I met cookbook authors, fishers and visionaries. I answered questions from a Grecian olive oil producer about getting started with farm to school and, in a workshop titled “Challenges Facing the Sustainability of School Gardens,” I told attendees how state policies in the United States are advancing the school garden movement. Although I was one of the only delegates with “policy” in my job title, I realized that I was among a big family of people with policy at their core, advocates for what Slow Food calls good, clean and fair food.

Helen listens to a presentation at Slow Food International's Terra Madre conference in Turin, Italy.

Here are a few of the ideas that really impacted me:

Good food brings people together. As I found, you can sit at a table with seven people who speak different languages and laugh harder than you’ve laughed in a long time over the shared joy of a lemon and almond cookie. Or appreciate your family history through traditions like dad’s grilled barbeque chicken with corn and lima beans, and mom’s sour cream cornbread. As I walked towards the Ugandan booth where small, ripe bananas were displayed, a flood of happy memories came to me: I’d eaten so many of those bananas during my summer in Uganda in 2007. Now my work helps to ensure that kids across the United States have access to experiential education, like school gardens, so they can have memorable, community-building food experiences of their own.

Clean food preserves natural resources. From tasting organic chocolate to listening in on Slow Fish conversations about the state of the world’s oceans, the concept of clean food was ever-present at the gathering. The Ark of Taste - a signature of this year’s gathering - reminded attendees that loss of biodiversity of foods is real.

Fair food advances food access. Slow Food International’s 10,000 Food Gardens in Africa initiative is a great example as it aims to increase the number of school, home and community gardens on the continent. Launched two years ago, the program has grown to include 2,000 documented gardens, and the goal is to reach 10,000 by Terra Madre 2016. With 35,000 people already involved in African garden projects, it’s exciting to think of how many more garden advocates will be activated with a quintupling of that number.

As Edie Mukiibi, VP of Slow Food International, said at a presentation about the African garden initiative, "the biggest yield of school gardens is not the food but the knowledge, motivation, hope” that gardens bring to children and families. That’s a belief we share here at the National Farm to School Network (NFSN). The benefits of farm to school are many, and kids, farmers and communities all win.

Get involved. Slow Food USA and the NFSN share many of the same values, and one of the primary areas where our work overlaps is around school gardens. Check out this guest post Slow Food USA contributed to our blog to announce the launch of their National School Garden Project in October. Their resources include a comprehensive school garden guide. Also check out NFSN’s own school garden fact sheet and explore other garden resources using the search functions on our resources pages. And if you haven’t already, please join the National Farm to School Network as we grow our partnership with Slow Food in the years ahead.


Funding Outside the Lunch Box

Tuesday, February 2, 2021

By Barbara Patterson, Policy Intern

As school districts, farmers and communities experience the benefits of farm to school activities, more and more programs are popping up across the country, and with that increase comes greater funding need. The USDA Farm to School Grant Program is already maxed out, with five times as many proposals submitted for the past three years as could be funded. The National Farm to School Network will call on Congress in 2015 to increase funding for the Farm to School Grant Program, but we can also look beyond farm to school and garden-specific funding opportunities.

“Farm to school” is not a box. It’s an umbrella for improved health, stronger local economies and sustainable food systems, and there are funding streams through the Farm Bill, the Child Nutrition Act and other federal programs intended to advance these same goals. Just since this summer, USDA has awarded more than $52 million in grants to grow local and regional food systems through the Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program (FMLFPP), and nearly $118 million to enhance the competitiveness of specialty crops through Specialty Crop Block Grants (SCBG). Many of these grants were awarded to farm to school projects, including:  

  • Under the FMLFPP, Lake-to-River Food Cooperative in Youngstown, Ohio, was awarded a Farmers Market Promotion Program (FMPP) grant to strengthen its online market for local produce delivery and encourage purchases from schools and other institutions.
  • Also through the FMLFPP, Ecotrust of Portland, Ore. (NFSN Western Regional Lead Agency), was awarded a Local Food Promotion Program (LFPP) to analyze Oregon’s supply of regionally produced, antibiotic-free chicken and to assess demand and specifications for this chicken from local institutions, including schools. Similarly funded, Heart and Hand House, Inc. of Philippi, W.Va., will develop an aggregation center to improve access to locally produced foods in public schools.
  • With a Specialty Crop Block Grant, Arizona Department of Agriculture will partner with Western Growers Foundation to increase students’ knowledge of the importance of good nutrition and better understand where their food comes from by creating and sustaining edible school gardens at fifty Arizona K-12 schools.
  • Also through the SCBG program, Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry will partner with the Louisiana State University Agricultural Center to create and promote the Harvest of the Month program which will market the consumption of Louisiana specialty crops in schools and other institutions.
  • Hawaii Department of Agriculture will partner with the Kohala Center under the SCBG program to encourage USDA’s Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP) schools to spend more of their allocated funds to buy local and to increase local farmers’ knowledge of requirements necessary to participate in the program.

There are many more examples of successfully funded farm to school proposals within these awards. As you’re planning for 2015, consider exploring these federal programs to help sustain and expand your farm to school activities.

For more ideas on new funding streams, read our blog post on the USDA Value-Added Producer Grant Program and download our Funding Farm to School Fact Sheet.


USDA Farm to School Grants Propel Movement Forward

Tuesday, February 2, 2021

By Helen Dombalis, Policy and Strategic Partnerships Director

Today the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced the allocation of more than $5 million for farm to school programming and activities across the country. The USDA Farm to School Grant Program provides competitive grants and technical assistance to increase the use of and improve access to local foods in schools while fostering opportunities for experiential food education for our nation’s children. The Program is proving that farm to school is a win for kids, farmers and communities.

Congratulations to all of the grant awardees. From projects focused on procurement of local and traditional foods, like the Inter Tribal Buffalo Council in South Dakota; to crucial networking and training venues, like Kansas State Department of Education’s Child Nutrition and Wellness Team workshops; and funds to execute the comprehensive implementation plans developed during past grant cycles, like in Arkansas’ Lawrence County School District, these grants will help foster the development and growth of farm to school activities throughout the country.

The farm to school movement has grown tremendously since the National Farm to School Network and its partners advocated for the USDA Farm to School Grant Program to be funded in 2010 as part of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. Our collective efforts resulted in passage of this groundbreaking legislation for farm to school, providing, for the first-time, annual mandatory funding of $5 million.

Betti Wiggins, Executive Director of Food Services for Detroit Public Schools and National Farm to School Network Advisory Board Member, testifies in Congress in support of healthy school food.

As in the previous two years of the program, the demand for USDA Farm to School Grants continues to outweigh available funding by nearly five times. As we look ahead to next year’s reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, the National Farm to School Network will call on Congress to increase USDA Farm to School Grant funding to better meet the need and to expand the program’s scope to support preschool, summer and after school programs.

As the leading advocacy organization for the farm to school movement, the National Farm to School Network serves as an information, networking and advocacy hub for farm to school in the U.S. Your support enables us to work on the ground to facilitate farm to school activities and to advocate for policies in Washington, D.C., that encourage increased local procurement by schools, comprehensive farm and nutrition education for students, and market access for producers.

Today is Giving Tuesday, a global day dedicated to giving back. Join the farm to school movement with a donation today and help us build stronger communities, healthier children and resilient farms.

Donate Now!

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Note: National Farm to School Network is the recipient of a Fiscal Year 2015 USDA Farm to School Grant to host a national conference next year titled “Strengthening the Farm to School Supply Chain Across the Nation.” This event will be a key educational and networking opportunity for farm to school leaders and will serve to strengthen and expand farm to school initiatives in all geographic reaches of the U.S.


Community-wide Discovery

Tuesday, February 2, 2021

By Chelsey Simpson, Communications Manager


This young man takes his peas very seriously. Now his mom does, too.

Farm to school is all about discovery: Kids discover new fruits and vegetables, the magic hiding in tiny seeds and the wonderful things they can accomplish with their own two hands.

But kids aren’t the only ones learning new things. When children are introduced to new foods through farm to school practices, they bring those new experiences home, which can have a positive impact on the way families eat and the way communities relate to agriculture. Here are three stories about parents and teachers who made farm to school discoveries of their own.

Peas, please

This year we had garden camps for students K-12, which helped us make use of the school garden in the summer, when Alaska’s growing season is most intense. There were many lessons and activities around food and nutrition, how to garden, and cooking fresh produce, but my favorite part of the camp was discussing what kids eat with their parents. One mother was assuring me that her child never eats veggies, especially raw. At that moment her son was hiding in the pea patch, eating peas. When he came over, his pockets were stuffed with peas. She realized that not only will he eat fresh vegetables, he LOVES them, and they are as easy to offer for a snack as chips or candy.

– Danny Sparrell, Calypso Farm and Ecology Center in Ester, Alaska

A taste of home

I work in several schools in the Atlanta area teaching nutrition lessons and leading school garden maintenance. My first day in a particular second grade class, I brought in figs, thinking they would be something exciting that the kids had never seen before.

While they were working on an assignment, I quietly brought out the figs and sliced them in half so the kids could get the full effect, thinking I was about to hand them something that would blow their minds. One by one they came up and took a fig, then sat back down to eat it.

Many of the kids at that school are Hispanic, and a lot of them had spent time in Mexico. When I asked the class if they liked their figs and why, more than one said, “there are fruits like these in Mexico, but we don't call them 'fig.’” They had not had them at all since being in the U.S. They ate them quickly and asked for more!

So the fruit that I've heard American kids call “alien fruit” was a sweet taste of home for the students at this particular school.

– Sarah Dasher, FoodCorps member serving with Captain Planet Foundation in Atlanta, Georgia

Farmer or physics teacher?

One of the most vivid memories I have from my farm to school experience was when we went to Berggren Demonstration Farm in Springfield, Ore.

I watched as Farmer Angela passed around a basket of tomatoes and asked each student to take one. Then, she asked what was happening as the tomato was being broken down. She discussed the mechanics, how saliva powerfully dissolves food in our mouths. Next, she asked students to tell her what things are essential to our bodies, and she talked about vitamins and minerals. She even worked in a physics lesson, explaining that matter can never be created, nor destroyed.

On that trip, I realized that it wasn’t just the children who were excited by farm to school programs; farmers are excited, too!

– Karina Shea, intern for Willamette Farm and Food Coalition in Eugene, Oregon

Students who are involved with farm to school consume 0.99 - 1.3 more servings of fruits and vegetables throughout their day, both at school and at home. The fact that they bring their healthy habits home is one of the many reasons farm to school is a community health issue, not just an education issue. To learn more about the benefits of farm to school, download our benefits fact sheet.

These stories were shared with us during National Farm to School Month in October, a time to celebrate the efforts of school nutrition specialists, teachers, farmers, policymakers and concerned eaters like you who are building strong local economies and shaping the next generation of healthy eaters. Tomorrow is #GivingTuesday, a global day dedicated to giving back, and we ask you to join us with a donation to the National Farm to School Network to support the growth of programs across the country connecting kids and schools with local food and food education.

Donate Now