Both the food itself and the experiential education surrounding it are equally essential to the success of farm to school programs in changing eating habits for the better. When schools tout the benefit of eating produce but don’t offer it in their meals, students are being taught one thing but shown another. Schools need to give students a consistent message, reinforced through hands-on experiences, such as growing food in a school garden, visiting a farmers market, tasting new products, and developing cooking skills that will serve them their whole lives. These linkages give students vivid and lasting impressions of the delights of growing and eating fresh-picked produce, and help them understand where food comes from and how it is grown – knowledge that’s been shown to drive better dietary choices.”
The challenges involved in moving schools towards locally produced healthy foods are many and varied. Many districts have restrictive procurement rules, such as one in Chicago that prevented children from eating vegetables they’d grown in their school garden; only food from contracted food distributors was permitted. Seasonality is an issue in states like Illinois, unlike, say, California and Florida. Some school administrators and food service directors are enthusiastic, others dismissive or even downright hostile.
But none of the organizations, individuals, or government officials committed to moving school meals towards including local healthy food is advocating some sort of overarching, big-government mandate that would foist drastic unworkable changes on schools. Rather, they’re reaching out to increase public and school awareness of the advantages, and offering assistance and facilitation to interested parents and schools.
As Julia Govis, state leader of Illinois’ Farm to School Network, says:
“Farm to school programs should and need to be specifically implemented by members within individual communities. The National Farm to School Network does not ‘prescribe a method’ or dictate from top down what individual farm to school programs should look like. We are here to provide as many resources, tools/trainings and assistance to as many people as possible, so that Illinois communities can implement programs that will best suit their local needs. That being said, it is important to acknowledge that none of us can achieve complete success working alone. It will take both teamwork as well as individual efforts to increase the number of successful farm to school programs throughout Illinois.”
Contact Julianne Glatz at [email protected].
