Farm to School
A local lunch served as part of Portland Public Schools farm to school program featuring regionally sourced products on a reusable tray: Truitt Brothers chili, Don Poncho tortilla chips, Clackamas Bakery cornbread, Willamette Valley Fruit Company blueberries, pears from Walter Wells and Sons, and Pacific Coast Fruit Company fresh salsa and lettuce.
Can you imagine a school cafeteria where healthy, fit 4th graders come back for seconds of fresh carrots and tomatoes but leave the chips untouched? We can.
Ecotrust, in close collaboration with a diverse coalition of project partners, is working on a wide range of initiatives to promote "farm to school" programs, as they are termed, that increase the variety and availability of healthy, regionally sourced foods served at school, stabilize markets for regional food producers, and help give children a sense of where their food comes from. Our work focuses on projects at regional, state, and local levels that are upstream, innovative, and likely to have far-reaching and long-lasting impacts.
Regional Farm to School Work
Connecting Schools with Local Farms via FoodHub
FoodHub is a first of its kind, online marketplace designed to connect wholesale buyers and sellers of Pacific Northwest regionally grown food. While the tool is designed for food buyers of every type, including retail grocery stores, hospitals, restaurants, and others, it holds enormous potential to transform the pre-K and K-12 school food environment by removing barriers to the procurement of healthy, regionally-produced food for the school cafeteria.
In group and one-on-one settings, we teach school food service directors how to use FoodHub to streamline their work to source and procure more regional foods, including specific training to increase the incorporation of fruits and vegetables and help finding specific foods and farms nearby. We also work with farmers and other food producers who wish to partner with schools.
A comprehensive library of guidance and inspiration on farm to school programming is available on the FoodHub Knowledge Base (freely accessible to both members and non-members). Each resource includes clear and concise descriptions, download buttons or links, buttons to help easily share the resource via email, Facebook, or Twitter, and a rating system to let users provide feedback. The Knowledge Base also includes information for producers on how to work with schools.
To learn more about how FoodHub can help your school or district to source and serve regional foods contact , FoodHub School Food Services Coordinator.
Western Lead Agency for the National Farm to School Network
Ecotrust serves as the Western Regional Lead Agency for the National Farm to School Network. There are a total of eight Regional Lead Agencies across the country working to strengthen and expand existing farm to school programs, assist others that do not yet have programs, avoid duplication of efforts, learn from each others’ experiences, and document the movement in their regions.
As the Western Regional Lead Agency, Ecotrust serves farm to school advocates and practitioners in Alaska, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. We field inquiries from our region that range from very general questions about farm to school programming to specific requests for information on relevant policy, research, or resources, and develop informational pieces on an as-needed basis to respond to specific requests for assistance. We also provide networking opportunities and resource sharing through an online social network for farm to school and school garden professionals in the West, Good Grub and Gardens, and help to plan an Annual Farm to Cafeteria Conference that brings together hundreds of international leaders in the field. The next Farm to Cafeteria Conference will take place in June 2012 in Vermont. You can view and print a document summarizing our region here (236 kb pdf). To find out what’s happening in each state, and to find contact information for your State Lead, click on your state’s link on our Western Region page.
For more information on the National Farm to School Network, the Farm to Cafeteria Conference, as well as the latest national farm to school related media and many invaluable resources such as case studies, evaluation tools, and curricula, please visit www.farmtoschool.org. You can also register on the site to become a member of the Network and upload information about your program.
Farm to School in Oregon
Oregon is fortunate to have farm to school programs in both its Departments of Education and Agriculture, as well as an Oregon State Lead for the National Farm to School Network, based at the Willamette Farm & Food Coalition. Ecotrust’s Farm to School program works with all three to help nurture and expand farm to school and school garden programming in the state of Oregon. You can visit the Oregon Department of Education Child Nutrition Program’s Farm to School and School Garden Program webpage here. Make sure to check out their new Oregon Harvest for Schools Toolkit. Visit Willamette Farm & Food Coalition’s Farm to School Program page here.
Legislation
Farm to School Bill Passes!
The Oregon State Legislature just passed HB2800, the Farm to School and School Garden Bill! HB2800, a revised version of the Farm to School and School Garden bill that was introduced in 2009, was sponsored by long-time Oregon farm to school champions Reps. Brian Clem and Tina Kotek. It received unanimous bipartisan support from both the Oregon House and Senate. The 2011 version of HB 2800 appropriates $200,000 to the Oregon Department of Education to administer a competitive grants pilot program in two medium-sized Oregon school districts. The majority of the funds will reimburse these school districts an additional 15 cents per school lunch to buy Oregon foods, while 12.5% will support school garden teaching activities.
Rep. Clem said seeing the bill come to the House floor was one of the greatest moments in his legislative career.
As noted in this press release from the State, the work Ecotrust did in piloting a similar local lunch subsidy with Portland Public Schools and the Gervais School District during the 2008–2009 school year was instrumental in getting HB 2800 passed this legislative session. The Oregon legislature needed proof that an investment in school food would in fact provide significant economic benefit to the state. You can read that report, The Impact of 7 Cents, here.
Ecotrust would like to acknowledge and thank the Kaiser Permanente Community Fund at Northwest Health Foundation for funding the original pilot and research conducted by Ecotrust. With this support, we were able to establish an empirical base of evidence reflecting the efficacy of the proposed legislation, placing particular emphasis on evaluating the economic effects of increased procurement of local foods. Beyond economic effects, researchers at Ecotrust also explored the potential public health benefits of bringing more local products into the lunchroom.
A Health Impact Assessment (HIA) of HB2800 was also published in spring 2011, evaluating its potential effects on Oregonians’ health. The influential report, produced by Upstream Public Health, contains valuable information about the potential impacts of farm to school policy, including economic effects.
This research and the recent passage of HB2800 would not have been possible without assistance from additional funders and the tenacity of numerous community partners and engaged citizens across the state. We thank each and every one of you for your commitment to Oregon foods for Oregon schools. You can read more about the history of farm to school legislation in Oregon here (25kb pdf).
Along with its partners, Ecotrust will continue to advocate to expand this funding statewide to make it easier to bring Oregon school children the very best this region has to offer. The Oregon Farm to School Policy Workgroup meets the first Thursday of each month. Should you have any questions about this legislation,The Impact of 7 Cents report, or to participate in the Farm to School Policy Workgroup, please contact .
Statewide Leadership Network
Ecotrust is a founding member of the Oregon Farm to School and School Garden Network, a collective founded in 2007, comprised of more than 100 governmental, community-based, and for-profit organizations, and individuals working together with the following mission:
"We convene statewide leadership to promote the health and well-being of children, families, farms and the environment by increasing access to locally grown and processed food in schools and by supporting food and garden-based education in Oregon."
Participating organizations and individuals have identified an interest in farm to school and food- and garden-based education programs for reasons that include:
- Promoting children’s health and academic achievement;
- Combating obesity, hunger, and global climate change;
- Supporting Oregon farmers and food processors; and
- Enhancing economic development and community food security.
The Network believes that while these benefits might be achieved through other tactics, farm to school programs have the extraordinary ability to simultaneously address interrelated issues of health, economic development, education, and the environment. For this reason, agricultural interests, community food security advocates, educators, environmentalists, and the public health community all find fertile common ground.
If you would like to learn more about the Statewide Network, please contact .
Farm to Childcare
Following a Farm to Head Start pilot program that we conducted in 2008–09 with the Oregon Child Development Coalition (OCDC), Ecotrust has recently begun work via the National Farm to School Network co-leading a farm to preschool planning initiative at the national level, as well as statewide here in Oregon. We also work to grow farm to school programs at childcare centers in our region via the online tool FoodHub, facilitate networking by professionals who are involved in or wish to become involved in this work, and consult with childcare providers about how to incorporate farm to school concepts into their programs.
If you would like to learn more about Farm to Preschool, you can start by checking out these presentations and documents created by Ecotrust:
- Farm to Head Start in Oregon (a description of our 2008–09 pilot program with OCDC)
- Farm to Preschool 101 (ppt presentation that includes an introduction and information on procurement, farm field trips, and establishing gardens)
- Farm to Preschool Curriculum (ppt presentation)
- Farm to School Tips for Family Childcare Providers in Portland (pdf brochure)
To learn more about national or statewide farm to preschool efforts contact .
Local Farm to School Work
Portland Public Schools and Beaverton School District
Did you know that over 30% of Portland Public Schools’ (PPS) purchases now benefit local farms and food producers? And did you know that Beaverton School District has been busy developing new relationships with local farmers? Both districts are also recognized as leaders in farm to school programming as partners in School Food FOCUS, a national initiative that helps large urban school districts procure more healthful, more sustainably produced and regionally sourced food, so that children may perform better in school and be healthier in life. Ecotrust is proud to assist Portland Public Schools (PPS) and Beaverton School District as a community partner in their efforts to serve as much regionally grown and processed food in school cafeterias as possible. Here is a great article from FOCUS about PPS’ move to serving 100% locally sourced whole grain bread products at all 85 of its schools.
For the last six years, PPS has focused on increasing its purchases of fresh fruits and vegetables from local farmers as well as preserved, canned, and frozen foods produced in the Northwest, to benefit its students and support the community. Read more about their farm to school programming here. Passionate teachers, parents, and community agencies like Growing Gardens and groups like the Portland Farm and Garden Educators Network have helped create and maintain school/community gardens to give students hands-on exploration and learning experiences. (For more information, contact .) You can read about PPS’ school garden efforts here.
Beaverton School District supports a thriving organic community farm at one of its high schools, and also helps reduce hunger and waste in our region by donating food to Metro’s Fork It Over program. You can check out a fun video about Beaverton School District’s experiences using Ecotrust’s online marketplace FoodHub here.
Multnomah County Communities Putting Prevention to Work
In the past year, we have also partnered with six school districts in Multnomah County as part of a Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW) mini grant. We have worked with Multnomah County’s Healthy Active Schools program and a number of district partners to increase procurement and promotion of healthy, regionally grown foods in the county’s K-12 public school cafeterias.