If they serve locally-sourced food at all, school districts are likely to serve it every day, say five economists who produced the first USDA study of the prevalence of local food in school meals. They said 19 percent of school districts serve at least one locally-sourced item daily, and because the districts tend to have large enrollments, 30 percent of all students have the option of local food.
Farm-to-school programs, which range from school gardens and food-related education to the purchase of locally produced food for use in the school cafeteria, are a relatively modern development on the federal level, beginning with trials in California and Connecticut in the 1990s. Some 5,254 school districts reported farm-to-school programs in 2015.
Forty percent of U.S. school districts participated in at least one farm-to-school activity in the 2011-12 school year, said the USDA economists. Most of them, or 35 percent of school districts, served local food occasionally or more frequently.
“More than half of districts that served local foods at all, 19 percent of all school districts, served local foods daily in at least one category,” said the report. “Because larger school districts were more likely to offer local food daily, school districts offering local food accounted for 30 percent of students.”
Milk was the most commonly served local food, followed by fruit. Schools in the Northeast had the highest participation rate, at 41 percent, while schools in the arid Southwest had an 8-percent rate. Overall, local foods were most prevalent in districts that had more than 5,000 students, were in urban areas or in areas where farmers markets are popular. Other indicators were higher-income areas, districts with many college graduates and state support of farm-to-school.
Conversely, rural districts, smaller-enrollment districts and districts in areas with less interest in farmers markets were less likely to serve local food.
“The example of the Northeast region, where growing season for fruits and vegetables is shorter due to the climate but local food use in school meals is high, illustrates the importance of factors other than the growing season,” the report concludes. While the study found some determining factors, there are factors in each region that are important. “Rural districts and districts with 5,000 students or less, especially those in the Southwest and Midwest, may benefit from additional technical assistance to increase participation in farm-to-school activities.”
The 2010 school-nutrition law established a Farm to School Program as part of USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service to provide grants and expert advice to farm-to-school programs that improve access to local food.
In 2007, a collaboration of 30 organizations launched the National Farm to School Network “seeking to shape the burgeoning farm to school movement.” Now a project of the Tides Center, the network describes itself as “an information, advocacy and networking hub working to bring local food sourcing and food and agriculture education and early care and education settings.” It says it has more than 15,000 members.
The homepage for the USDA Farm to School Program is available here.