Food for Thought: Farm-to-School Feeds Students, Communities By Chris Watkins, Director, Cornell Cooperative Extension
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n counties across New York, farm-to-school (F2S) programs are connecting K-12 students with much-needed healthy food. Through F2S, students have reliable access to fresh, locally-sourced fruits and vegetables and other farm products while district dollars go back into the pockets of local farmers and food producers. Collaborating with a wide array of stakeholders and programming partners, Cornell Cooperative Extension county associations and regional agriculture teams are on the front lines of these efforts. Our system has association offices located in every county, housing extension specialists and educators trained to provide research-based nutrition, family development, agriculture and economic development expertise and outreach to their communities. The mission of F2S – to connect communities and local agriculture - is a familiar one for CCE. It is firmly in our wheelhouse and has been stitched into our service fabric for many years. For CCE educators, today’s F2S efforts mean connecting school food services directors with farmers to procure local fruits, vegetables, dairy products and animal- and plant-based proteins along with training food service staff on food prep techniques. We also teach students and parents about the value of healthy eating and lead farm visits to show them where their food comes from. CCE educators directly interface with districts as well as state and local agencies to secure and maximize important federal and state funding - in particular, recent grants from New York State Agriculture & Markets (NYSDAM). State funding in support of F2S programming – which doubled in the Governor’s 2018-19 budget - has given our efforts new wings. A component of the “No Student Goes Hungry” initiative,
Counties involved with the New York State Agriculture & Markets-funded CCE Farm-toSchool partnerships: Seneca
Wayne
Steuben
Schoharie
Schuyler
Otsego
Chemung
Essex
Allegany
Tompkins
Erie CCE
Warren
Oneida
Saratoga
Niagara
Cortland
there is a key $.25-per-lunch-served incentive for schools that purchase at least 30 percent of their meal ingredients from New York farms or utilize products comprised of at least 51 percent New York-grown ingredients. Currently, there are 16 counties across the state involved in CCE-assisted F2S programs that utilize direct funding from NYSDAM. We also recently launched the “Farm to School New York” Program Work Team consisting of CCE educators, Cornell University faculty and external stakeholders who collaborate on F2S efforts across the state. While CCE also is involved in F2S projects utilizing a variety of other funding streams, here are a few highlights of CCE’s work in NYSDAM-funded counties across the state: • In western New York, CCE’s Harvest New York agricultural economic team is now in its sixth year collaborating on F2S measures with the Buffalo City School District (BCSD). An 11-school pilot program that began in 2015 has grown to now provide local foods and nutritional education programming in 86 buildings, where they serve 30,000 lunches and 24,000 breakfasts daily. • In addition to addressing food insecurity in Buffalo’s inner city by providing access to healthy food, western New York’s agricultural economy also gets a boost - one that continues to trend upward. Of the District’s $13M total food budget for Continued on Page 24 NYSAC News | www.nysac.org
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